CALL is penetrating the second language instruction field. New machines and systems, new forms of data, new forms of behavior, and new paradigms are emerging in great numbers, helter skelter it seems, not an orchestrated emergence. Accompanying these new entities is a new lexicon: chat, MOO, synchronous/asynchronous, the list grows. Some of the terms are old ones in new significations: cut and paste, tutor, management. Some are seemingly new expressions, but the core of what they signify is not new. The potential for confusion is enormous. In order to situate new CALL technology within one's view of an already complex educational scenario, it is beneficial to make a wide examination of a new phenomenon, using simple analytical tools, preferably graphical ones.

1. A case in point: push technology for CALL

Consider the term 'push technology.' At the 2002 JALTCALL conference in Hiroshima in May, researchers Thornton and Houser (2002) reported their study in which Japanese university students received 3 English mailings per day on their cellular phones. Each mailing consisted of a one-paragraph reading, and over a two-week period the readings contained repeated use of ten new vocabulary items. The researchers referred to this as 'push technology' for language education.

Vocabulary acquisition with 'push' delivery was reported to have been numerically superior to that of control groups which received their input as hard copy or by world wide web 'pull' delivery (where the learners had to actively locate and use their study materials).

2. Investigate the technology broadly

Information technology 'push' has been with us in the IT world for some time now, and has appeared in a number of forms. In 1997 "push technology," also known as webcasting, was common in two forms. One rather basic form of automatic delivery of data or news was by means of email and listservs. A more complex system for pushing news was Pointcast, which delivered news to an interactive screensaver installed in the user's computer. The other basic form of automatic delivery, used primarily by institutions and corporations, allowed the user to create customized data profiles and, rather than searching the Internet or their own corporate intranet, be informed by a webcast program when new data of the specified type had appeared. A third major use of push appeared later when major software companies including Microsoft began to use Marimba's Castanet application to automatically update users' software.

Charny (2002) reports that the above incarnation of push technology did not survive the test of time, though it is noted here that such applications are still widely used in the corporate sphere, particularly in intranets. Charny points to new uses of the push concept in new web-capable cellular phones, where receiving pushed content is much easier than web surfing by means of tiny telephone keyboards, but notes that this push phenomenon may be short lived, as new cell phone interfaces are making text input easier.

There are other forms of IT push, such as pop-up boxes in our internet browsers, unsolicited email, and mailing lists. Often we can elect to receive mailings of internet magazines and discussion groups, which saves the effort of remembering to check the status of a site and going there to look for new entries (note the parallel between subscribing to a paper magazine vs. going to the library to read it).

Some academic publications are pushing content too, sending subscribers their new issues. Recently, however, a number of push service journals such as First Monday and Language Learning and Technology are evolving away from sending documents by email, now prompting readers by email to go to the publication web site and download a pdf file of the latest edition, which looks to be more pull than push.

However, the concept of pushing information is not a new one: it was present in the old town crier, the church bells' tolling of the hour, the home delivery of the daily newspaper, and notably, the classroom lesson. It is true that information technology (IT) developments have now opened up new windows for information push, but IT push is new not for its individual delivery but for its immediacy, ubiquity and urgency (the ringing purse and the vibrating pocket).

Push is an available tool for CALL, but is has long been perhaps the dominant mode in traditional classroom scenarios (handouts, dictations, activities). From the point of view of the learner and how the learner learns (which we don't know, but can assume much about), push by a teacher differs in many ways from push by a machine, particularly if the machine is in the user's hands (or handbag) 24 hours a day.

3. Technology, methodology, or simply phenomenon?

The language teacher, the curriculum coordinator, the CALL designer all face choices clothed in a complex array of terms and concepts surrounding the teaching/learning of a second language. CALL technology is new and constantly developing; the traditional teacher-learner scenario appears dull by comparison. Classroom and language lab teaching involve long-term, at times painfully slow processes. We suspect that the same must be true of learning through CALL, but CALL is far from ubiquitous: arguably almost no second language learners in the world are learning through CALL alone.

Classroom practitioners know that the traditional approach to second language instruction is richly varied and subtle in its manifestation. Fears are expressed that CALL cannot match that richness and subtleness. Yet there are few conceptual tools available for simple yet valid consideration of the differences between the teacher led and CALL scenarios.

Thus the need for a broad taking of inventory. CALL has its technology: hardware, software and educational packages. More importantly, though perhaps less dramatic, teachers have a set of devices accumulated over centuries, and for the most part CALL technology constitutes new means of using old devices.

Continuing with the example of the push phenomenon, Figure 1 illustrates one simple tool for taking inventory. In the left half of the table are the devices which language teachers have used for decades, in some cases for centuries. Some entries are technological, but have pre-IT equivalents. The distinction between teacher owned and learner owned devices is rather arbitrary, but is intended to suggest a fruitful area for deliberation. In the right half of the table are technology items which are applicable to the use of the teacher devices. In some cases the technology items enhance the function of the teacher devices, as is the case with pushed input, chats and MOOs.

It is interesting to note that technology items are much less often teacher owned than are teacher devices. This is not to say that teacher ownership is being supplanted by technological developments; rather, much of teacher owned teacher device is being systemically (not systematically) embodied in CALL technology.

4. Technology prompts reflection on practice

CALL technology can be used to enact and empower teacher device, but as well, new notions embodied in the form or power of the technology can feed back into considerations of the efficacy of those devices, and into explorations of other possible devices. For example, the case of technology being used to push text to learners' cell phones prompts the observation that depending on the individual learner and her situation, pushed text will be

1. awaited input

2. desired input

3. a reminder of an intention

4. a remotivator

5. a reminder of feelings of inadequacy

6. a trigger for frustration

7. an interruption

and more.

This in turn prompts a number of learner related questions, including:

1. How effective is pushing as a prompt to the learner?

2. Do learners usually respond promptly to cell phone push, or do they delay?

3. What times in the day are best for pushing?

4. Does a learner have 'pushable moments'?

5. Are some learners more pushable than others? Do some react negatively?

6. How does pushability correlate with learning styles?

7. Does large volume push create cognitive overload as suggested by Kirsh (2000)?

5. Presence rather than push

The notion of pushing information may well be a minor aspect of the notion of 'learning activity readiness', or perhaps 'processing urgency,' the moment the L2 learner is ready, even eager, for input or processing experience. The great popularity of electronic bilingual dictionaries is a case in point; whereas paging about in a paper dictionary is so time consuming and distracting as to be an obstacle, the quick and textured search in an electronic dictionary is positively habit forming.

This gives rise to the observation that push applications lie along a spectrum (perhaps a continuum) of what may be called presence, as illustrated in Figure 2:

 

Figure 2. The spectrum of presence in language input

 

1. Available data (minimally present) which exists somewhere.

2. Ready data (more present) which is known to the learner.

3. Spring loaded data (instantly accessible)

4. Pushed data: access is imposed, though intake is not.

5. Constantly fed data (maximally present): intake is imposed.

An example of spring loaded data is gurunet, which used to be a downloadable freeware (it's now a commercial product owned by Atomica) which allowed PC users to option click on a word in a file or on a web page and automatically get a window with the Encyclopedia Britannica entry for that word. Constant feed data could take the form of a radio transmitter implanted in the learner's jawbone being used to feed a constant, perhaps subliminal stream of second language input (sound, graphic, dream-like immersive environment) to the learner's subconscious.

This could take a more articulate form once more is known about the brain; consider this recent Kyodo news service item:

Japan researchers identify brain language centers
TOKYO Aug. 1, 2002 Kyodo - A group of Japanese researchers has identified specific parts of the brain it says are responsible for grammar and vocabulary, according to the latest issue of U.S. neuroscience journal Neuron, to be released Thursday. The team, led by Kuniyoshi Sakai, assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, says a specific part of Broca's area in the frontal cortex is responsible for grammar, while a different part manages vocabulary.

 

The ELT or CALL practitioner will likely find the Kyodo bulletin more accessible than the Neuron journal, and similarly, a simple, somewhat superficial graphical device can be helpful in the attempt to situate a set of concepts. For example, in an examination of the learner's perception of tasks, it is useful to take up the parameters of presence and delayability. Figure 3 shows a graphical tool which does that in a simple way. To maintain simplicity (now called low cognitive load), entries have been restricted.

Figure 3. Teacher devices in terms of presence and urgency

6. Digitization of teacher device: fresh insights

Tanguay (1997) claims that, "...almost everything can be digitized, and what can be digitized will be digitized." If Tanguay is correct, everything teachable/learnable will soon be digitized. There is considerable research effort in this direction (see Borin (2002)) on knowledge objects and metadata. We will soon, then, become 'cyberlearners,' wired 24/7 to our 'personal learning assistants' (PLAs) in such a way that our PLAs will know when we are 'pushable' or 'push ready,' having our 'pushable moment' (read teachable moment in the 1970s classroom). Our PLA will also know what we have already taken in: vocabulary, structures, idioms, rhetorical devices; and what we should be acquiring next, just as now a good human teacher knows about her students. Work is being done in this direction, for example by Kort and Reilly (2001).

Clearly push will suit some learners better than others. For considerations of pushability, it may be useful to characterize learners in terms of motivation, such as:

1. Victim learners (non-motivated, forced) (ESL/EFL as torture)

2. Witting learners (forced) (Let's get this over with)

3. Witting learners (motivated) (It hurts but I need it)

4. Willing learners (This is great) (Let me see how well I can do this)

How is pushable different from teachable? "Teacher" has suffered various definitions, including mentor, master/apprentice, one-way transmitter of information/data/knowledge, engager in out-drawing dialogue, and presenter of behavioral example. The phenomenon of 'pushing' existed in teaching practice long before the emergence of IT, which suggests that the same questions asked here about push with IT might usefully be asked about the corresponding aspects of a teacher's classroom practice.

Resources

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