Listeners interaction pdf digital magazine

Listeners Interaction with Help Option in Call

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TECHNOLOGY IN LANGUAGE TEACHING

Leonardo Diaz Pascuas

Sergio García Trejos

The aim of the study is to examine listeners’ interaction with help options.

5 themes were defined and discussed: relevance, challenge, familiarity, recovery, and compatibility.

Reasons that explain the non-use of help options:

1. The users inability to locate resources of help.

2. The users reluctance to momentarily abandon a task and

look for assistance.

3. The users resistance to click on something called help.

4. The users tendency to think that solution can be found

without relying on assistance.


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Research Question:

What factors prompt or inhibit listeners to use help options in a computer-based second language listening activity?

Research Approach:

Help options was investigated through qualitative techniques that include verbal reports, direct observation, and semi-structured interviews.

Participants:

There were 2 studies:

üStudy 1: 4 Colombian enrolled in an upper-intermediate SLA.

üStudy 2: 11 Colombian students enrolled in university English courses.

All participants had limited knowledge in computer-based listening.


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Data collection

The first session was delivered to familiarize participants with help options and determine their level of proficiency. Each participant completed a questionnaire and they were taught how to access help options, how to use them and how to locate them.

When no proficiency, they randomly selected the initial listening with no time limit. Then participants were asked about use or non-use of help options. Second and third sessions, participants with the LEI listening software and they recorded with Camtasia.

On average participants worked for 50 minutes and they also were interviewed to further probe help option use.


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Data analysis. 45 % (32 recordings) of the recordings were picked up (72 recordings) for full analysis. Interviews were chosen based on the quality of verbal report protocols. They (researchers) followed criteria based on a Kasper work:

1. The recording was clear. 2. The verbal report remained focused on the task. 3. The participant was articulate.

Data produced by the participants were translated in study 1. In study 2 each verbal report was annotated and then they translated and back-translated one report per proficiency level. Articulate individual participants interviews were also translated. With some procedures it was found out that a .95 of agreement in the coding to define and substantiate five themes:

1. Relevance

2. Challenge

3. Familiarity

4. Recovery

5. Compatibility


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Relevance

Perceived value that a learner assigns to a help option for potential assistance in four main areas: text comprehension, task completion, language learning and real-life language use.

• Text comprehension: Whether and how the use of help

options facilitates the understanding of aural input.

• Task completion: The degree of perceived relevance of help option use for completing comprehension activities.

• Language learning: The notion that the use of help options is conducive to improving other language skills or subskills.

• Real life language use: The way listeners see that help options usage may relate to real-life communication contexts.


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Familiarity The influence of the degree of previous contact with help option use in other language settings. • Experience: Prior experience or lack thereof to use help

options in other language settings.

• Software design: A listener’s lack of familiarity with the interface design elements.

Challenge Participants’ belief that learning a language requires hard work and conscious effort. • Self – initiative: The use/non-use of help options to

increase the perceived difficulty of an aural text.

• Self-reliance: The participant’s reluctance to admit lack of understanding of an aural text


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Recovery The listeners’ use of help options in response to a perceived comprehension failure.

• Self – aware limitation factor: Conscious perception on behalf of the learner that helps option use may compensate for self-perceived difficulties of aural input comprehension.

• Technical issues: A learner’s use/non-use of help options to compensate for technical difficulties while interacting with aural texts.

• Working memory limitations: Notion that help options usage compensates for deficiencies in short-term memory span.

• Confirmation: The use of help options to compensate for the lack of confidence in an aspect of language learning.

Compatibility Degree of ease of interaction between help options and listening exercises. • Distraction: A shift in attention from the aural input to

other features of the software as a result of help option use.

• Mismatch: The acknowledgment that the ephemeral and fast-paced nature of aural input constrains simultaneous interaction with help options.


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Conclusion

After the study four conclusions come to light:

1. Listeners used help options as language support devices that assisted text comprehension, tasks completion and learning diverse features of the language such as vocabulary, syntax, pronunciation and culture.

2. Listeners used help elements as recovery tools that allowed them both to solve technical difficulties, and to compensate for short-term memory capacity issues.

3. Listeners used help options as verification

tools that allow them to self-assess their level of comprehension, to test their knowledge of word meanings, and to assess their interpretations of implicit cultural behaviors.

4. Listeners used help options to imitate face-to-face communication strategies and to transfer behaviors from previous language learning experiences and leisure activities to the computer-based L2 listening environment.


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Pedagogical implications

• To address shortcomings in help option design

and usage, language learners need to be trained to make informed choices when they consider accessing the program resources.

• Second language acquisition research, particularly studies concerning interactionist hypotheses (Long, 1996), must remain as the core theoretical frame.

• Listeners exhibited such differing behaviors in this baseline study that we could not establish individual patterns of help options use/non-use.

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Listeners interaction pdf digital magazine