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IATEFL Poland A Journal for Teachers of English ISSN 1642-1027 Vol. 4, Issue 2 (April 2004) |
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IATEFL Poland A Journal for Teachers of English ISSN 1642-1027 Vol. 4, Issue 2 (April 2004) |
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MULTIMEDIA IN TEACHING BUSINESS ENGLISH by Jarek Krajka Department of Applied Linguistics, Introduction Nowadays, computer-based multimedia has a well-established role in the
language teaching and learning process. Together with great technological
development of computers, increased speed and processing power, language
learning multimedia is undergoing a dramatic change, becoming more and more
versatile, lifelike and elaborate. The market is flooded with language learning
programs of different kinds, and one can buy them virtually anywhere, even at a
relatively competitive price. However, using such software can be in many cases
devoid of sound pedagogical principles, and, consequently, bring more harm than
benefit. Thus, the situation of a learner can be compared to the one of a
patient who takes expensive antibiotics, without the doctor's supervision,
strongly believes in the success of the process, but actually can use the
medicine effectively only once. The present paper is going to deal with the issue of using different
kinds of language learning multimedia programs in the process of teaching
Business English. The emphasis here will be on the role of the teacher in using
programs, and the present author will attempt to show how electronic
dictionaries, coursebook-related programs, skill-specific programs and full
language courses can be used in the teaching process. To make the discussion
even more practical, the paper will consist of examples of computer-based
activities referring to a specific Business English coursebook, Marketleader Intermediate. Computers in the teaching and
learning process Before moving on to specific applications of computer technology in the
learning process, one should consider the view of modern educational technology
in general. To start with, there are the following dimensions of the use of
computers in language learning: ·
Computer-Assisted Instruction,
where the machine is used as a teaching tool, presenting subsequent pieces of
material, storing and effectively combining multimedia data; ·
Computer-Managed Instruction,
where the main purpose of using the computer is to store, deliver instruction,
create, execute and check students' tests; ·
Computer-Mediated
Communication, in which computer technology helps learners engage in meaningful
communication with the use of email, video- and audioconferencing, chat, ICQ; ·
Computer-Adaptive Testing,
which is characterized by the computer running the testing process "in the
real time" and adapting the test to the testee's level, selecting more
difficult or easier questions from a test bank depending on the testee's
answers; ·
Computer-Based Multimedia,
where the use of the computer, its multimedia capabilities plus enormous
storage capacity, make it possible to enhance the content with the use of
picture, video and sound together with the text. The multimedia programs analysed in this paper will mainly fall into
Computer-Assisted, Computer-Managed Instruction and Computer-Based Multimedia
categories, of course, to a different degree. When considering the advantages the computer brings to the learning
process, one can mention, above all, the following:
From the point of view of the teacher, one could add here giving fast
and competent language information, covering various aspects of use; enabling
lesson preparation by providing vocabulary, texts or recordings for classroom
use; equipping the teacher with multimedia means for varied vocabulary
presentation; eliciting language instruction by providing contexts, models,
situations. Language learning software in the
classroom – general remarks It is a frequent misconception that for a language teacher to implement
multimedia in a language course, they need to have a fully equipped computer
lab at their disposal, with the number of workstations equaling the number of
students, all state-of-the art, with the newest software installed. This ideal
situation, fairly infrequent in underresourced Polish schools (and perhaps also
in many other countries of the world), does not have to bring expected profits
in teaching terms, for a computer-student interaction only would change the classroom
from a social gathering into an individual study place. On the contrary,
depending on the resources available, a creative language teacher can
effectively exploit the potential of multimedia software in the following
modes:
The above modes of work in a computer-assisted classroom should be, on
the one hand, suited to the logistics of the classroom, on the other naturally
give way to the nature of the task executed. Thus, in many contexts, especially
involving listening comprehension, preparation for speaking and pronunciation
work, a teacher computer and a soundsystem might be sufficient to introduce the
multimedia element in a language lesson. Therefore, what seems important to
keep in mind is that a creative and conscious language teacher could use many
of the available modes of work, to suit the situation and conform to the needs
of the class, and it is not a must to provide the most prototypical whole-class
individual student-computer work only. Finally, one has to consider the relation between different types of
computer software enumerated above and the coursebook teaching. What can be
noticed is that some programs are most flexible, enabling easy and smooth
adaptation to the relevant coursebook units. Such an example is an electronic
dictionary, which is a purely utility program, used by the teacher to prepare
vocabulary tasks for the lesson, provide examples for the contextualization of
structures, giving students practice in resourcing. Similarly,
coursebook-related programs (such as Marketleader
Interactive), which are created on the basis and as continuation of a given
coursebook (here Marketleader
Intermediate), are fully compatible with the coursebook, and the teacher
may use either the program or the coursebook to teach a particular point, enliven
the lesson with a multimedia dimension or provide self-study vocabulary or
grammar tasks. On the other hand, skill-specific programs (such as Talking Business), follow a distinct syllabus, usually divided
according to thematic modules developing certain aspects of a given skill. Such
programs can be used alongside the coursebook, provided the program content is
carefully scrutinized and suited to the respective coursebook units. The final type of language learning software to be discussed here is
full language courses (e.g., Longman
English Interactive). Fully developed courses, just like coursebooks, have
clearly defined principles of selecting, ordering and grading content.
Therefore, it is essential to follow such courses linearly, as otherwise the author's
intentions about introducing, practicing and reinforcing material are more than
likely to be distorted. For these reasons, it might be difficult, if not
impossible, to use the coursebook and a program of this kind, as the aim of the
program is to constitute the basic source of materials for the course. At this point, some space needs to be devoted to the evaluation of how
effective computer software can be at developing language skills. It is beyond
doubt that the computer is at its best when providing listening and reading
tasks, due to the inclusion of multimedia input facilitating comprehension
(video, pictures and text), on-demand user support systems (looking up words
hyperlinked to a dictionary or listening with a tapescript) and self-study comprehension
tasks. Equally, one can exploit the power of interactive multimedia when
learning vocabulary and grammar in its presentation phase (owing to multimedia
formats of the presentation of information) and testing phase by giving varied
practice in a multitude of activity formats. On the other hand, one could be somewhat critical towards developing
speaking skills only in human-computer interaction. The example of such a
speaking task can be the format from Talking
Business, where learners listen to the whole dialogue, then listen
sentence-by-sentence, repeat and record sentences, then play the whole dialogue
back and compare it with a model dialogue. This can be regarded as highly
artificial and might be despised by many teachers and learners. Therefore, it
seems necessary to use the software in the two modes: in the self-study mode,
to practice testing listening and reading comprehension, checking the knowledge
of lexis and the use of grammar, and the teacher-whole class mode, developing
speaking and writing, with teachers using the elements of the program as a
source of models, contexts, stimulus for speaking or writing. Electronic dictionaries in a
Business English classroom Electronic dictionaries, unlike paper ones, undergo
the process of transformation into more versatile tools, becoming a combination
of a variety of components. Thus, a sample electronic dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE
4), has an A-Z dictionary, a thematic dictionary (Activator), a thesaurus, a collocations
component, a corpus of examples, both dictionary and newspaper/book ones with a
concordancer, a compendium of cultural knowledge, an exercise bank with a
testing facility, information about word origin, a collection of labelled
pictures, and pronunciation practice software. All these components are
successfully combined and activated whenever a wanted word is enquired.
Non-linear and multiple access to the dictionary data is enabled and the
learner is provided with the chance to retrieve different kinds of information
on demand. What is characteristic about CD-ROM dictionaries is
providing fast access to words in hyperlinked word entries. Another important
issue is advanced searching capabilities (searching with and/or/not operators,
specifying frequency for written or spoken words, style, part of speech), which
is not only word search, but also multimedia search (looking for pictures or
sound effects), subject search (words relating to a given topic), word origin
search or pronunciation search. Multimedia formats for vocabulary storage,
storing huge amounts of data, enormous amounts of examples, both dictionary and
corpus ones, interactive pronunciation practice and automatic feedback are
other useful features. The information included in the entry is composed of a word, its
category, its usage information (written or spoken, top 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000
words); an icon to play pronunciation; a word origin button (to give
information on the etymology of the word), a word set button, pronunciation, grammatical
information, signposted meanings, the definition, examples, pictures, synonyms
or related words, phrases a given word appears in. Another component of LDOCE 4
dictionary may be the phrase bank window, which contains phrases with the given
word from other entries and words commonly used with the word (prepositions,
adjectives, nouns and verbs), while the examples bank window has extra
dictionary examples, taken from a corpus, 80,000 example sentences from other
Longman dictionaries and over 1 million additional sentences from Longman
Corpus Network. Finally, the "Activate your language" box features a
link to the Activator component of the dictionary and contains specific
grammatical information about the words frequently misused or very similar, with
examples and definitions for comparison. Using the dictionary in the language classroom might involve practicing
the pronunciation by recording; using pronunciation search to find a word by
sounds, rather than spelling; doing exam preparation in self-study exam
exercises; using subject search to come up with the words in a selected subject
area. When preparing for a lesson, the teacher might print different components
of the dictionary (a single entry or a list of words) to present the use of
some words or copy and paste to a word-processor to create vocabulary
worksheets. To give an example of how to use an electronic dictionary in a specific
classroom context, one can consider a sample unit, Unit 1
"Globalisation" from a coursebook Marketleader
Intermediate. For "Starting up" activity, the teacher can use the
'subject search' feature of the dictionary to prepare more vocabulary on
companies to give students additional lexical input for speaking. When dealing
with new vocabulary for a listening activity, the use of dictionary examples
printed for classroom use may facilitate learning new words. "Phrase bank
window" of the dictionary can be used to find collocates for new words
from a vocabulary exercise and use them in constructing sentences of one's own.
What is more, for a speaking activity it might be useful to use the thematic
component of the dictionary, the Activator, to find more adjectives to express
feelings and show the differences in strength of their meaning. Similarly, as
continuation of "Language Review" section of the coursebook, the
dictionary exercises on intensifying adjectives would help present adjectival
collocations. Coursebook-related programs in
teaching Business English Coursebook-related programs are the continuation of the tendency of
publishers to add more and more different types of materials based on
successful coursebooks. Programs of this kind (see, for instance, Marketleader Interactive), are closely
integrated with a given coursebook by following exactly the same syllabus of
topics, structures, lexis and functions. On that, they reinforce the material
introduced in the coursebook, provide more practice in grammatical structures
or lexical items, add a multimedia dimension to the classroom and allow for
additional work in a self-study mode in games, crosswords, gap-filling and
drag-and-drop exercises. Marketleader Interactive, a language learning software built up on the basis
of Marketleader Intermediate coursebook,
is a software focusing on teaching ESP vocabulary, practicing listening and
reading comprehension, as well as business negotiation skills. Students'
knowledge is based on real-life examples, which gives models for presenting and
negotiating. Eight thematic units, of exactly the same structure and labels as
the ones in the book, contain Introduction, Listening, A language classroom using a coursebook-related program will get added
value with additional listening and reading input in multiple tasks, both
general and detailed comprehension tasks. Thanks to authentic materials and
wider contexts created by multimedia content, learners are stimulated to
acquire and use the language in more natural situations. This can be done in a
whole-class mode with one computer, a soundsystem and/or a display device, when
the teacher presents the listening comprehension materials to the whole class.
Another way of using the course might be providing students with printed
transcripts of recordings, then listening and completing gaps or learning the
pronunciation of new words. While the computer is at its best when helping
practice receptive skills, grammar and vocabulary retention, speaking and
communication must be done in the classroom, while the computer software might
provide models of interviews to listen to, separate structures to learn, repeat
and master. This stimulus for the pre-speaking stage has the aim of
encompassing students with language tools and drilling ensures automatic habit
formation. Finally, dialogues and descriptions of situations from the program serve
as contexts for pair- and groupwork communication, where "Business
Notes" pose authentic communicative tasks students have to cope with using
the language acquired in the course of the unit. To see the application of the program in a teaching situation, one can
look at the second unit of Marketleader
Intermediate. As a lead-in to the unit, students could listen to opinions
of other people from the program to introduce them to the topic of branding,
which would be then followed with additional listening comprehension tasks from
the software, either done in the whole-class mode or for student self-study.
Before reading a text about fashion piracy, the teacher uses the multimedia
slideshow from the software to provide students with a fuller context and
develop receptive skills while listening with or without reading the
transcript. After having done that, students take interactive lexical exercises
individually, to see how much they remember from the lesson. The entire
teaching module culminates with an interactive test, summing up the whole unit
and checking mainly vocabulary knowledge, as useful revision before a standard
test. Skill-specific programs Teachers of Business English might make profit from using skill-specific
programs, focusing on mastering grammar, listening comprehension or speaking
skills. Such programs as Talking Business
are not integrated with any coursebook, and follow their own syllabus, created
according to the skills and subskills learners are supposed to master. Apart
from giving learners the practice in a given skill, general language
development can be found there as well, with some elements of vocabulary,
listening and reading comprehension and pronunciation practice. In skill-specific software, multimedia input is combined with textual
input to form a coherent whole for the presentation of new language material,
while interactive testing component (self-study games, crosswords,
drag-and-drop tasks, recordings of one's responses and comparing them with a
model) allows learners to work on one's own or under the teacher's guidance on
developing language competence within a specified area. Thanks to a set of
user-friendly tools, such as a pronunciation practice module, a
mini-dictionary, a glossary, a grammar compendium, the learner is provided with
the learning environment sufficient for the language learning process. Talking Business follows its own clearly structured syllabus, aiming
at learning different aspects of speaking, however, at the same time building
on other skills and integrating the practice in various areas of language. Of
course, speaking skill is given much greater prominence than others, and the
syllabus of such programs is clearly subjected to passing on various elements
of a skill to learners. This is evident when one looks at the table of contents
of Talking Business, which consists
of the following units: First Contact, Small Talk, Further Contact,
Hospitality, Telephone Messages, Appointments, Travel Arrangements, Directions,
Current Projects, Project Timing, Sales Results, Market Trends. Some of the
units head more towards passing on the elements of speaking skill instruction,
when learners acquire language functions and practice tasks preparing them for
real-life oral interaction. On the other hand, apart from more
speaking-oriented units, one can find here also units of more topical labels,
which are intended to provide vocabulary input and practice of the new lexis in
meaningful contexts. On the level of a lesson, it is interesting to look at the structure of
the course to see what a skill-oriented program might look like. A sample unit
outline contains work on:
Due to the fact that the teachers will not find here systematic language
development, the use of the program is advisable for teachers whose learners
have already acquired some language level, have clearly specified language
needs, also as far as skills and situations they might work in are concerned.
On the other hand, using such a program as a means of developing learners'
linguistic competence, in order to move them to a higher level of language
proficiency, might leave them with incomplete knowledge in some respects. In order to demonstrate how a program of this kind can be used when
teaching a selected course, Marketleader
Intermediate, there are the following ideas for teaching unit 3 of the
book, together with two modules of Talking
Business:
n
listening to a dialogue and
repeating sentences to practice their pronunciation n
completing dialogues with
words practiced n
after having listened to a
dialogue about flight reservation, learners using the flight information
extracted from the listening extract to create their own dialogues n
after having listened to an
interview from the program, students adding more questions to the survey on the
hotel service which is filled when checking out, and later performing it in
pairs.
n
listening to a dialogue from
the program to reinforce the knowledge of structures used when asking for and
giving directions, n
extracting relevant phrases
for their later use n
using the sentences from the
pronunciation exercise to reorder them into a dialogue n
acting out a roleplay of a
tourist and a local person asking for and giving information, being modeled by
a dialogue. Fully developed language learning
courseware The programs described above can be used in a language course either as
tools in preparing and running lessons (electronic dictionaries) or sources of
additional input for the development of skills (coursebook-related programs,
skill-specific software). However, the teacher needs some kind of Business
English curriculum with a corresponding coursebook or a set of materials that
would help to realize the aims adopted in the curriculum. On the other hand,
fully-developed courseware (such as Longman
English Interactive) are complete products, offering a balanced diet of
skills, grammar and vocabulary, coming in a variety of levels (in case of LIE, four) to ensure sufficient coverage
of the material graded according to the principles adopted and distributed over
all learning levels. What is characteristic about language learning courseware is the proper
balance between the module of content presentation and testing, between
receptive and productive skills, oral and written. A look at the overview of Longman English Interactive shows that:
there are fifteen units in three modules, each containing a section devoted to
listening, speaking, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, reading, opening with
the outline of the unit and learning objectives, while culminating with a
review quiz and unit summary. The units are bound together by a device of the
same characters reappearing in subsequent sections. Also, just like a
coursebook, software of this type is a blend of text and multimedia
(contemporary video materials, news broadcasts and animations) to enhance
comprehension. The learning process with the use of language courseware demands
sufficient maturity of the user, as it is possible for the learner to cheat the
tasks or fail to complete them. On the other hand, the automatic report
generating facility enables both the teacher and the learner to monitor the progress,
see the performance in single tasks, in different skills or areas of language.
Thanks to that, planning work and diagnosing language competence is enabled.
Further means of motivating learners to work is the assessment system, which is
composed of an entry test (pre-test), end-of-module tests and an exit test.
When taken, these evaluation instruments allow for objective assessment of
learner's performance, both on-going during the course, and summative after
having completed a level. Due to this, it should be possible for the learner to
maintain self-discipline when learning with the course, while for the teacher
and/or the parent to monitor the user's activity if necessary. When thinking about using programs of this type in a Business English
course, it must be kept in mind that they are, similarly to antibiotics, to be
used instantly, in one go, with the pre-determined order of working with the
material, and are most effective for the first time. A Business English teacher
might find it difficult to use a Business English coursebook and a general
English software, as these two will have their curricula incompatible and
working with both will not have much sense. On the other hand, a general
English software like Longman English
Interactive could be quite well used by ESP teachers who do not have
published ESP coursebooks for their disciplines and whose students need both
general language development and specialized vocabulary and tasks. In such a
case, programs of this type could be used to raise the proficiency level, and
form a basis for supplementation with materials of other kinds to satisfy ESP
needs. Conclusion As the above paper has attempted to show, there is a variety of types of
educational multimedia software that could be implemented in a Business English
course. Contrary to popular beliefs, language learning programs do not have to
be used only by individual students, in a self-study mode, with the interaction
only with the computer. There can be a variety of ways of using the programs
depending on the logistics of the classroom, and a creative teacher can harness
them to add value to the teaching process. It is evident how programs described above differ in the role of the
teacher they presuppose. Some, like dictionaries, play the most subservient
role, and it is the teacher's creativity that puts it to play when creating
language tasks. Others, such as skill-specific programs, although possessing
their own syllabus, can be subordinated to the curriculum of the course, and
the teacher can use them selectively in supplementing some core material.
Coursebook-related programs leave less room for the teacher, by providing tasks
that are compatible with the coursebook material, however, the teacher has the
freedom of doing them in the most convenient mode, with the coursebook or the
software. Finally, full language courses enslave the teacher to the largest
degree, as it is not possible to make any modifications in the language content
nor in the order of working with it, and this has to be kept in mind while
deciding on using the program. References Brieger, N., Comfort, J. (2003) Talking Business. Cotton, D., Falvey, D., Kent, S.
(2003) Marketleader Interactive. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. (2003) Rost, M., Fuchs, M. (2003) Longman English Interactive. | ||||||||||||
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Last Updated: April 10, 2004 |
