A Learner-Centred or Artefact-Centred Classroom? Impact of Technology, Artefacts, and Environment on Task Processes in an English as a Foreign Language Classroom

Authors: Nobue T. Ellis

Abstract:

This preliminary study attempts to see if a learning environment influences instructor’s teaching strategies and learners’ in-class activities in a foreign language class at a university in Japan. The class under study was conducted in a computer room, while the majority of classes of the same course were offered in traditional classrooms without computers. The study also sees if the unplanned blended learning environment, enhanced, or worked against, in achieving course goals, by paying close attention to in-class artefacts, such as computers. In the macro-level analysis, the course syllabus and weekly itinerary of the course were looked at; and in the microlevel analysis, nonhuman actors in their environments were named and analyzed to see how they influenced the learners’ task processes. The result indicated that students were heavily influenced by the presence of computers, which lead them to disregard some aspects of intended learning objectives.

Keywords: Computer-assisted language learning, actor-network theory, English as a foreign language, task-based teaching.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1087440

References:

[1] C. Chapelle, “Is network-based learning CALL?,” in Network-based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice, M. Warschauer and R. Kern, Eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 204-228.
[2] R. Kern and M. Warschuer, “Introduction: Theory and practice of network-based language teaching,”in Network-based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice, M. Warschauer and R. Kern, Eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 1-19.
[3] M. Levy, Computer-Assisted Language Learning: Context and Conceptualization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[4] M. Callon (1986). “Some elements of a sociology of translation: Domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of Saint Brieuc Bay,” in Power, Action and Belief: a New Sociology of Knowledge? ,J. Law, Ed., London: Routledge, 1986, pp.196-223.
[5] B. Latour, We Have Never Been Modern. Brighton, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.
[6] J. Law, “Power, discretion and strategy, ”in A Sociology of Monsters? Essays on Power, Technology and Domination, J. Law, Ed. London, Routledge. 1991, pp. 165-191.
[7] T. Fenwick and R. Edward, Actor-Network Theory in Education. Routledge: London, 2010, p. 3.
[8] W.-M. Roth, “Knowledge diffusion in a grade 4-5 classroom during a unit on civil engineering: an analysis of a classroom community in terms of its changing resources and practices.”Cognition and Instruction, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 179-220, 1996.
[9] S. Barab, K. E. Hay, and L. C. Yamagata-Lynch, “Constructing networks of action-relevant episodes: an in situ research methodology, ”The Journal of the Learning Sciences, vol. 10, nos. 1-2, pp. 63-112, 1999.
[10] M. Swain, “The output hypothesis: just speaking and writing aren't enough,”The Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revue canadienne des languesvivantes, vol. 50, no.1, pp. 158-164, 1993.
[11] M. Swain and S. Lapkin, “Interaction and second language learning: two adolescent French immersion students working together,” The Modern Language Journal, vol. 82, no. 3, pp. 320-337, 1998.
[12] J. P. Lantolf, “Second language learning as a mediated process, ”Language Teaching, vol. 33, pp. 79-96, 2000.