Problems and possibilities of information technology in the initial teacher training of teachers of english and modern languages

Problems and Possibilities of Information Technology in the Initial Teacher Training of Teachers of English and Modern Languages Graham Howells Universidade de Brasilia The personal computer has become widely used in schools as an integral parí of the writing process for many learners of English, although not so much in the teaching of other languages. The writer feels that trainee teachers across the whole spectrum of school languages need to be shown how to maximise the potential of this equipment as part of their initial training. This article describes an attempt to involve the computer as an aid in the language learning process as well as an instrument for the production of written work. The processes described shows how facilities available to modern personal computers may be applied to language teaching. Special emphasis is placed upon the use of the word processor to compile a classified item bank of the learner's own linguistic problem áreas and the use of this item bank as a means of error avoidance as well as error analysis. The writer feels that the process described here, which he has used in practice, motivates learners by making them feel involved in their own progress. Reference is also made to the possibilities of using commercial concordancing packages in teaching both English and modern languages. 1. The Present Situation The government's reform of initial teacher training means that trainee teachers spend a greater proportion of their time in schools compared to time in their college/university base. The result is that provisión of many elements of training experience has a greater variety of quantity and quality, depending on the nature of teaching practice schools. The variables which add to the differentiation of I.T. expertise among trainee teachers of English and modern languages are: • school's ability to provide training and facilities, • base institution's ability to provide training and facilities, • Ímpetus provided by school-based mentors and college-based tutors, • student's motivation to acquire I.T. skills, • perceptions of instructors and students of potential for I.T. in the subject área. If the points indicated above represent the actual or potential difficulties in providing I.T. training, the following developments have provided teachers in these subjects with interesting opportunities: Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N°' 5 y 6 (1998-1999) 259 Graham Howells • the increased sophistication of word processing programmes, • increased access to the Internet and links such as Campus 2000. In this article I would like to look at the potential for improvement in the teaching effectiveness of initial teacher training by the use of simple techniques within readily available resources offered by the modera computer. 2. Access to Word Processors As learners make more use of word processors it is increasingly important for teachers to understand how these facilities opérate, and to be able to teach pupils to get the most of them as aids to language learning, not simply as writing instruments. The increased refinement of facilities provided within modern word processing packages offer very useful applications in teaching writing skills to learners of English and modern languages. This article will use Microsoft Word as a point of reference, but users of WordPerfect or other word processors will probably be able to lócate equivalent facilities in their programmes. The literature on using word processors in improving learners' writing skills usually concentrates on usage in two stages of writing: the pre-production (drafting) phase and the production (writing) phase. In work with non-native speakers of English I have taken the word processor into a third phase, of individual error analysis and the logging of linguistic "problem áreas". Before looking at that however, let us first look at techniques in pre-production and production that trainees might use to advantage in class. 3. Pre-Production Phase Planning a Piece of Extended Writing Many learners need to be taught the skill of planning an extended piece of writing and one problem frequently found is that, even when a plan has been made, writers often deviate from it. The 260 Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N"' 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999) Problems and Possibilities of Information Technology in the Initial Teacher Training of View facility in Word offers a useful method of referring to one's plan and arranging the headings (in order of priority) in Outline View. One can switch to Outline from Normal View as the work is being written. The advantage of this facility is that, when a paragraph or section has been written, if the writer moves the heading to another part of the essay in Outline View, the text associated with that heading will also be moved. An alternative method is for writers to copy their plan into a segment of a vertically or horizontally split screen, so that they can keep an overview of their work in sight as they write the main body of text. The Production Phase Appearance of Work The most important advantage for the learner is that the written product appears intelligible — the handwriting problem is avoided. To the objection that there is a danger of handwriting suffering if the word processor is used, the response is that handwriting is a sepárate skill which should be taught in addition to keyboard skills. Typing Tutors It is important that trainee teachers know how to use the keyboard to the best advantage and for this reason either the school or the training institution should make available to student teachers one of the typing tutor packages that are available, and ensure that they are used. Error Avoidance We are used to the idea of error correction after a piece of work has been written, but it is useful to encourage learners to use the techniques of linguistic self-analysis before or while they write. A system of "language data-banking", as described below, provides the writer with a personalised reference system related to the frequency of problems s/he has experienced with particular items of vocabulary or grammar. Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N"'' 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999) 261 Graham Howells Where a learner has had difficulty in formulating expressions in previous pieces of writing, the original problem phrase (error) and a more suitable form (correction) may be collected in a reference file which can be made available as new work is written. The student may then either switch windows to access the reference file when it is needed, or may copy a selection of anticipated phrases to the top of the new essay, so that they may be used as necessary. Post-Production Phase The Spelling Checker and Grammar Checker Modern word processing programmes contain facilities to check spelling and grammar and the question is sometimes asked: do these automatic checkers make learners lazy if they can simply ask the programme to do corrections for them? In the case of the spelling checker, the fact of the word processor drawing attention to a spelling error or a mis-typed word and the fact that the writer has then to select a correct word may actually be a help in learning to spell acceptably. If, however, the teacher feels that there is a temptation to laziness he or she can always ask the learner to keep a note of spelling corrections the checker has indicated. As for grammar checkers, they may be a help for adult writers who have some awareness of what kind of language they wish to use. However, at this stage in their development grammar checkers are simply too primitive to be useful in the classroom and can actually be confusing. Word processors with a word count facility are useful in making learners keep their writing to a limit specified by the teacher, rather than ramble in an undisciplined way. Autotext A more useful function of the word processor with regard to checking rules and frequent errors is the use of what is called in earlier Microsoft Word versions the Glossary, and in later ones Autotext. If we take as an example a learner with difficulties in, for 262 Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N"* 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999) Problems and Possibilities of Information Technology in the Initial Teacher Training of example, the French present perfect, s/he can créate a document with the basic rules for using this tense, and collect examples taken from: corrections in previous essays, dictionaries or grammar books, examples taken from a concordancing programme (see below), and store them as an Autotext entry. If, while writing, the learner needs to refer to Information on the structure, simply typing a code word (e.g. "avoir") and (in Word) pressing the F3 key will produce the stored examples. In the case described above the reference will occur within the body of work being written, from which it will have to be deleted after use. An alternative method is to open another document window, and recall the reference there, together with any further information that is retrieved. Correction Banking The word processor helps students with their errors in two ways: • errors identified by the learner in the process of writing can be rectified without crossing out or erasure; • teacher correction can be used as a teaching aid and a tool for error analysis. I have suggested elsewhere (Howells, 1982) that effective language teaching attempts to bring these two elements together so that the learner begins to recognise those patterns of language that s/ he knows to be a problem área and is thus able to turn teacher correction into self-correction. This has traditionally involved collecting instances of errors and analysing them quantitatively to identify where learners' problems lie. For the student, however, numbers on their own are not particularly useful in learning to eradicate errors — what is also needed is a corpus of examples in which a relevant usage may be easily located. The system that Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N°' 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999) 263 Graham Howells worked well with students who wrote their work on word processors was the foUowing: (i) first draft of original text written, spell-checked, saved to disc and printed in draft on the reverse side of once-used paper (ii) teacher indicates, without correcting, erroneous phrases (iii)student returns to original file, attempts to correct errors, saves new document and prints a fair copy (iv)final draft of text is corrected by teacher and first and second correction processes discussed with student (v) student returns to original file on the word processor and carries out the following actions: • creates a two-column table at the foot of the document, one headed Error, the other Correction; • selects erroneous phrase together with as many of the surrounding words as give a meaningful context; • types at the beginning of the selection a code (i.e. v/ for verb errors, pre/ for prepositions, voc/ for vocabulary etc.); • copies the selection to both cells in the columns at the foot of the document; • changes the phrase in the Correction column to an acceptable versión; • performs a Sort on the columns which, by means of the codes, brings all the errors together according to their grammatical classification (after sorting, the codes may be deleted by using the Replace command - e.g. "Replace v/ with " leaving the "with" box blank); • with Cut and Paste, the two columns are transferred to a master file of errors compiled from other pieces of writing and by using Sort again, the groups of errors are inserted into the general classifications of Verbs, Prepositions, Spelling, Vocabulary etc. The advantage of this system is that the learner composes a Corpus of his/her own errors and can see not only where the 264 Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N"'' 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999) Problems and Possibilities of Information Technology in the Initial Teacher Training of majority of them are occurring, but also in what contexts, without the tedium of having to copy out phrases and corrections by hand. New errors can be included within grammatical classifications, and quickly Usted in alphabetical order for easy reference. A further refinement to the method is for the learners to créate a new master error file every term in order to be able to observe changes in their error profile. The consequences of this system in terms of remedia! work on an individual or group basis, are clear. The teacher can see where to direct future teaching and the learners know what áreas they have difficulties in. Errors in spoken language can also be collected either 'live' as group or paired discussions happen, or from audio and video tapes of simulations and debates. Transcripts are analysed in exactly the same way as written work. Vocabularv Acquisition Language teaching practice today is opposed to the learning of lists of vocabulary items, and certainly the parroting of lists of words isolated from their contexts is not helpful in acquiring an active vocabulary. The learner has two needs in relation to vocabulary acquisition, a productiva need and a receptive one: • to be able to find the most appropriate word or phrase to express a meaning, (productive) • to be able to relate received utterances to the stock of vocabulary s/he has already acquired (receptive). When a gap occurs in either process, that is, when the learner cannot find a word to express a meaning, or when a new word appears and ignorance of its meaning prevents understanding of a whole phrase, the learner must have a means of registering that word in its appropriate contexts, for future use. Language learners need an effective way of building up such a mental datábase, and in order to memorise new items most students must make a written Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N™ 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999) 265 Graham Howells record. The problem with a cumulative record is that it is random, with lexical ítems added as they occur after being found in the dictionary for use in written work, or from a book that is being read at the time. Retrieval of a particular word or phrase is therefore difficult when a large collection of vocabulary has been recorded. The advantage the word processor offers is that new items can be collected and put into alphabetical order with the Sort facility, for easy retrieval. In other words, just as the learner can créate an individualised error list, so a personalised mini-dictionary can be compiled containing only the words the individual needs. In the present writer's attempts to acquire some rudiments of Japanese the following method was used: • a five-column grid was created • Japanese vocabulary (with context and notes where appropriate — the absolute beginner level involved here meant that single words were usually sufficient) was entered in the first column in Román script, English equivalents in the second • first column was sorted into alphabetical order • file saved as Japeng.doc • file copied into another document, sorted by the second column and saved as Engjap.doc • files could then be printed with English or the Japanese columns deleted for the purpose of self-testing. Concordancing An interesting development in language work is that of smallscale concordancig programmes. Oxford University Press and Longman both publish such programmes, which are available with English language corpora. The programmes offer the facility of producing a screen filled with lists of examples of the use of a certain word chosen by the operator. So if we are teaching "should" and "ought" we can enter both words at once into our search and receive a list of examples printed in the following format: 266 Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos N°" 5 y 6 (1998 y 1999)