teaching on the telephone

8/14/2019 Teaching on the Telephone

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ELECTRONIC EDUCATION

Teaching on the TelephoneYour class is only a conference call away.

ROBERT J DICKEY describes how heestablished a course for long distancelearners in South Korea.

During the Fall semester of 1997, ten senior students atMiryang University, South Korea, left school aftermidterm exams to start work in other cities. These seniors were studying English Conversation with theauthor, who was unwilling to allow them to finish their

studies prior to the end of the semester.My decision to teach these students via telephone was made withoutreference to published research. Follo wing the announcement of theteleconferencing sessions, I surveyed the literature for telephonic foreign language instruction, and found no information . Research of thissort continued through the months following the course. In addition,queries were posted on electronic discussion lists and an extensiveinternet search was conducted throughout the instructional periodand beyond. A response from my inquiry to Stan Zenor, ExecutiveDirector of the Association for Educational Communications andTechnology, was revealing. Sounds like you have been doing dis-

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tanc e learning at almos t it's most basic level. I really don'tknow of anyone else who has conducted a class in this man-

ner, although t must have happened some place at some timeI just don't have any idea where to suggest you look.Studies have been conducted supporting teleconferencing invarious fields of study, often concurrent with various forms of

live video presentation: none were found specific to the efficacy of communicative-language instruction. umerous leadswere tracked , yet no current instructional programs in foreignlanguages via telephone were found. Those who had beeninvolved in telephonic language instruction were unable toprovide data, or no longer had documentation for programslong-since terminated. Others had done only teletutoringcourses, not group instruction.The telephon e group continued with the same course work-book used with all English Conversation courses . This course



Figure 2 Listening Comprehension GradeDistribution

Listening Comprehen sion ( U )'

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rrnWooa Tests

L_ p h o n e • T ~ O f l i i l

The listening comprehension exam L / C)indicates a strength of the teleconferencingenvironment. The arithmetic mean andmedian for the two groups were roughlythe same, and the telephone group didmuch better in the first quintile, outscoringthe traditional group, and reaching .819 ofthe coursewide median score. The separation between the groups in the high quintiledecreased from the midterm's .477 to only.882. Figure 2 shows that in the third quintile , the scores overlapped. Figure 3 over

lays these plots (midterm scores x .667 toequate scores).Figure 3 Midterm I LI Plot Comparison

Figure 4 displays that the telephonic language-learning environment is not a totalsuccess. In the interview exam, the lowesttwo scores of the two groups were identi

cal. All scores in both high quintiles werethe maximum score of 20. I t is the third andfourth quintiles where there is apparentdivergence between the plots of Figures 2and 4, Figure 5 overlays these plots(midterm scores x .667 to equate scores).

Figure 4 Interview Grade Distribution

Mkttenn / U C I

]________ ~ : ~ · · _ · o __ ·__ Ilndivid.J:atTMtf;

~ i d Tel. o Mid. Trad.V C Tel. • VCTrad.

There are a number of terms used by various writerswith overlapping definitions when discussing teachingvia the telephone. Telephone conference-call will bedefined as using an existing public telephone systemto allow participants to communicate with a gr oup offellow participants, using their personal telephones,via a ''telephone bridge". This has been sometimesidentified as " POTS " (the Plain Old TelephoneSystem). This bridge may be provided through thepublic telephone system, a private communicationsbusiness, a corporate or university telephone system,or other telephone merging systems (including hold-

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ELECTRONIC EDUCATIONFigure 5 Midterm I Interview Plot Comparison

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Midtemt / lnterwtew Soar •mldt.rms • r;tllSl:ed to - 20)

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o Mid.Tr.d,• ln t. -v. Trlld

From the students' perspective, the "telephone class" was a success: 87.5% of therespondents voiced approval in terms ofusefulness, 85.7 % said they enjoyed thecourse, and 75% thought the course shouldbe repeated for other students.An important consideration when analyz

attention is required to minimize lexicalchallenge. More coursebook illustrationswould assist greatly in this area. In addition, each discussion item, each sentence,needs to be identifiable, so that studentscan find it easily . Numbering everythingwould be one solution.Problems of confidence are exacerbatedover the telephone, where students can'tjust lean over a desk to help each other.Simplified activities need to be developedfor troublesome content areas, to reflect thisweakened student-support system.Teacher-centered activities with simple andcomplete materials for the students, such as

ing the test data iswhether the telephonegroup students weremore motivated undera quasi-tutorial environment. The specialcircumstances of this

small group (generally6-9 students each session) allowed a different type of instructorstudent interaction during the instructionalperiod. On the otherhand, there was virtually no student-instructorcontact before or afterthe instructional periodeach day. This questionis left unanswered inthis study, but it would

seem a likely benefit ofsmaller-group instruction under the teleconferencing environment.Of course, were the traditional classroom to

TABLE 1 TEST RESULTSGroup Test Mean Averages

MidtermListening ExamInterview

Telephone10.70

11.6010.00

Traditional15.94

.0614.13

Tel/Trad.6771.049.708

Group Test Medians

MidtermTelephone

12.0Traditional13 .5

Tel/Trad.9111.000.591

Listening ExamInterview

11.09.0

11.015.5

Group Test First Quintile ("Bottom 20%")


Telephone Traditional5.5 4.679.0 6.04.3 5.33

Tel/Trad1. 178

1.500.812

Group Test High Quintile ("Top 20%")


contain a similar number of students, thosestudents' motivational levels might increasecomparably. More advanced planningwould allow a significant change in instructional materials to improve the quality ofdiscussions. This instructor generallyprefers not to use a bilingual approach forvocabulary issues, utilizing instead an

active visual presentation model; more

DEFINITION OF TERMS

ing several telephone handsets close together ). Fourforms of teaching via the telephone have been identified by one set of authors: telelecture , where an outside expert "ente rs" a formal classroom via telephone; teleteaching, which allows a homebound person to attend via speakerphone in the classroom ;teletutoring, for a tutor to provide one-to-one (orsmall group) teaching to student(s) who are studyingseparately from a formal classroom; telephone-basedinstruction, where a teacher instructs a group of geo-graphically dispar ate students. Telephone-basedinstruction is the form utilized in the course discussed

Telephone13.515 .020.0

Traditional28 .33

17.020.0

Tel/Trad.477.8821.000

"Past-tense Bingo," were generally successful. Group discussion activities were generally not very effective, due to the students'lack of consideration to the technologicallimitations of basic telephone service: onlyone voice can be transmitted at a time . Ateleconferencing guide should be madeavailable to students prior to the course, to

facilitate more active group discussions.

here. Audio-conferencing may include telephone conference-calls, satellite communications systems, anddedicated communications systems. Teleconferencingindicates conferencing via some sort of telecommunications, which may include all of the above , as well asone-way or two-way radio (eg: shortw ·ave radio) ortelevision broadcasts, on-line ( . ive" >computer communications which may include text, audio, andvideo, viewing of videotapes or television with simultaneous audio communication under one of the audioconferencing modes listed abo.-e , or video conferencesvia microwa.-e or satellite links.



all-waiting and other adrnnced telehone services are a hindrance. t is frusating that the instructor can only do onen-one work at the end of the session, soh a t students ha\ 'e little chance to practiceheir re paired language pronuncia tion.

university with a high-tech communic aon s system could arrange for studen ts to

all in for a teleconference course,wi t

h theniversity operator or instructor thenmatching up calls for pair-work, whichhe instructor could monitor, and the classould be recon vened. Only in such annvironment could a teleconfere ncingnglish Con versation class be considereds a full-fledged replacement for a tradional course. One promising applicationould be in continuing ed ucation ofnglish conversation for public school

eachers . A large number of the reportsublished in the field of distance-le arningere based on continuing education for

rofessionals. Many Korean public schooleac hers have a strong knowledg e-base innglish, but little opportunity to practicepeaking and listening. Small groups ofachers could conference, and discuss

opics of interest , with or without thevolvement of a tutor who is more procient in spoken English. This would beffective in groups who have existing ties.

Author's Note: Robert J. Uickey was a memberf the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Miryang NationalSan-up) University, in Miryang, Kyungna m, S.orea at the time of this project. He is now a mem

er of the English Deparment in the School oforeign Languages & Tourism at Kyongjuniversity, in Kyongju, Kyongbuk , S. Korea. The

utho r wishes to tha nk Korea Telecom's Dial 101 .

ELECTRONIC EDUCATION

ll the news fit to browseNEWSPAPERreading - a convenient studentcentered activity- h a s becomeeven easier,thanks to the Net.No morenewsprint on

• • your fingers. No• more articles that

do n ' t fit on the copy machine . No more fearof copyright infringement.And we're not talking just your local paper;we're talking thousands of U.S. and foreignnewspapers on the web. Of course, students will immediately head for their ownhometown newspaper in their native language. But to keep everyone on track andin English, start the search with the KidonMedia List of English language newspapersboth foreign and domestic (see box overleaf).Once your students find the English editionof their hometown newspaper, have themexploit it. Make it their assignment to writea summary of an event back home. Haveeach student make an oral presentation followed by a Q&A from the other students.The entire class can write an opinion paperon how the event(s) were interpreted . Thestudents could also create their own web

newspaper highlighting the events chosenby the class with the event abstracts andlinks to other articles on the events.This activity could be refocused so that stu-

dents read any foreign newspaper to get alocal reaction to an international event. Aneasy way to research a news article is to usemy favorite web metasearch engine(www.dogpile .com) .. (see ALR Jan / Feb 99pp. 35-36 for a discussion of SearchEngines .) Type in the subject (e.g.,U ganda+tourist+gor illa), click onNewswires below the subject line, and dogpile will search through the newswires toget you the latest stories on gorilla trekkingin Uganda. As a bonus , the research resultswill lead you to the web sites of major newsorganizations like Associated Press,Reuters , Washington Post, BBC, CNN, andothers . Bookmark these sites for future reference.Running out of things to do?Turn your students into web page mediacritics . Let them compare and contrast thequantity and quality of the stories and services on the web pages of foreign newspapers. Have them design a class newspapersite with the best features of the foreignnewspaper sites they visited.The features on newspaper web sites aremore varied than in their print counterpartsand often include cultural information .The Tehran Times goes on the defensive witha photo section on Iranian women.(http: / /w w w .salamiran.org/Women/).The Japan Times has a section on Festivals,

Museums and Galleries which is a perfect

Continued overleaf

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teaching on the telephone

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