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The Future of Language Learning?

Speakers: Scott Thornbury & Gavin Dudeney
Date: Wednesday 9 February 2000

Speaker: Scott Thornbury
Scott Thornbury works at International House, Barcelona and has taught, trained teachers, and given conference presentations in many parts of the world. He is the author of two books about grammar teaching: About Language (CUP) and How to Teach Grammar (Longman). He also co-authored a task-based course for Spanish secondary schools (Over to Us!, Longman). At present he is writing materials for IH Netlanguages.

Speaker: Gavin Dudeney
Gavin leads the team of web designers, responsible for the design and implementation of Netlanguages, the online language course. He has also set up Internet centres and services for schools in Australia, Portugal, Brazil and England. With Robert Campbell he set up and maintains its-online, one of the most popular EFL sites. Later this year CUP publishes his first book on using the Internet in the classroom.

Topic: The Furure of Language Learning

With the growing number of English courses appearing on the Internet, has the future of language learning arrived? In this moderated chat, you can talk to the people who have created an online course, find out how such a course works, and discuss the pros and cons of learning a language online.

MODERATOR> Welcome to the first richmondpark chat of 2000! We have Scott Thornbury and Gavin Dudeney with us this evening. Where are you joining us from?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> I'm in Net Languages in front of two computers!

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> I'm here at Netlanguages too - in another room.

MODERATOR> Can you tell us a little about the history of Net Languages? How did it all start?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> It started more or less in response to fierce competition from 'Multimedia Schools'. We wanted to create a truly portable product with the 'quality stamp' of IH.

MODERATOR> How long did it take to set up, Scott?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Well there was about a year's planning before we got the first level of the course up and running. As you can imagine - it was a major challenge in terms of both the writing and the design of the programs.

MODERATOR> At what stage is it now?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> We have four levels up-and-running and another one in preparation. At the moment we have the following: Elementary, Lower Intermediate, Upper Int and Advanced.

MODERATOR> Here's a question from Brazil . . .

cccppp> How do you deal with speaking development on an online course?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> This was one of the major challenges . . . the speaking I mean, and the way we addressed it was by including a pronunciation section in each unit where the students has the option of recording him/herself and sending the recording as a voicemail message. But the main speaking component is the telephone tutorial. Each student may have a 20-30 min telephone chat with their tutor at each of the ten units of the course. This adds up to nearly 5 hours speaking which is more than most students get in normal classes - with their teacher I mean.

cccppp> do you plan to use either audio or video conferencing at some stage?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> We use audio conferencing with Netmeeting for the tutorials, but there isn't enough 'global bandwidth' for video yet.

MODERATOR> I guess that leads on to XaviB's question . . .

xaviB> Have you had many technical difficulties?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Gavin again!

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Well, we have had a lot of problems with teachers who aren't used to using computers much, but the type of person who signs up for a course like this is usually quite Internet savvy, so we've had relatively few with our students so far. The odd glitch but nothing major.

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> There's very little that you have to know about computers to do the language exercises - clicking and dragging, typing etc.

MODERATOR> OK. Let's move on to a question from Hans in Germany.

Hans> Will this kind of teaching take over from the classroom teacher do you think?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> This one is for Scott , I think...

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Absolutely not. It can complement classroom teaching nicely by providing students with the opportunity to continue their studies outside the classroom and it also means that people who have busy schedules can keep up with their English but there is no substitute for the interaction you get in a real classroom. However, I'd like to add one thing... I think that courses like ours may help to take a lot of the "spade work" out of classroom learning and free the classroom for the stuff that it is really good for i.e. REAL interaction about REAL things. So I think in the long term, teachers may need to re-think their approach - less grammar -more speaking.

Hans> Good. That sounds really positive.

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> You're welcome

cccppp> what sort of training do you offer teachers who are going to teach on-line courses?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Well, we offer training in person, but we've devised a comprehensive handbook for prospective teachers which goes into a lot of detail. It's worth bearing in mind that the learning curve for the Internet is not huge when you compare it to other delivery methods such as CDROMs which change their approach all the time. Where's the Print button, etc?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> It helps if teachers have a background in distance training, or in telephone teaching, or at least in exam classes, because there is quite a lot of written work to mark.

cccppp> Do you feel that in the next ten years learners are going to migrate from face-to-face to on-line courses?

MODERATOR> Anyone?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Well, we hope SOME of them migrate - especially to us but as I said before, I think there is room for both modes of instruction and there are also learners for whom distance training is simply not suitable. I'm thinking about certain learner types who depend on teachers and learners with weak motivation and learners at very low levels.

MODERATOR> What about children? Hans asks the following . . .

Hans> How will children take to this kind of teaching?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Scott?

Hans> Will you have materials for children in the future?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Well, one recent development is that the local education authority here in Catalonia is going to be offering our course as a self-access option in secondary schools here ... and that's the "adult" course... but eventually we will have to start thinking about the feasibility of a younger learners version which raises all sorts of interesting questions - both pedagogical and technical.

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Here's a nice soundbite: "the children of today are the wired generation of tomorrow"!

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> The trouble is, they are very into gamey type things, aren't they? And we're trying to get away from the game-show approach to language teaching.

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> They will be much better prepared and more susceptible to online delivery

cccppp> Are your on-line teachers all based in Spain or spread over the world?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Gavin's typing feverishly

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> we have teachers spread around the globe at the moment giving us good coverage across the time zones and also the excitement of a multi-cultural staff - interesting scenario.

cccppp> how do teachers apply?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> At the moment they are appointed by the school that is the local licence holder. To run the course you apply for a licence from us and appoint your tutors locally. Licence holders must meet certain conditions of educational excellence, including having qualified staff.

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> BUT tutors can end up tutoring someone over the other side of the globe!

xaviB> How is the relationship with distance students different?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> The relationship is very interesting - we maintain contact regularly by email and that creates a kind of intimacy, if that's not too strong a word and then there's the phone tutorial. Also each student has the option of posting a "student profile" in the Study Room which other students and tutors can consult including a photo; tutors do the same so in fact you can get a fairly good idea of each other right from the start... Personally, I was worried about this aspect of things - the distance - but I've found the relationship you build up to be one of the best things about it. It's really like one-to-one teaching, but a little more relaxed.

Hans> What kind of questions do the students ask by email?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Well, we get some technical enquiries, but mostly it's to do with the course. Scott?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Yes, - and that's a potential problem, since it can take quite a lot of the tutor's time. You get quite a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about the corrections to written work and also, because it's early days, some of the materials are less transparent than we would like them to be but the nice thing is, being an electronic medium, they're relatively easy to change - if they're too difficult for example.

karl> Actually, speaking of the relationship tutors can build up with students, I am a tutor and a student of mine sent me a ticket to go to the opera later on this year!

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> I was going to mention that, but I thought that everyone might want one!

PM MODERATOR> Hans is back with another question . . .

Hans> What about other languages? Will it be available to learn German?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> We're working on a Spanish course at the moment. We have two levels already written, but now we have to find the time to turn the material into webpages. It takes a long time :-)

Hans> Is this method very different really from multimedia method?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Yes it is! We started from the idea that the most important part should be the tutor-student relationship. The tutors know the students and the material incredibly well. In most multimedia centres the tutors don't use the teaching material per se but simply meet students to solve problems. It's a different approach totally. Scott?

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> Also, what i know about these centres suggests that there is a lot of listening and repeating - that it's very mechanical, whereas we have designed exercises and tasks that really make the students think.

Meretricious> Do you have chats like this at Net Languages?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> Yes, we use the same system to have chats with groups of students and, on occasion one to one situations for solving problems. We have found this software particularly easy to use: quick, clear, etc.

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> I have a little theory that you could probably get a lot of mileage out of doing chat alone and nothing else so long as there was someone giving you a bit of feedback - in the form of correction. Yet to be proved.

Hans> Is this the virtual school idea then?

SPEAKER_Gavin_Dudeney> The Virtual School builds upon the Internet idea of 'community". The idea is to give people a familiar environment in which to work and to provide extra services, thus making the online learning experience more complete.

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> So, we have all the facilities you would find in most language schools... a cafe where students can chat... a library where they can consult references etc... a teachers room where they can go and bother their long.-suffering tutors ... and so on.

MODERATOR> Well, we're reaching the end of the chat. Any final questions from the chat room?

karl> What's the coffee like in the cafe?!

SPEAKER_Scott_Thornbury> virtually tasteless

MODERATOR> You've answered that question before! Well, many thanks to Scott and Gavin for joining us. This is the first time we've done a chat with 2 speakers! And thanks to those of you who battled the weather and Internet conditions to join us.