I’m pleased to announce yet another Flash Interactive Multimedia Learning Application to add to the suite of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) software for English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).

What is a C-Test?

A C-Test is a type of language test in which learners read a brief paragraph in the target language. The first two sentences are left intact. Thereafter, every other word is left intact but for each alternate word, only the first half of the word is written and the second half is represented by a blank space, e.g. every oth _ _ _ word i_ left int _ _ _. Learners’ ability to fill in the blank spaces indicates their language proficiency according to the reading difficulty of the paragraph used in the test.

How good are C-Tests at determining learners’ language proficiency?

Christine Klein-Braley published a paper titled Theory of C-Test Processing in 1996. In her introduction she wrote:

In virtually all the studies thus far reported, the C-Tests have been shown to be highly reliable, with alpha coefficients very often higher that .9, and to have high correlations with whatever other measure was used to represent language proficiency: teacher ratings or judgements, self-assessment procedures, and other language tests and language testing procedures. These validity coefficients have regularly reached .7 and higher. Such high validity coefficients are unusual for any type of test.

Esmat Babaii and Hasan Ansary published a research paper at Shiraz University in Tehran on an objective evaluation of the C-Test.

What’s different in this version?

Whereas the original version of the C-Test was paper-based and simply put an underscore for each missing letter of the words, e.g. mis _ _ _ _, this version uses a “traffic light” interactive colour coding feedback system which guides learners towards the correct answer, thereby preventing it from becoming a spelling test. It’s also particularly easy to deploy C-Tests using this application since all it needs is a paragraph of text in order to generate the test. It accepts paragraph text as XML files or as FlashVars, both of which can be written using a free text editor, through the Moodle SWF Activity Module settings wizard. The C-Test application sends the overall time taken and grade to Moodle’s grade book.

What’s next?

I am currently in the process of creating a new Moodle course for the Multimedia Interactive Learning Applications (MILAs). This course will include working examples, documentation and tutorials. Watch this blog for further announcements.

Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching

By Jeff Stanford

522 pages

Moodle is the world’s most popular and widely used open source learning management system (LMS) in the world today with over 45,000 registered sites, 32 million users, 3 million courses in over 200 countries in 75 languages. In his book, Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching, Jeff Stanford introduces Moodle as an easy to use, highly adaptable and very effective platform for teaching second languages.

What is it?

First an foremost, Moodle 1.9 for Second Language Teaching is an instruction manual and whether you’re new to Moodle or not, in my opinion, Jeff Stanford has done an excellent job with it. It cuts right to the chase with plenty of examples, scenarios, clear, concise explanations and step by step instructions and illustrations. It’s laid out in practical mini tutorials, organised into the following chapters:

1. What does Moodle offer language teachers?
2. Getting started with Moodle
3. Vocabulary Activities
4. Speaking Activities
5. Grammar Activities
6. Reading Activities
7. Writing Activities
8. Listening Activities
9. Assessment
10. Extended Activities

Methodology

The book faithfully follows the recommendations outlined by Professor Jack C. Richards in his paper, Communicative Language Teaching Today [pdf]. Most of the activities are learner centred and designed to develop learner autonomy. It leans heavily towards collaborative and project based learning, for example, using the Glossary module for learners to create their own class dictionaries and using the Wiki module for similar formal group learning activities. He also describes techniques to encourage self and peer assessment to further increase learner independence and a stronger sense of participation, ownership and belonging. In other words, the techniques described in this manual are highly motivating. To quote Barbara Gross Davis in her book, Tools for Teaching (Jossey Bass 2009);

“Researchers report that, regardless of the subject matter, students working in small groups tend to learn more and demonstrate better retention than students taught in other instructional formats. Students who work in groups also appear more satisfied with their classes, and group work provides a sense of shared purpose that can increase morale and motivation. In addition, group work introduces students to the insights, values, and world views of their peers, and it prepares students for life after school, when many will be working in teams.”

Who is it aimed at?

If you are a DoS, Academic Director, Head of Faculty or a teacher who is interested in learning how to leverage the powerful tools for learning available in the Web 2.0 environment, this book is an excellent starting point. It gets you up and running in no time, whatever your previous experience of using web based learning tools might be. The format is open and modular so that you can adopt Moodle 1.9 as a platform for your elearning requirements in steps and at a pace that is comfortable and practical for your organisation and your learners.

About Jeff Stanford

Jeff Stanford is an Associate tutor in Applied Linguistics for the University of Leicester and a teacher trainer on Cambridge ESOL courses. He also does training consultancy work for organizations such as Anglia Assessment, Fintra, Pearson, and the British Council.

His website: http://moodleflair.com/

I’m pleased to announce the full public release of the SWF Activity Module for Moodle 1.9. It’s no longer in beta phase and is safe to install in public Moodle 1.9 installations.

Followers of this blog and my elearning projects will be well aware of the SWF Activity Module and what it does. If you’re new to this site, then check out the project home site on Google Code (See the link at the end of this article).

I’ve tested the module extensively and addressed all reported bugs. I’ve also had invaluable feedback from learners, teachers and developers that has shaped the development of the module since its conception. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to making this module a success.

Calling all Flash developers and designers…

One of my main goals from the start was to make the SWF Activity Module as useful, flexible and compatible as possible, particularly for deploying 3rd party Flash learning applications and to encourage Flash developers to create learning applications for Moodle 1.9. Judging by the results of Google Analytics and feedback from developers who have tried the module, uptake has come from far and wide.

And this is where I’d like some more feedback from people who are already using the SWF Activity Module. I’ve created a Showcase wiki page on the module project site where developers can showcase their Flash learning applications that can be deployed with the SWF Activity Module. Developers and organisations can contact me directly or post their entries in the comments section of the Showcase wiki page. I’ll endeavour to keep the Showcase page links up to date so that elearning organisations can quickly and easily find developers who can supply them with the Flash learning applications that they need. It’ll also help me to develop future enhancements to the SWF Activity Module if I can see how people are using it.

Calling all Moodle developers…

If you have used the SWF Activity Module and have made any special modifications to the source code, I’d love to see what you’ve done with it. If you’ve made some changes that would benefit other users, with your consent, I’ll include those in future versions of the module. Also, if any developers are interesting in contributing to the project and helping me out with it, I’d love to hear from you. I’m very keen for this to become a group project with a wide variety of interests and support.

For details about the SWF Activity Module, what it does, how it works, downloads, installation instructions and source code, please see the project home page.

Installing a Learning Management System (LMS), creating on-line learning resources and training your tutors and administrative staff to use it is a big commitment for any teaching organisation. So why do it? What are the benefits? Here is a quick run down of what I think are the top nine reasons to use an LMS. Please note that they are in no particular order or importance.

1. Reduces photocopying

2. Tutors spend less time on admin and more time teaching

3. Learners can catch up with missed classes much more quickly and easily

4. Tutors can use multimedia as learning resources far more easily and cheaply

5. It makes continuous assessment a real, practical option

6. Learners always have access to their grades, attendance and participation

7. Learners develop better communication skills

8. It encourages learner independence and better problem solving skills

9. LMSs promote the social constructivist model of learning

Useful links

I’ve just completed a new Flash learning application aimed at EFL/ESL learners and teachers which I believe is a good solution to many of the problems facing those who want to use phonetics in teaching English as a foreign or second language.

What does it do?

It can display any number of phonetic symbols which appear in groups as coloured buttons (see illustration).  When users click on one of the symbol buttons, a list of example words appears with the phonetic spelling and a play button next to each one so that they can listen to audio recordings of the example words.

The example on my Moodle deploys the symbols in a typical arrangement. They’re in columns of corresponding short and long vowels, dipthongs, corresponding voiced and unvoiced consonants and finally the remaining consonants.  By editing an external XML file, you can arrange and group the set or subsets of the phonetic symbols any way you like. For example, the past simple of regular verbs ending in /-id/, /-d/ and /-t/.

Why is it an advantage to make it dynamic?

Traditional phonetic charts (also known as phonemic charts) are fixed, static items that you cannot change. In most English courses, learners are presented with a single, very general, one-size-fits-all chart for the entire course. Such charts typically have a small, fixed set of vocabulary for learners to view and listen to and, more often than not, it bears no or little relation to the vocabulary being studied at any particular moment in the course. See this example on Oxford University Press’  New English File site or this example on the British Council’s BBC Teaching English site.

Making any Flash web application dynamic gives one very important advantage. Anyone can edit it without having to buy expensive software. In fact, all you need is a text editor and a little familiarity with XML  which is human readable and relatively easy to learn. Any teacher or course content developer can create any number of vocabulary sets and deploy them in Moodle along with the related course materials, giving learners specific pronunciation support for the target language in a particular module, unit or activity. Did I mention that it’s also very easy to correct any typos that you find?

Secondly (the technical bit), the Flash learning application contains no text or audio itself, all of that is loaded externally, making it only 12Kb in size which is less than half the size of the containing Moodle web page (a similar sized photo would be around 50 – 200Kb). This means that it appears almost instantly. The application then loads the words and phonetics as an XML file (XML is the de facto file format for dynamic learning content). The audio files are loaded as and when users play them. Typically, audio files tend to be quite large and so only loading them as required means that the application starts faster and only uses the internet bandwidth that is absolutely necessary – ideal for users with slow or intermittent connections.

How is using Flash an advantage over normal web page based phonetic charts?

Phonetic symbols have always been a bit of a problem on the internet, well actually, text and fonts in general. In order for a web page to be displayed with the correct font, e.g. Times New Roman, that font must be installed on users’ computers. If it isn’t, a substitute font is found automatically. The trouble is that not all fonts contain phonetic characters, in fact very few do, so what works perfectly well on one computer may be unreadable on another if it hasn’t got the correct font installed.

Flash resolves this issue by allowing developers to embed (include) fonts within their Flash applications. This means that the application carries the required fonts with it and will work on any computer regardless of whether it has any fonts installed or not. This is especially important with phonetic characters since so few fonts contain them. Problem solved!

Try the demo:

As always, I’ve deployed a demo of the chart, with 445 example words, on my Moodle demo course (Login as a guest). (Currently not available)