<p><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / ">The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) both in the General Education and Training (GET) and Further Education and Training (FET) bands is viewed as an innovative tool in enhancing a learner-centered approach to teaching and learning.&nbsp / As a result, a number of schools in rural and urban environments in South Africa have been provided with computers and other digital resources to facilitate teaching and learning. This study investigated the use of ICT in the teaching and learning of English First Additional Language (FAL) at Grade 10 level. It set out to discover digital resources and literacies to which teachers and learners were exposed in the English (FAL) classroom, and how these resources were used to enhance learners&rsquo / reading and writing skills. Following a qualitative research design, this study made use of classroom observations and interviews to collect data from teachers and Grade 10 learners. The collected evidence was from a single school which uses Khanya Project ICT materials.&nbsp / The school is located in one of the disadvantaged black townships in Cape Town. The study made use of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory and the constructivist theoretical framework to make sense of classroom interaction and the extent to which ICT and other teaching strategies were used to facilitate acquisition of English language skills, particularly reading and writing. The findings of the study show that there are a number of factors influencing ICT integration in Grade 10 English (FAL).&nbsp / These factors include teachers&rsquo / and learners&rsquo / limited access to ICT and digital literacy.&nbsp / Other factors relate to pedagogy and support in the use of ICT in teaching and learning.&nbsp / All the identified factors indicate that there are a number of barriers to ICT integration in English teaching and learning.&nbsp / The study concludes that ICT use has great potential in providing creativity and innovativeness to facilitate language teaching and learning. Given the lack of adequate ICT resources and under-utilization of ICT resources in disadvantaged schools, there is a need to improve teacher and learner access to ICT, especially in disadvantaged schools.&nbsp / This could be done through monitored support and adequate teacher training and active involvement of higher education institutions through teacher training programmes which should prioritize ICT integration in their curricula.&nbsp / <br type="_moz" /> </span></p>

This dissertation investigates the relationship between Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and language-learning approaches. In this sense, Language Learning Autonomy (LLA) seems to be the most preferred candidate by researchers in order to become the suitable approach in order to make the most out of technology (Blin, 1999; Little, 2001; Littlemore, 2003; The European Directorate General of Education and Culture, 2003; sanz, 2003; Villanueva, 2003). The increasing research on this specific field and the theoretical reflections derived from it over the last decade constitutes the framework of our study. Following previous studies (Beatty, 2003; Chapelle, 2003; Alessi, 2001; Marqués, 1995, 2001; Rushby, 1997; Shin and Wastell, 1998; Blin, 1999; Holliday, 1999; Hoven, 1997, 1999; Murray, 1998; Sanz, 2003), the aim of the present study is to examine to what extent an approach to language learning autonomy from a socioconstructivist perspective can effectively inform the design of a specific language learning package taht promotes both autonomising behaviours and positive attitudes in learners. With these reflections in mind, three aspects underline the present study, namely 1) the need to carry out qualitative studies in order to inform a theoretical framework for CALL development, 2) the need to focus on the relationship between CALL and LLA and 3) the need to examine the "teachibility"of learner autonomy by means of a language learning package designed for this specific purpose. This context motivated the following actions: 1) to design a pilot application based upon autonomising criteria (TADLA: Technology Applied to the Development of Learner Autonomy); 2) to test this design with learners with a specific learner style regarding their learner autonomy degree. And finally 3) to compare the results obtained in the tests of other language learning package (Communicate and Connect, 2003).The results obtained in the case-study confirm that the criteria upon which the design of TADLA is based could be considered the requirements that enable the integration of autonomising strategies within the learning activities. In this sense, attention to learning styles, implementation of authentic materials, the possibility of transfer and a discursive approach among others are suitable criteria for the development of attitudes that could lead to a later development of learner autonomy.

This study investigates the impact of CALL training on in-service language teachers&rsquo / use of CALL-based activities in their classrooms and what factors influence their use of these activities in their classroom. The participants included 35 pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers who took an undergraduate-level elective CALL course (FLE318) offered during the 2008-2009 academic year in the Department of Foreign Language Education at Middle East Technical University and 25 of these participants who started teaching English during the Fall semester in the academic year 2009-2010 at several private and state institutions. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were applied. The journals kept by the participants during and after the training, the lesson plans of micro and macro teaching, the questionnaires given to the participants to determine their perceived computer knowledge, the interview sessions held with the participants&rsquo / on their practices showed that the training provided to the participants helped them infuse a variety of CALL-based materials and tools into their classroom practices. The analyses also indicated that the most paramount factors or issues that affect the infusion of CALL-based materials in language teaching and learning are the school environment, curriculum, and the national exams.

This study investigated beliefs of members of an online Community of Practice (WIA) on the role of the community on professional development, teaching, and on Web 2.0 use. Through the analyses of the questionnaire, it was aimed at finding out the members&rsquo / ideas about the group as an online CoP and benefits of belonging to an online CoP. The data were collected from seventy nine members of the Webheads in Action from various countries by using an online questionnaire. Then, the responses to the multiple choice items were analyzed using PASSW. The data collected from the last section of the questionnairre were analyzed through content analysis and pattern coding. The findings revealed that the members believe that WIA plays an important role in the process of developing multiltiteracies skills and the Web 2.0 tools used in classroom teaching and for professional development. The findings also revealed that the participants believe that being a WIA member leads to motivation, collaboration and discovery. These beliefs are thought to provide insights about the advantages and disadvantages of learning in online CoPs and their effects on the members&rsquo / Web 2.0 use. The findings can also be beneficial for researchers, teacher trainers, and teachers wishing to join CoPs for professional development. They can understand the advantages and disadvantages, and the participation process in more detail. Moreover, these findings can indicate that online CoPs can provide a medium for coping with the increasing amount of information thanks to the recent technological developments, and acquiring new skills.

This study investigated beliefs of members of an online Community of Practice (WIA) on the role of the community on professional development, teaching, and on Web 2.0 use. Through the analyses of the questionnaire, it was aimed at finding out the members&rsquo / ideas about the group as an online CoP and benefits of belonging to an online CoP. The data were collected from seventy nine members of the Webheads in Action from various countries by using an online questionnaire. Then, the responses to the multiple choice items were analyzed using PASSW. The data collected from the last section of the questionnairre were analyzed through content analysis and pattern coding. The findings revealed that the members believe that WIA plays an important role in the process of developing multiltiteracies skills and the Web 2.0 tools used in classroom teaching and for professional development. The findings further revealed that the participants believe that being a WIA member leads to motivation, collaboration and discovery. These beliefs are thought to provide insights about the advantages and disadvantages of learning in online CoPs and their effects on the members&rsquo / Web 2.0 use. The findings can also be beneficial for researchers, teacher trainers, and teachers wishing to join CoPs for professional development. They can understand the advantages and disadvantages, and the participation process in more detail. Moreover, these findings can indicate that online CoPs can provide a medium for coping with the increasing amount of information thanks to the recent technological developments, and acquiring new skills.

ABSTRACT Existing approaches to teaching `culture' in the realm of Distance foreign language (FL) instruction and gaps within; under-researched Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) tool of webquests; and Mediation in Sociocultural Theory (SCT) have all led to the following case study. This study was guided by the constructs of `culture' in FL instruction, Sociocultural Theory, and literature in CALL and Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). This study examines how CMC-embedded webquests (asynchronous and synchronous CMC components built into webquests) developed online students' knowledge and understanding of German culture. Additionally, this study examines what mediating strategies (Lidz, 2002) were used by the online students of German in their asynchronous and synchronous online discussions of German culture, that were part of their CMC-embedded webquests' tasks. A web-based survey was administered to all students in an online German II course to elicit information about each student's past travels to Germany or other German-speaking countries and comfort level with various technologies. Based on their participation levels and the information elicited from this web-based survey, the online class was divided into groups of four, such that maximum variation was achieved in each group. Five such groups were formed with four students in each group. Two content-based CMC-embedded webquests were developed and created for this purpose and were administered over a period of four weeks, with two weeks for each content based CMC-embedded webquest. The first CMC-embedded webquest revolved around `Our Environment' or Umwelt, and the second was called `Germany, before and after the wall.' For each CMC-embedded webquests, the tasks included pre- and post CMC-embedded webquest essays, participation in discussion forums over a period of one week, and online chats. The guiding questions developed for each CMC component were separate. Based on the word count generated by each group, two groups (one with less than optimal and one with more than optimal levels of interaction) were chosen iteratively. In other words, pre- and post essays written by these eight participants, transcripts of asynchronous and synchronous online discussions with respective group members, transcripts of their online interviews, and field notes journal became the data sources for this multiple embedded qualitative case study (Yin, 2003). Findings emerging from a constant comparison method analysis indicate that the CMC-embedded webquests played a significant role in advancing the online students' knowledge and understanding of German culture. Apart from the cognitive benefits of this dynamic CALL tool, affective benefits included that students appreciated and enjoyed learning about the target culture in way that they retained the information even two months after they were completed, and particularly found the web resources useful and videos engaging. More importantly, since all participants were distant learners of German, they valued the opportunities provided by the two CMC-embedded webquests to interact with their respective group members in asynchronous and synchronous modes of communication. Results of collapsing all asynchronous and synchronous `e-turns' into Lidz' (2002) mediating strategies indicate that mediating strategies of `Sharing of Experiences,' `Affective Involvement,' and `Joint Regard' were higher for synchronous `e-turns.' This confirms that synchronous online discussions evoke a higher `sense of community' and `groups', `sense of purpose' for online learners (Carabajal, LaPointe, and Gunawardena, 2007). On the other hand, higher frequencies of `Praise/ Encouragement,' `Task Regulation,' and `Challenge,' in asynchronous `e-turns' demonstrates that distance learners are able to produce more cohesive and detailed responses in asynchronous online discussions. These results highlight the dynamic nature and potentiality of CMC-embedded webquests that can be especially useful to teach culture, an often neglected aspect of FL instruction, and the importance of creating groups and peer interaction in distance FL instruction. Additionally, findings of this study have implications on the purpose of the synchronous and asynchronous online discussions, culture model in FL instruction and design of CMC-embedded webquests.

<p><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt / line-height:150% / font-family:&quot / Times New Roman&quot / ,&quot / serif&quot / ">The use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) both in the General Education and Training (GET) and Further Education and Training (FET) bands is viewed as an innovative tool in enhancing a learner-centered approach to teaching and learning.&nbsp / As a result, a number of schools in rural and urban environments in South Africa have been provided with computers and other digital resources to facilitate teaching and learning. This study investigated the use of ICT in the teaching and learning of English First Additional Language (FAL) at Grade 10 level. It set out to discover digital resources and literacies to which teachers and learners were exposed in the English (FAL) classroom, and how these resources were used to enhance learners&rsquo / reading and writing skills. Following a qualitative research design, this study made use of classroom observations and interviews to collect data from teachers and Grade 10 learners. The collected evidence was from a single school which uses Khanya Project ICT materials.&nbsp / The school is located in one of the disadvantaged black townships in Cape Town. The study made use of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory and the constructivist theoretical framework to make sense of classroom interaction and the extent to which ICT and other teaching strategies were used to facilitate acquisition of English language skills, particularly reading and writing. The findings of the study show that there are a number of factors influencing ICT integration in Grade 10 English (FAL).&nbsp / These factors include teachers&rsquo / and learners&rsquo / limited access to ICT and digital literacy.&nbsp / Other factors relate to pedagogy and support in the use of ICT in teaching and learning.&nbsp / All the identified factors indicate that there are a number of barriers to ICT integration in English teaching and learning.&nbsp / The study concludes that ICT use has great potential in providing creativity and innovativeness to facilitate language teaching and learning. Given the lack of adequate ICT resources and under-utilization of ICT resources in disadvantaged schools, there is a need to improve teacher and learner access to ICT, especially in disadvantaged schools.&nbsp / This could be done through monitored support and adequate teacher training and active involvement of higher education institutions through teacher training programmes which should prioritize ICT integration in their curricula.&nbsp / <br type="_moz" /> </span></p>

Prompting students to self-explain during problem solving has proven to be an effective instructional strategy across many domains. However, despite being called “domain general”, very little work has been done in areas outside of math and science. In this dissertation, I investigate whether the self-explanation effect holds when applied in an inherently different type of domain, second language grammar learning. Through a series of in vivo experiments, I tested the effects of using prompted self-explanation to help adult English language learners acquire the English article system (e.g., teaching students the difference between “I saw a dog” versus “I was the dog”). In the pilot study, I explored different modalities of self-explanation (free-form versus menu-based), and in Study 1, I looked at transfer effects between practice and self-explanation. In the studies that followed, I added an additional deep processing manipulation (Study 2: analogical comparisons) and a strategy designed to increase the rate of practice and information processing (Study 3: worked example study). Finally, in Study 4, I built and evaluated an adaptive self-explanation tutor that prompted students to self-explain only when estimates of prior knowledge were low. Across all studies, results show that self-explanation is an effective instructional strategy in that it leads to significant pre- to post-test learning gains, but it is inefficient compared to tutored practice. In addition to learning gains, I compared learning process data and found that both self-explanation and practice lead to similar patterns of learning and there was no evidence in support of individual differences. This work makes contributions to learning sciences, second language acquisition (SLA), and tutoring system communities. It contributes to learning sciences by demonstrating boundary conditions of the self-explanation effect and cautioning against broad generalizations for instructional strategies, suggesting instead that strategies should be aligned to target knowledge. This work contributes to second language acquisition theory by demonstrating the effectiveness of computer-based tutoring systems for second language grammar learning and providing data that supports the benefits of explicit instruction. Furthermore, this work demonstrates the relative effectiveness of a broad spectrum of explicit learning conditions. Finally, this work makes contributions to tutoring systems research by demonstrating a process for data-driven and experiment-driven tutor design that has lead to significant learning gains and consistent adoption in real classrooms.

Trotz weit entwickelter Technologien und dem weltweiten Zugang zu Informationen müssen diese immer noch von jedem einzelnen in Wissen umgewandelt werden, um sinnvoll und nützlich zu sein (Rüschoff, 1999). Um die immer wachsenden Sprachausbildung in der Lingua Franca Englisch zu unterstützen, wurde die Chemnitz InternetGrammar (CING) entwickelt. Sie vereint authentische Sprachmaterialien mit Grammatikübungen und Feedback sowie eine Auswahl von deduktivem und/oder induktivem Grammatikmaterial (Dual Approach) in einem einzigen web-basierten Selbstlernmmittel für fortgeschrittene Lerner. Um den Erfolg des besonderen CING Grammatikmaterials (Hypertext, DualApproach, Feedback) CING als Lehrmittel nachhaltig zu sichern, wurde das Programm einer empirischen Usability-Evaluation (im Sinne von Jakobs & Lehnen, 2005) unterzogen. Durch die Untersuchung wurde der Inhaltsrahmen der CING für die Grammatikstrukturen definiert, die in der empirischen Untersuchung verwendet wurden (Simple Past und Present Perfect). Ausserdem wurden die Lernfortschritte von Lernern mit der CING und deren Verhalten in der InternetGrammar beobachtet sowie ihre Erfahrungen mit dem Programm in Kommentaren zu lernrelevanten Aspekten (z.B. Autonomes Lernen, Verständlichkeit des Materials) ermittelt. Dabei werden zentral vor allem die Fragestellung der CING-eigenen Struktur der Grammatikthemen, des Hypertextverhaltens fortgeschrittener deutscher Englischlerner und die des autonomen Lernens mit Hilfe von quantitativen und qualitativen Forschungsmethoden untersucht. Die Ergebnisse der Studie zeigen, dass die InternetGrammar schon ein nützliches Grammatiklerntool ist, doch dass sein Einfluss durch Nutzerunterstützung in den verschiedenen Bereichen weiter verbessert werden kann. Ein Ansatz den die Autorin vorschlägt für einen neuen, verbesserten Einsatz der CING ist ein Lehrerunterstütztes Lernszenario wie Blended Learning (Kapitel 6), wo Lerner nur in Phasen mit Instruktoren zusammen arbeiten und sonst autonom lernen. Damit wird nicht nur fachliche (z.B. in der Fremdsprache) sondern auch die Ausbildung des Lerners zu einem autonomen, fähigen Nutzer moderner Lernmethoden ermöglicht. Nur unter diesen Voraussetzungen werden wir aktive Mitglieder einer modernen Wissensgesellschaft werden und uns ihre Vorzüge erfolgreich zu Nutzen machen können.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2009. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.