Language Learning Online
(Continued from Page One)

Reviewed by Lauren Goldenberg
School of Education
New York University

Section 2, "Case Studies: Changing Writing Behavior," concentrates on how the use of this technology can change writing behaviors. First, Nancy Sullivan describes how her native English speaking students in a pre-university preparation course used the Interchange module and, according to her, improved upon the quantity of their writing as well as their thinking skills. This speech community is closest to the audience for whom DIWE was originally designed. She writes,

"Through the use of the electronic medium, the students in this class were thus able to become increasingly sensitive to the written medium of communication as it related to their personal needs and wants. They developed strong written discourse strategies through interacting, collaborating, and negotiating meaning electronically." (p. 53)

Next, in one of the book’s stronger articles, "Using Computer-Assisted Class Discussion to Facilitate the Acquisition of Interactive Competence," Dorothy Chun describes the development of the writing skills of her first-year German language students. She provides a summary of the number and length of turns by each student and then analyzes students’ abilities to demonstrate the ability to perform a number of functions taken from the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Chun concludes that the use of this form of computer-assisted classroom discussion (CACD) "provides excellent opportunities for foreign language learners to develop the discourse skills and interactive competence advocated by the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and amended by Kramsch (1986)" (p. 70). This study also showed that students interacted with one another in the CACD, rather than interacting mainly with the teacher. This is the kind of research practitioners need. The section’s final essay, by Phillip Markey, looks at the empowerment of Asian students and women in the ESL CACD activity, focusing solely on the quantity of the output and not the content of the communication.

The two studies in Section 3 seek to measure the impact of student and instructor attitudes toward this form of CACD on language learning. Margaret Healy Beauvois administered pre- and post-study questionnaires to her students, which she followed up with interviews. The results of the intermediate French language students’ self-reporting correspond with Chun’s analyses; CACD provides advantages for improving discourse management and other language functions, and for quantity and quality of reading and writing skills. This chapter, along with Chun’s, is the strongest in the volume. In the section’s other article, Christophe Jaeglin reports on his attempts to establish student evaluation of the use of CACD across the second/foreign language curriculum at the university, and to identify the areas where student evaluation was similar or dissimilar to that of the instructors. Students reported being positive about the CACD sessions but whether these perceived benefits translate into actual second language acquisition benefits remains to be seen. One of the more interesting comments is that the findings "suggest that teachers, not students, may be the public to be targeted for assistance in using the computer" (p. 132) since instructors expressed a reluctance to use more computer sessions and concerns about integrating computers into the curriculum.

One of the essays mentions "e-talk;" this volume does focus on "electronic talk" but only of the synchronous kind. Therefore, the first article in the book’s final section is a bit of an anomaly. Orlando Kelm describes his experience in one e-mail key-pal project for a Portugese class. This is the sole article that focuses on asynchronous communication. Practitioners who are interested in using e-mail for language learning, particularly for less-commonly taught languages, may want to read this case study. Kelm raises an important research question. He suggests that "non-technocentric" research, that is not a comparison of computer use versus non-use, is needed. This "would allow us to focus, for example, on which L2 skill(s) students acquire while implementing e-mail, which level a proficiency a student should have is s/he is to benefit most from the experience, or how involved teachers should be in e-mail exchanges" (p. 151).

Language Learning Online makes an important contribution to the literature on Computer Assisted Language Learning by providing some evidence on the effects of computer-assisted classroom (CACD) discussion. These instructors took their enthusiasm for CACD and documented several interesting aspects of its use in the second/foreign language classroom. Any educator interested in CACD, and in using research to inform practice, should read this book or selected articles. But if your library does not own a copy, don’t shell out the $29 cover price. Download the articles that interest you in Adobe PDF format at http://labyrinth.daedalus.com/LLO.