About
the Project
The Foreign Languages Project in Advanced-Level Listening is one
of three initial expansive projects in the Chancellorís Transforming
Teaching Through Technology
Initiative (T4) at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison. The T4 program, funded by the
Madison Initiative, enables
UW-Madison faculty to explore new ways of using instructional technology
to transform the way that teaching and learning occur on campus,
and to expand learning opportunities off- campus.
To offer foreign- and second-language students enhanced opportunities
to improve their listening comprehension proficiency, the T4
Foreign Languages Project (T4 FLP) is developing
interactive, browser-based listening and viewing comprehension tutorials
for a broad range of languages and cultures.
The T4 FLP is a collaborative effort involving faculty,
graduate students and staff from many departments and units on campus:
African Languages and
Literature, East
Asian Languages and Literature, English,
French and Italian,
Hebrew and Semitic
Studies, the Languages and Cultures
of Asia, Slavic
Languages and Literature, Spanish
and Portuguese, Learning
Support Services, and the Department
of Learning Technology and Distance Education in the Division
of Information Technology. Many T4 FLP faculty have
successfully developed computer-assisted language learning materials
that they, and others, are currently using in their language courses.
Project
goals
The goal of the T4 FLP is to design, develop, and assess
web-based tutorials that focus on listening and viewing comprehension
at the advanced level. The tutorials consist of authentic digitized
video clips, an extensive array of interactive individualized learning
activities, and a comprehensive help feature, the Listening
Assistant. The tutorials provide students guided learning opportunities
to improve their listening comprehension proficiency and expose
them to a wide variety of authentic language media including feature
films, documentaries, and television broadcasts. In addition to
a video clip, each lesson features learning activities targeting
specific learning outcomes (see below), strategy tips, graduated
levels of help, tracking of learner activity, and means for providing
immediate feedback and for assessing learner outcomes.
Current work
Currently, the T4 FLP is evaluating and revising pilot
lessons for English as a second language, Russian, and Spanish.
Beginning in the fall 2002, the project also started work on a suite
of authoring tools that will enable foreign language teachers of
any language to create their own lessons. These tools include:
- a set
of Dreamweaver MX authoring templates of lesson
pages and learning activities targeting advanced-level listening
and following best practices for designing language learning lessons;
- a
Listening Assistant Author, which gives
teachers the opportunity to select help features, then generate
a customized Listening Assistant;
- a Sequencer
that allows teachers to preview, select, and sequence learning
activities into lessons.
Pedagogical approach
The pedagogical approach of in the T4 FLP tutorials reflects
a conception of listening proficiency that contends that listening
is not an isolated skill, and that listening proficiency is not
based solely on a learnerís mastery of the linguistic code of the
target language. Instead, listening is understood in terms of the
more broadly conceived interpretive function, which includes primary
receptive abilities such as viewing as well as listening, and broad-based
cultural knowledge.
top
Accordingly, the learning activities incorporated in the T4
FLP modules draw the learnerís attention to extra-linguistic aspects
of communication such as non-verbal cues (gestures and body language,
for example) and the context (cultural or situational) of a given
verbal exchange, as well as include more language-focussed activities.
Perhaps most importantly, the T4 FLP modules emphasize
the mastery of effective listening strategies. This is achieved
through explicit strategy instruction, context-sensitive strategy
help, and specific strategy-building learning activities.
Targeted learning outcomes
An underlying objective of the T4 FLP is to address a
serious problem in American foreign language education: language
learners in American colleges, even language majors, typically do
not achieve higher than an intermediate-level listening proficiency
(as defined by the American Council
on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) proficiency guidelines).
Our goal is to bring intermediate-level learners to the advanced
level.
The ACTFL proficiency guidelines defined the advanced level as follows:
Able
to understand main ideas and most details of connected discourse
on a variety of topics beyond the immediacy of the situation. Comprehension
may be uneven due to a variety of linguistic and extra-linguistic
factors, among which topic familiarity is very prominent. These
texts frequently involve description and narration in different
time frames or aspects, such as present, nonpast, habitual, or imperfective.
Texts may include interviews, short lectures on familiar topics,
and news items and reports primarily dealing with factual information.
Listener is aware of cohesive devices but may not be able to use
them to follow the sequence of thought in an oral text.
The T4
FLP expands on this description of advanced-level listening proficiency
to outline its goals and desired learner-outcomes in terms of the
following characteristics of advanced-level listeners. Advanced-level
listeners:
1. understand
the main ideas and most details of connected discourse of longer
than one
paragraph in length on a variety of topics beyond the immediacy
of the situation
(adapted from the ACTFL Listening Proficiency Guidelines);
2. listen
for a variety of purposes, including communicating; enhancing their
understanding of culture; drawing connections to other disciplines;
making cultural
comparisons; and coming into contact with culturally different communities
(adapted from the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning);
3. understand
the cultural context of verbal exchanges (e.g., status relationships,
proxemics);
4. understand
and appreciate discursive practices in the target language/culture
(e.g., rhetorical scripts, appropriate registers);
5. process
larger segments of texts automatically, freeing cognitive resources
for
top-down processing;
6. appreciate
the aesthetic norms and features of the target language and culture;
7. employ
a variety of strategies, including their L1 strategies and real
world knowledge
about how text types work, how media work, etc., as well as L2 strategies
about how
to cope with new input, its ambiguity, and the complexity of its
linguistic and cultural
message;
8. have
an ethic towards diverse views.
If you
are interested in learning more about the T4 Foreign
Languages Project, please contact Principal Investigator Professor
Benjamin Rifkin (608)
262-1623 or Project Manager Dianna
Murphy (608) 263-9090. |
