Applied linguistics

Perception problems arise because speech is fast and transient; utterances are spoken quickly, and they disappear. We don’t pause to separate speech into distinct words; instead it comes out as a stream of sound. Also, words don’t usually sound the way they look in writing. Thus, even if our learners are familiar with the printed form of a word they may not recognize its pronunciation, particularly in connected speech. It is also difficult to predict the content of speech and guessing from context is highly over-rated (Douglas, 2013).

Previous literature on higher education suggests the inclusion of pedagogy that is linguistically and culturally inclusive in settings with increasing multilingualism, which is the case in Canada. Yet, little is known as to how the implementation of such pedagogy can take place, particularly in language programs. This article reports a researcher-instructor collaboration that aimed at implementing plurilingual practices, such as translanguaging, plurilingual identity, comparons nos langues, and intercomprehension over 4 months in an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program at a university in Toronto, Canada. Seven EAP instructors collaborated with a researcher to implement weekly plurilingual tasks: They conducted an environment analysis, examined the logistics of implementation, and collaboratively examined the tasks. The article presents the process of implementation of the plurilingual tasks and proposes a framework for collaboration with four key elements: administrative supp...

Technology use in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes is seen as a strategy to support pedagogical innovation and intensifying growth in post-secondary international student enrolments. This article discusses government-funded research documenting the largely undefined use of technologies in post-secondary North American EAP programmes. This study surveyed EAP teachers and administrators in over 40 universities and colleges across North America using qualitative and quantitative approaches. Site visits involving classroom observations, interviews with teachers and administrators, student focus groups and student surveys were then conducted to deepen understanding of the affordances of technology-mediated EAP approaches from stakeholder perspectives in situated post-secondary contexts. Findings reveal widespread enthusiasm about emerging technologies to engage learners, develop autonomous learning, instructional pathways and transferable 21st century skills. However, despi...

The Community of Inquiry framework was developed between 2000 and 2003 by Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson Walter Archer to address issues emerging from an online graduate program created to facilitate online discussion forums, which were vital for the success of the program. Garrison, Anderson and Archer aimed to provide a comprehensive framework to guide research and practice of online learning practice and research (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007, p. 158).

According to Swan, Garrison and Richardson (2009), the Community of Inquiry is a process model of online learning based on collaborative constructivist views. It is concerned with the importance of community and collaborative social knowledge construction in a higher education context (p. 4). Kozan and Richardson (2014) note that it views learning as the process of meaning-making during learner interaction in a socio-cultural context (p. 69). The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework proposes that to create this meaningful educational experience, a sustained presence of three overlapping constructs: cognitive, social and teaching presence is required (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000, p. 88).

As student collaboration and interaction is central to higher education, there was a need to develop a theoretical model to explain the online learning experience (Swan & Ice, 2010, p. 1). Garrison, Anderson and Archer published three seminal works laying out a framework for community inquiry, specifically looking at how critical thinking and communities of inquiry could be established and sustained online using the new and rapidly developing Web 2.0 technologies, like wikis and teleconferencing software.

This paper will introduce and explore the Community of Inquiry as it overlaps with current online language learning theory and practice and how it could potentially be used to organize current thinking and bring cohesion to the complex parts that make up collaborative online language learning, both technological and theoretical. This will be done by explaining how the Community of Inquiry framework can illustrate how the online language learner, teacher, collaborative task and technology inter-relate during collaborative language learning online and explore how the Community of Inquiry framework could be used to guide future research. 

Chapter one will orient the reader to the current state of CALL research by outlining current theoretical trends and issues in order to illustrate the complex nature of using technology to learn languages online. This will emphasize the need for more cohesion concerning SLA thinking as well as the need for expanding the theoretical palette to include non-SLA theories, like the CoI Framework, in order to provide a more robust picture of how technology facilitates language learning. This chapter will orient the reader to various unresolved issues still waiting to be addressed by research.

Chapter two will introduce readers to the Community of Inquiry Framework and outline its theoretical grounding, namely current social learning theories, the challenges technology poses to community formation online and the nature of virtual learning communities. This chapter will then outline the three presences that constitute the Community of Inquiry Framework and describe how each of the three elements (Social, Cognitive and Teaching Presence) inter-relate and lead to community formation and thus facilitate online learning. This chapter will also indicate the potential of this framework for application in online language learning.

Chapter three will analyze studies concerning collaborative language learning using different Web 2.0 technologies; both asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated communication tools. This chapter will provide a rationale for the analyses, a short summary of the studies being analyzed, and present evidence of the three presences and how they inter-relate as suggested by the study’s findings. Then, there will be a discussion on ways the Community of Inquiry Framework could enlighten, improve or refine the studies’ findings and conclusions. The analyses will also suggest further lines of inquiry using the framework.

This paper will then conclude with a review of the issues facing collaborative online language learning research and theory and then provide an evaluation of the Community of Inquiry framework for guiding future online language learning research using CMC technologies. Finally, this paper will outline areas for further research and investigation.

Technology use in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes is seen as a strategy to support pedagogical innovation and intensifying growth in post-secondary international student enrolments. This article discusses government-funded research documenting the largely undefined use of technologies in post-secondary North American EAP programmes. This study surveyed EAP teachers and administrators in over 40 universities and colleges across North America using qualitative and quantitative approaches. Site visits involving classroom observations, interviews with teachers and administrators, student focus groups and student surveys were then conducted to deepen understanding of the affordances of technology-mediated EAP approaches from stakeholder perspectives in situated post-secondary contexts. Findings reveal widespread enthusiasm about emerging technologies to engage learners, develop autonomous learning, instructional pathways and transferable 21st century skills. However, despi...