Commentary: Learner-based listening and technological authenticity

You dropped a hundred and fifty grand on an education you could’ve picked up for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library. Good Will Hunting, 1997Language teachers know that even the best technology cannot provide the high degree of interaction required to acquire meaningful proficiency in a foreign language. Even the most polished packages available today (and likely to be available for several years to come) cannot evaluate learner input and provide subtle shades of context-based feedback, except in the narrowest of circumstances. Technology’s dull blade is even more apparent the moment interactive orality is required. A simple phone call to a voice-automated service center reminds us to what extent mass-market speech recognition is crude and speaker-finicky, even in English. The speakers of less common languages may have to wait years before work begins on speech recognition for speakers of their languages.Off-the-shelf technology is not ready for interactive oral-aural instruction, but it has reached a level of sophistication that makes it ideal for use by the strategically independent learner to acquire and improve receptive skills in an authentic environment, if we update our definition of authenticity to include the technologically-enabled possibilities supporting a text or script1: the availability of combined texts and scripts, user-control over script delivery both in terms of speed and chunking, user-created glossing aides, captioning, etc. This technological overlay, available not just to language learners but to all users, is "authenticizing" practices that were once considered inauthentic. No longer are such devices part of the specialized landscape of the L2 learner; instead they make up the everyday L1 machine-mediated world of listening. That has implications for the demands learners make of themselves and the tasks that they choose. It also leads us to reexamine the value of pre-packaged listening comprehension materials in which L2 listeners are guided in listening strategies but are not encouraged to make use of technological innovations that native listeners are coming to use on a regular basis.A brief survey of the available user-directed modifications to online scripts leads one to the idea that in the immediate future — the next five to ten years — the frontier in language learning and technology will not be found in what program does what better, but rather which students use off-the-shelf technology to best facilitate their own learning in their own learning style. Just as we began to teach metacognitive acquisition strategies, such as the use of background knowledge and prediction in the 1980s (see Nunan, 1999; Omaggio-Hadley, 2001; and Ur, 1984) for summaries of research and practice then and now), we should now teach meta-technical skills to language learners, rather than setting them out on a closed loop. Others have come to the same conclusion that technological literacy is an essential component of the language acquisition strategic toolbox (Godwin-Jones, 2000; Hubbard, 2004; LeLoup & Ponterio, 2000; Richards, 2000;). Effective users of raw electronic resources, such as easily repeatable video clips, captions, and even translation bots will bring a wider variety of input at the proper level for a broader range of learning styles than could possibly be made available in any pre-packaged closed-track program.In listening comprehension, attention over the last twenty-five years has turned from adapted scripts to authentic audio and video in which we scaffold "real media" with remediated tasks (pre- and post-script activities) instead of changing the media itself. Yet despite the scaffolding, authentic materials, particularly where they involve a non-interactive flow of speech such as radio, TV, and movies, remain a challenge, especially in the beginning stages of language learning. The audio is too fast. Or acoustically difficult. Or too heavily culturally referenced. Or has too much slang. Take the scaffolding away, and the learner’s activity falls apart.As a result, materials designers continued to concentrate on wrapping the materials in better wrappers, e.g., by adjusting the task and occasionally modifying the script (we call it semi-authentic) rather than teaching learners to use the technology to mediate the script. Such sites abound on the web. Many, such as SCOLA, rely on authentic video and audio with wraparound exercises and transcripts. Others such as Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab or the NCLRC’s Simplified Russian Radio Site (created by the author of this article) resort to semi-authentic audio.On the other hand, commonly available technological fixes can be called upon for greater degrees of remediation. At one time, such modifications were considered distinct from "authentic" (Chapelle, 1998), but today they all part of the world of the native listener that involves neither scaffolding nor semi-authenticity. Here are some of the more prominent devices

Second language learning in the context of MOOCs

Massive Open Online Courses are becoming popular educational vehicles through which universities reach out to non-traditional audiences. Many enrolees hail from other countries and cultures, and struggle to cope with the English language in which these courses are invariably offered. Moreover, most such learners have a strong desire and motivation to extend their knowledge of academic English, particularly in the specific area addressed by the course. Online courses provide a compelling opportunity for domain-specific language learning. They supply a large corpus of interesting linguistic material relevant to a particular area, including supplementary images (slides), audio and video. We contend that this corpus can be automatically analysed, enriched, and transformed into a resource that learners can browse and query in order to extend their ability to understand the language used, and help them express themselves more fluently and eloquently in that domain. To illustrate this idea, an existing online corpus-based language learning tool (FLAX) is applied to a Coursera MOOC entitled Virology 1: How Viruses Work, offered by Columbia University

A systematic review of technology-enhanced L2 listening development since 2000

Since 2000, technology-enhanced L2 listening development (TELD) has been increasingly investigated. However, systematic reviews concerning the technologies, learning tasks, and outcomes of TELD remain limited. To fill this gap, we conducted a systematic review of publications from 2000 to 2022 on TELD from the perspectives of technologies, learning tasks, and learning outcomes. Forty-six articles from Web of Science were screened by predefined criteria and analysed based on a step-by-step procedure using the PRISMA framework. The findings revealed 13 types of technology and 19 learning tasks useful for TELD. TELD was effective both in terms of building listening skills and enhancing learner emotions. The studies showed that TELD supported learner interactions, encouraged active engagement, and augmented various learning tasks. Based on the findings, we developed a TELD model consisting of two parts: “Within cognitive systems,” in which learners deal with cognitive schemata, listening strategy application, and listening practice via solid attention; “outside of cognitive systems,” in which TELD can construct and reconstruct cognitive schemata, support listening practices, encourage and guide listening strategy application, and improve learner emotions and attention by providing learning materials and activities based on listening-related knowledge, listening exercises with feedback, prompts and feedback on listening strategy application, and a sense of enjoyment and comfort

Towards Universally Designed Communication: Opportunities and Challenges in the Use of Automatic Speech Recognition Systems to Support Access, Understanding and Use of Information in Communicative Settings

Unlike physical barriers, communication barriers do not have an easy solution: people speak or sign in different languages and may have wide-ranging proficiency levels in the languages they understand and produce. Universal Design (UD) principles in the domain of language and communication have guided the production of multimodal (audio, visual, written) information. For example, UD guidelines encourage websites to provide information in alternative formats (for example, a video with captions; a sign language version). The same UD for Learning principles apply in the classroom, and instructors are encouraged to prepare content to be presented multimodally, making use of increasingly available technology. In this chapter, I will address some of the opportunities and challenges offered by automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems. These systems have many strengths, and the most evident is the time they employ to convert speech sounds into a written form, faster than the time human transcribers need to perform the same process. These systems also present weaknesses, for example, a higher rate of errors when compared to human-generated transcriptions. It is essential to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of technology when choosing which device(s) to use in a universally designed environment to enhance access to information and communication. It is equally imperative to understand which tools are most appropriate for diverse populations. Therefore, researchers should continue investigating how people process information in a multimodal format, and how technology can be improved based on this knowledge and users’ needs and feedback

FLAX: Flexible and open corpus-based language collections development

In this case study we present innovative work in building open corpus-based language collections by focusing on a description of the opensource multilingual Flexible Language Acquisition (FLAX) language project, which is an ongoing example of open materials development practices for language teaching and learning. We present language-learning contexts from across formal and informal language learning in English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Our experience relates to Open Educational Resource (OER) options and Practices (OEP) which are available for developing and distributing online subject-specific language materials for uses in academic and professional settings. We are particularly concerned with closing the gap in language teacher training where competencies in materials development are still dominated by print-based proprietary course book publications. We are also concerned with the growing gap in language teaching practitioner competencies for understanding important issues of copyright and licencing that are changing rapidly in the context of digital and web literacy developments. These key issues are being largely ignored in the informal language teaching practitioner discussions and in the formal research into teaching and materials development practices

Lexical profiles of comprehensible second language speech: the role of appropriateness, fluency, variation, sophistication, abstractness and sense relations

This study examined contributions of lexical factors to native-speaking raters’ assessments of comprehensibility (ease of understanding) of second language (L2) speech. Extemporaneous oral narratives elicited from 40 French speakers of L2 English were transcribed and evaluated for comprehensibility by 10 raters. Subsequently, the samples were analyzed for 12 lexical variables targeting diverse domains of lexical usage (appropriateness, fluency, variation, sophistication, abstractness, and sense relations). For beginner-to-intermediate speakers, comprehensibility was related to basic uses of L2 vocabulary (fluent and accurate use of concrete words). For intermediate-to-advanced speakers, comprehensibility was linked to sophisticated uses of L2 lexis (morphologically accurate use of complex, less familiar, polysemous words). These findings, which highlight complex associations between lexical variables and L2 comprehensibility, suggest that improving comprehensibility requires attention to multiple lexical domains of L2 performance

Re-examining Phonological and Lexical Correlates of Second Language Comprehensibility:The Role of Rater Experience

Few researchers and teachers would disagree that some linguistic aspects of second language (L2) speech are more crucial than others for successful communication. Underlying this idea is the assumption that communicative success can be broadly defined in terms of speakers’ ability to convey the intended meaning to the interlocutor, which is frequently captured through a listener-based rating of comprehensibility or ease of understanding (e.g. Derwing & Munro, 2009; Levis, 2005). Previous research has shown that communicative success – for example, as defined through comprehensible L2 speech – depends on several linguistic dimensions of L2 output, including its segmental and suprasegmental pronunciation, fluency-based characteristics, lexical and grammatical content, as well as discourse structure (e.g. Field, 2005; Hahn, 2004; Kang et al., 2010; Trofimovich & Isaacs, 2012). Our chief objective in the current study was to explore the L2 comprehensibility construct from a language assessment perspective (e.g. Isaacs & Thomson, 2013), by targeting rater experience as a possible source of variance influencing the degree to which raters use various characteristics of speech in judging L2 comprehensibility. In keeping with this objective, we asked the following question: What is the extent to which linguistic aspects of L2 speech contributing to comprehensibility ratings depend on raters’ experience

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed