Paige Ware

Automated writing evaluation : defining the classroom research agenda

With the advent of English as a global language, the ability to write well in English across diverse settings and for different audiences has become an imperative in second language education programmes throughout the world. Yet the teaching of second language writing is often hindered by the great amount of time and skill needed to evaluate repeated drafts of student writing. Online Automated Writing Evaluation programmes have been developed as a way to meet this challenge, and the scoring engines driving such programmes have been analysed in a considerable array of psychometric studies. However, relatively little research has been conducted on how AWE is used in the classroom and the results achieved with such use. In this article, we analyse recent developments in automated writing evaluation, explain the bases on which AWE systems operate, synthesize research with these systems, and propose a multifaceted process/product research programme on the instructional use of AWE. We explore this emerging area of inquiry by proposing a range of potential questions, methodologies and analytical tools that can define such a research agenda.

Language Learners and Multimedia Literacy In and After School

This study examines how 20 English Language Learners (ELLs) utilized multimedia as part of their in-school instruction and after-school programme at a technology-intensive urban middle school. Qualitative data, including observations, surveys, interviews and student-produced texts, were collected across an academic year. Data were analyzed to examine the range of multimedia literacy practices that characterized ELL learning during class time across their core subject areas as well as during a school-based after-school digital storytelling club. Findings indicate that, despite the benefits of greater student involvement and better student facility with many software programs, several tensions also emerged, including the limited use of computers to support students in sustained academic work. The article concludes with a discussion of the pedagogical implications suggested by these findings and offers a discussion of possible frameworks for thinking about how to provide more extensive support for ELL students as they make use of multimedia both during and after school.

Telecollaboration in the secondary language classroom: case study of adolescent interaction and pedagogical integration

This study builds on research examining the in-school technology practices of adolescent language learners by exploring the patterns of classroom literacy practices that emerge when a telecollaborative project is introduced into a conventional secondary language classroom. We draw on the conceptual frameworks and discourse analytical tools developed by researchers of online communication practices at the post-secondary level and turn this lens to examine how an international online exchange project might contribute to the creation of an in-school learning environment in which adolescents use technology to interact with distally located peers through telecollaboration. The particular contribution of this study is twofold: to offer insight into patterns that characterize the literacy practices that emerge through the introduction of telecollaboration into the learning environment and to document the types of pedagogical decision-making that such projects introduce into the secondary context. Using a case-study design, we explored two central areas: (1) What patterns of interaction emerge in the literacy practices of adolescent students as they build relationships with their intercultural partners? (2) How do teachers address the pedagogical issues that are foregrounded when introducing innovative literacy practices such as telecollaboration into the secondary learning environment? Our premise is that online exchanges might offer a different kind of learning experience that provides opportunities for adolescents to engage with language in ways that do not typically get enacted in conventional language classrooms. Our interest therefore is grounded both in providing a rich, descriptive inventory of how adolescents engage with telecollaboration in the classroom context, as well as in documenting the types of pedagogical issues that are introduced. We offer a linguistically grounded portrait of what constitutes the interactional patterns and pedagogical issues in a classroom learning environment shaped by the introduction of an online intercultural project. Using a case-study approach, therefore, we provide close documentation and analyses of a 15-week, classroom-based telecollaboration project through student transcripts and focal teacher interviews. We conclude with a discussion of the empirical and pedagogical implications associated with integrating telecollaboration into secondary language classroom contexts.

Teaching comments: intercultural communication skills in the digital age

This paper explores the pedagogical and conceptual issues that accompany the integration of intercultural communication skills into the secondary curriculum by analyzing the interactions of 102 adolescents in Spain and the USA during a 15-week, classroom-based, international online exchange. Focusing on the skills of discovery and interaction within a model of intercultural communicative competence, I examined the ways in which adolescent students displayed these skills through their online comments as well as the extent to which participants themselves perceived that their partnerships were successful. The findings from this study demonstrate that the adolescents displayed a range of interactional features that have been previously documented as interculturally strategic in research with post-secondary students engaged in similar online exchange projects. Such skills form part of a larger construct of intercultural communicative competence that, in turn, folds into the types of new literacy skills needed to write, read, communicate, produce, consume, and critique in a digital age. This kind of critical engagement with literacy fosters contexts in which students can grapple with authentic intercultural interactions and better understand how the words and symbols they send and receive position them as their own representatives and as representatives of their immediate communities and larger cultural groups.

First‐generation college students: mentoring through social media

Purpose – This exploratory study aims to examine how online mentoring was provided through social media to support potential first‐generation Latino college students during their final year of high school and their transition into a two‐year or four‐year institution.Design/methodology/approach – Using a one‐year qualitative study design, data were collected through interviews, surveys, and archived interactions on Facebook. Discourse analysis was used to code for types of social, informational, and emotional support provided.Findings – Findings suggest that online mentoring through social media is a support system that the focal students turned to primarily for informational support, rather than for social or emotional support, and its impact seems to be contingent on the existence of conventional mentoring structures of high school counsellors, peers, and family.Practical implications – High school counsellors and mentors in college outreach programs can leverage students’ presence in social media forums...

Addressing the Language Classroom Competencies of the European Higher Education Area Through the Use of Technology

This chapter focuses upon the use of technology to address the language classroom competencies of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Through an exploration of previous research into the intersection of technology and language learning, the authors identify a variety of ways that these core competencies can be addressed. The authors contextualize these suggestions within pedagogical practice that is focused upon project-based learning with attention paid to tasks in an array of contexts. The practices are presented within frameworks for both telecollaboration and local collaboration. The authors focus upon addressing both the general and discipline-specific competency frameworks within the EHEA.