Teaching practice in LSP and beyond

Teaching practice in LSP and beyond
Benoît Guilbaud
b.guilbaud@sussex.ac.uk
@benguilbaud
BenoîtGuilbaud,UniversityofSussex,2017
Discussions around two case-studies

Making discussion forums work
Case study #1

Context
25 ﬁnal year
undergraduates (C1)
English ⇢ French
translation (L1 ⇢ L2)
September 2011 -
March 2012
Weekly contributions
to discussion forums
18 texts
18 weeks
1 hour / week
contact time

Weekly task
Sharing part of the
homework on the forums
Commenting on one
another’s contributions

The study
Collect student feedback on use of discussion forums for peer-feedback
Measure student engagement with discussion forums
Evaluate impact on performance (contributions / marks)
Evaluate quality of interactions on the forums

Methodology
3 feedback questionnaires assessing
expectations & satisfaction
pre / mid / post-study
quantitative + open questions
Section(2(–(Social(networking(sites(7(for!all!purposes!other!than!translation
2a.$Are$you$a$member$of$one$or$more$social$networking$sites$(Facebook,$Twitter,$Google+,$etc.)?$Which$one(s)?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2b.$If$you$answered$‘yes’$in$2a,$please$place$one$tick$per$line$in$the$following$table:
When using social
networking sites (not
for translation
purposes)
Never Rarely Sometimes Often
Very
often
Always
Not
applicable /
don’t know
I log in to my existing
member account.
I read other
members’
contributions and
existing discussions.
I post contributions
in response to other
members’ activity.
I engage in longer
discussions (more
than 2 posts) with
other members.
When another
member has a
question, I try and
answer it.
Using$social$media$in$an$undergraduate$translation$class$–$a$case$study
Preliminary$questionnaire$X$Benoît$Guilbaud$X$2011
Page 4 of 5

Methodology
Collection and analysis of
contributions to OADs (Online
Asynchronous Discussions) using
Murphy’s collaboration model (2004)

Findings

Feedback

Feedback
September:“The platform could be useful”

Feedback
March:“The platform was useful”

“I think it works really well and is easy to access.”
“Working really well - maybe we could
have a similar thing on other modules.”
“It would be useful to have it for other courses.”
“Very useful.”
Feedback

“Not enough students use it for it to be
wholly effective. I think most students just
rely on the contributions of others.”
“It is just down to ourselves to make more of
an effort this term, which I will attempt to do.”
Feedback
“Very useful. No improvements needed.”

Feedback from students who did not ﬁnd the platform useful
“Make it more easily accessible - link on [VLE]?”
“I have tried to log in a few times but it won’t
work so I gave up out of frustration!”
“No one really uses it so it’s not very useful.
Maybe if you integrate it into the lesson.”

Engagement

Contributions per weekNumberofcontributionstoforums
0
13
25
38
50
Week number
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Ideal
Actual

Impact of (non)assessment

Impact of assessment on number of contributions
Guilbaud, 2012 McNeilly & Zhok, 2012
Level: BA Level: MA
Blended learning Distance learning
Not assessed Assessed (10% of unit)
Feedback mostly positive (92%) Feedback “overwhelmingly positive”
Average no. of contributions
per student per week = 0,27
Average no. of contributions
per student per week ≃1

Impact on student marks

Averagemark(in%)
30
40
50
60
70
80
Total number of contributions to forums
0 15 30 45 60
Number of contributions to OADs vs average mark

Analysis of contributions

Murphy’s collaboration model
(2004)

Murphy’s collaboration model (2004)
A Producing shared artefacts
B Building shared goals and purposes
C Co-constructing shared perspectives and meanings
P Accommodating or reﬂecting the perspectives of others
I Articulating individual perspectives
S Social presence
Collaboration

A Producing shared artefacts
B Building shared goals and purposes
C Co-constructing shared perspectives and meanings
P Accommodating or reﬂecting the perspectives of others
I Articulating individual perspectives
S Social presence
Collaboration
Distribution of contributions per category (% of total)

A Producing shared artefacts 0%
B Building shared goals and purposes 0%
C Co-constructing shared perspectives and meanings 33%
P Accommodating or reﬂecting the perspectives of others 2%
I Articulating individual perspectives 23%
S Social presence 41%
Collaboration

Articulating individual perspectives (I)
A
Summarising or reporting on content without reference to
the perspectives of others (S)
5%B
C
P
Statement of personal opinion or beliefs making no reference
to perspectives of others (O)
18%I
S

Accommodating or reﬂecting the perspectives of others (P)
A
Coordinating perspectives (C) 1%
B
Introducing new perspectives (N) 0%
C
P Indirectly disagreeing with challenging statements made by
another participant (I)
1%
I
Directly disagreeing with challenging statements made by
another participant (D)
1%
S

Co-constructing shared perspectives and meanings (C)
A Sharing advice (S) 0%
Responding to questions (R) 11%B
Provoking thought and discussion (P) 0%C
P Soliciting feedback (F) 9%
Posing rhetorical questions (Q) 0%
I
Asking for clariﬁcation/ elaboration (A) 10%
S Sharing information and resources (I) 4%

Picture by HckySo via ﬂickr.com
Identiﬁed issues

Identiﬁed issues
Lack of a common goal
Little acknowledgement of perspectives of others
Near-absence of disagreements
50% of questions left unanswered
Near-absence of source referencing & sharing

Suggested criteria for evaluating 
online collaboration
!Work in progress

Input and social presence
Critical thinking and reﬂective practice
Contribution to common goal
Answering other users’ questions
Referencing and sharing of sources
Little acknowledgement of perspectives of others
Near-absence of disagreements
Lack of a common goal
50% of questions left unanswered
Near-absence of source referencing & sharing

Conclusions

BenoîtGuilbaud,ManchesterMetropolitanUniversity(UK),2012
Picture by ryancr via ﬂickr.com
Sharing
Foster a culture of participation within the group
Promote sharing resources & crediting sources

© Rovio 2012
Encourage challenging perspectives & reward initiative
State goals to be attained as a group rather than individually
Motivation

Correlation between contribution and performance difﬁcult to establish
Impact of non-assessment on student engagement
Limitations
Students’ technical ability not to be overestimated
Picture by marc falardeau via ﬂickr.com

Extend use of OADs to promote open learning
and beyond...
Promote participation
Train critically-competent and digitally-literate learners

Belshaw, D., 2011. What is digital literacy? A Pragmatic investigation. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.Available at http://
neverendingthesis.com and http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/cgi/latest [accessed 28th March 2012].
Couros,A., 2011.Why networked learning matters. Education in a Changing Environment (ECE) 6th International Conference,
Creativity and Engagement in Higher Education, 6-8 July 2011, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, UK.
McNeilly, E. & Zhok,A., 2012.The Online Discussion Board forTranslation - An Undergraduate MFL Perspective for the
Study of Italian and Russian. In: LLAS: 7th e-learning symposium. University of Southampton, 26-27 January 2012.
Mott, John., 2011. The End In Mind. www.jonmott.com [blog].
Murphy, E., 2004. Recognising and promoting collaboration in an online asynchronous discussion. In: British Journal of
Educational Technology, 35(4) pp.421–431.
O’Reilly,T., 2005. Web 2.0. Exteme Interfaces,TTIVanguard. Geneva, Switzerland 16 September 2005.
Vygotsky, L.S., 1978. Mind in society:The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wheeler, S.,Yeomans, P. and Wheeler, D., 2008.The Good, the Bad and the Wiki: Evaluating Student Generated Content as
a Collaborative LearningTool. In: British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(6), pp.987-995.
Wheeler, S., 2012. Digital Pedagogy: Content is aTyrant, Context is King. In: NAACE 2012 Annual Conference, 9 March 2012,
Leicester, United Kingdom.

Any questions or comments?

Group activity

Group activity 1 (see handout)
In your groups, discuss the following questions and statements:
1. How important is student collaboration and why?
2. In which ways do you currently promote collaboration in your class?
3. Would you use/adapt the proposed model? If so, how?
4. Do you, or do you intend to you assess collaboration? If so, would you
use a setup such as the proposed one? How else would you do it?

Bring your own vocabulary
Case study #2

Sydney Uni CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Oh là là !

Context
Language for Speciﬁc Purposes: medical French - prevalence of lexicon
Y1&2 MBChB undergraduates / two academic years / 71 B2 students
Attempt to increase student engagement, motivation and collaboration
Draw on students’ specialist knowledge and clinical placement experience

Traditional vocabulary teaching
(and maybe learning)
Vocab
???

Traditional vocabulary teaching
(and maybe learning)
Z Z Z
???
Vocab

Better vocabulary learning
Vocab

Better vocabulary learning
Vocab
+++
Vocab

What’s in it for…
•Increasing breadth of vocabulary easily
and systematically
•Active participants in their learning
process
•Collaboratively involved in content
design
•Engage with outward-facing learning &
OER production
•Reduces need for specialist
knowledge
•Keeps students engaged
outside of contact hours
•Increases class motivation
•Saves time
Students Staff

How?

GOOGLE DRIVE QUIZLET
+

Google Drive
• Template list created by tutor for
each topic/fortnight
• Each student adds 5 words and
their translations
• Content is checked, curated and
completed by tutor
• Final list imported into web 2.0
vocab app Quizlet
• Students learn/revise list for
formative test the following week
• Summative vocab test in ﬁnal
exam
Quizlet

Google Drive

QUIZLET

QUIZLET
IOS ANDROID WINDOWS PHONEWEB

The study

The study
•End-of-semester questionnaire
•53 open and closed questions
•44% respondents
18/06/2013 11:19Survey Results
Page 1 of 14https://selectsurveys.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/PrintOverview.aspx?SurveyID=9lK34l83
1. Please enter your full name (Optional) (NB: all survey results will be anonymised entirely)
Total Respondents 14
(skipped this question) 15
2. Which of the following units were you enrolled on in 2012-13?
Response
Total
Response
Percent
Points Avg
Medical French level 1 7 35% n/a n/a
Medical French level 2 9 45% n/a n/a
Business French
"further" level
4 20% n/a n/a
Total Respondents 20 100%
3. "I understand that my answers may be used and quoted anonymouly for the purpose of the present research study." Click here
to read more.
Response
Total
Response
Percent
Points Avg
Yes 20 100% n/a n/a
4. From which devices did you usually access Quizlet? Tick all answers that apply.
Response
Total
Response
Percent
Points Avg
University PC 9 53% n/a n/a
Personal
computer
(including
laptop)
17 100% n/a n/a
Smartphone 5 29% n/a n/a
Tablet 0 0% n/a n/a
Printed lists 1 6% n/a n/a
Other, please
specify
0 0% n/a n/a
5. From which device did you access Quizlet the most?
Response
Total
Response
Percent
Points Avg
University PC 1 6% n/a n/a
Personal computer
(including laptop)
14 82% n/a n/a
Smartphone 2 12% n/a n/a
Tablet 0 0% n/a n/a
Printed lists 0 0% n/a n/a
Other (as specified
above)
0 0% n/a n/a
Total Respondents 17 100%
Quizlet survey 2013
Respondents: 29 displayed, 29 total Status: Closed
Launched Date: 05/06/2013 Closed Date: 16/06/2013

Findings

Vocabulary learning

“Quizlet was useful to my learning”
Very useful
Useful
Neutral
Useless
Very useless

“I found that quizlet motivated me
to revise vocabulary”
Strongly agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly disagree

Place of use
Very often Often Sometimes Rarely Never
Public transports
Home
University
& library
Outdoors
Work
Around
campus

Length of revision session
AVERAGE MAX
40 mins 100 mins

Class-generated vocabulary lists

“Collaboratively creating vocabulary lists
is a good way to encourage student engagement”
Strongly agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly disagree

How important is it that students are
included in the design of study materials?
Very important
Important
Neutral
Unimportant
Very
unimportant

Issues with class-generated lists
occurring “often”
Technical problems 4%
Late entries (delaying test revisions) 29%
Duplicate entries 21%
Inaccurate entries 29%
Irrelevant entries 34%
% of respondents agreeing

Conclusions

Conclusions
•Experience very positive overall
•High level of student engagement and satisfaction
•Several positive comments in unit satisfaction survey
•Summative test results show very effective learning
•System works best for individual words and short phrases
•Importance of thorough curation of contents by tutor

Comments
•“Provided there is appropriate oversight this is a fantastic resource.”
•“I will deﬁnitely continue to use Quizlet in the future. I have also started
using it to help me learn other areas of my medicine degree.”
•“Quizlet has revolutionised the way I learn vocabulary.”

References
• Casserly, C.M., Smith, MS.S, 2008. Revolutionizing education through innovation: Can openness transform
teaching and learning? In: Iiyoshi, T. & Kumar V. (eds), 2008. The collective advancement of Eduction through
Open Technology, Open Content and Open Knowledge. Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.
• Couros, A., 2011. Why networked learning matters. Education in a Changing Environment (ECE) 6th International
Conference, Creativity and Engagement in Higher Education, 6-8 July 2011, University of Salford, Greater
Manchester, UK.
• Craig, D.V., 2011. Encouraging Participatory Culture and Language Learning: Assisting ELLs in Becoming Part of
the Digital Youth. In: TNTESOL Journal, 4(1) pp. 84-93.
• Kop, R., Hill, A., 2008. Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? In: International Review
of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3) [Online]. Accessible at: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/
article/viewArticle/523 [accessed 27th June 2013].
• Martin, A., Madigan, D. (eds), 2006. Digital Literacies for Learning. London: Facet publishing.
• Nation, I.S.P., 2001. Learning Vocabulary in Another Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge Applied Linguistics.
• Siemens, G., 2005. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. In: International journal instructional
technology and distance learning, 2(1) [Online]. Accessible at: http://itdl.org/journal/jan_05/index.htm [accessed
27th June 2013].

Group activity 2 (see handout)
In your groups, discuss the following questions and statements:
1. What is the place of vocabulary learning in LSP?
2. Can you cite examples of integration of mobile learning in language teaching?
Have you used it yourself?
3. Can you think of ways to expand or improve on the proposed setup?
4. Can you suggest different ways of encouraging the creation of student-
generated materials?

Thank you very much
Benoît Guilbaud
b.guilbaud@sussex.ac.uk
@benguilbaud

Teaching practice in LSP and beyond

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