Born and raised near Seattle, Washington, I earned my BA at Washington State
University, double majoring in Theater and Communications. After graduating,
I took a year off to live and teach in Japan. The trip led to an interest in
language teaching. This interest sent me back to America, to complete a
Master's Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language at St. Michael's
College in Vermont.
After graduating, I came back to Japan to work as an Assistant Professor at Kanazawa Technical College. While there, I became interested in computer-assisted language learning and began teaching courses in computer-related English and multimedia computing. While in Kanazawa, I heard about the University of Aizu and its unique program of English for Specific Purposes, revolving around computer science. When I learned that there was a job opening, I applied, was hired, and soon after, I came to Aizu to work in the Center for Language Research.
In reading classes at the University of Aizu, we focus extensively on vocabulary, especially technical orbiter words and phrases. These are the words that surround the ``real" technical terminology. For example, in the sentence ``Strings are a sequence of characters followed by the null-character," students are likely to have trouble with the orbiter terms ``sequence" and ``followed by." A large part of reading class involves simple memorization of the definitions of such words as they appear in weekly readings.
Initially, students studied the new vocabulary by completing paper-based exercises. These activities had two problems. First, they took up in-class time that could have been used for reading skill development. Second, the assignments were usually not graded and returned until after the students had already taken a quiz on the vocabulary they covered.
To address these issues, I developed a series of web-based vocabulary activities. These activities are proving to have several benefits. First, and most important, assigning them as homework frees up class time for other things. Second, the activities offer students immediate feedback. When a student answers a question incorrectly, he or she is told so, and shown the correct answer. Third, the activities are self-scoring. If students score less than 80 percent, they need to try the activity again. Because the questions and distracters are randomized, students see a different version of the activity each time they attempt it. After students earn 80 percent or better, their scores are sent to the server, for later importation into a grading program. Finally, the activities automatically send an e-mail message to each student as confirmation that his or her score has been recorded.
These activities are not without problems. Computer-based activities generally work well for drill-type activities where the goal is to memorize information. In that regard, they do seem to be helping. Vocabulary quiz scores are up over last year. However, the question remains whether or not students really understand the new vocabulary, or have simply remembered that one set of words is connected with another. For example, the web activities can help students remember that ``sequence" means ``a list of items in a specific order," without them having the slightest idea what the word or definition actually means. To ensure that students really comprehend the vocabulary, activities are done in class using the words in context.
The next step will be to try to move beyond drill work and introduce more skill-related web activities. In addition, I want to include more instructive responses in the activities, helping students learn how to find the answer, rather than just telling them what it is. In time, I hope to establish a largely on-line reading course, flexible enough to help students of all abilities improve their reading skill.
The coming years should be exciting ones in the field of computer-assisted language learning, and I look forward to spending them as a researcher and educator at the University of Aizu.