LEARNERS� ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE USE OF ENGLISH THROUGH POETRY PROGRAM IN COMPARISON WITH THE SAME LESSON IN A PAPER-BASED MATERIAL



NAVAPORN SANPRASERT

Abstract

This study is an exercise in applying pedagogical principles to computer-based material design. The aim is to investigate learners� attitudes towards learning from the computer-based software in comparison with the same lesson in a paper-based material. The paper begins with the background of the research question and then the theories that lie behind the software design. The program was used with a group of EFL learners and the study reveals how they perceived the program in comparison with the paper-based lesson. Data were collected from questionnaires, observations and interviews with ten student volunteers who are non-native speakers enrolling in master level courses at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The findings show that the software is more motivating and able to encourage learner autonomy better than the worksheet. The article also discusses an implication of the worksheet design and the evaluation of the program.

Keywords
Computer-based materials for language learning, paper-based materials for language learning, computer-based material design, self-access language learning centre, learning English through poetry

1. Introduction
The Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand has two self-study centres. The first one is Self-Access Learning Laboratory (SALL) which is under the control of the Department of Foreign Languages founded to provide facilities for the practice of foreign languages to students in every faculty. The second one is Self-Access Language Centre (SALC) run by the Language Centre giving the services to the general public upon the payment of a fee and people who take an extra course at the university.

However, students who enroll in English Foundation Course are required to do a self-study at either centre as a compulsory activity. Unfortunately, the faculty has found out that after they finish the course, only a few number of them return to the centres to apply for membership to practice their English during the four year course in the university. The materials provided at the centres account for this according to the survey done annually. However, it is still a controversial subject for the purchasing staff when they have to make a decision to buy materials. The cost for computer-based materials is higher; therefore, it is more likely that the centres will go for other types for example photocopiable commercial workbooks or preparation books for TOEFL and IELTS, then make a number of copies, and provide keys for the exercises at another corner of the centres or sometimes at the back of the worksheets. In conclusion, the overall number of computer-based materials is far less than the number of books and self-study worksheets. Besides an annual survey, there has not been any research done by an academic staff to investigate the learners� attitudes towards the computer-based materials in second language learning in comparison with paper-based materials. The decision made by the purchasing staff was done by the idea that computer-based materials are difficult to use; therefore, traditional workbooks should be more effective. Learners' perceptions are particularly important in self-access learning because they contribute to learners' evaluations of self-access materials and this influences the degree to which such materials are used.

The purpose of this study is to investigate if it is different when learners study the same lesson in a paper-based and a computer-based material in terms of their attitudes and the degree of learner autonomy. The participants in this study are non-native speakers of English language taking their full-time courses at master level at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The findings are probably also applicable to other learners of foreign languages at an intermediate level or above. Moreover, the participants are encouraged to give comments on English through Poetry program which is especially designed for this study. Data gathering was done through the use of questionnaires, interviews together with an observation while they were using the materials.

2. The Related Literature
The design for English through Poetry encompasses three related literatures. First, I apply the literature concerning the model how to use poetry in language teaching. Second, the design applied the learning theory related to learner autonomy. To find out the answer for the question discussed in the introduction, the paper-based version has the parallel content with the program. Finally, I also refer to the literature related to how to design user-friendly CALL interfaces.

Hess (2003) asserts that the use of poetry in L2 classroom should be encouraged since �the entry into a poem, under the guidance of appropriate teaching, brings about the kind of participation that almost no other text can produce.� She also added that Collie and Slater first used a practical approach in the year 1991 to use literature as an authentic material in language teaching. Hess and Collie and Slater and many ESL practitioners (Bakhtin 1986; Carter and Long 1990; Isenberg 1990; Widdowson 1975) share the same idea that poetry is a road to meaning making and allows personal involvement. Likewise, Mattix (2002), though he wrote a debut article to argue Hanauer�s article in 2001, agreed with Hanauer�s idea that poetry can fulfill both criteria of a task in the second language learning; that is, poetry can help students to combine sign and sounds to express some meaning and it is also an �authentic� discourse.

The poem I have chosen for the material is Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star by John Donne, one of the most popular metaphysical poets in the 17th century. In designing the lesson, I adopted some steps from Natalie Hess�s model (2003) of nine-step process to �unlock the richness of poetry for real and relevant language learning.� I should explain here that it is not possible to follow all steps as her model is originally designed for a face-to-face communication in a classroom. However, the software produced can be used as an individual self-access activity as a part of a teacher-led course.

The theories from Hess� model which is behind the development of English through Poetry are as followed:
1. Before learners read a poem, teachers should provide a trigger; therefore, I design two parts called metaphysical poet and John Donne together with multiple-choice quizzes to test their background knowledge.
2. Teachers should introduce some vocabularies which present difficulty to understand the meaning of the poem. For the poem Song, I chose three words�falling star, devil and mermaid as they are words to form essential imagery in the poem.
3. Hess stresses that teachers should not explain the meaning of words directly as students tend to feel insulted. Therefore, I design a vocabulary preview part as an exercise of matching pictures with given words. It serves as a presentation for learners who do not know the meaning as the immediate feedback is provided and serves as a revision for those who already understand the meanings. Moreover, the pictures also agree with Hess� step six to use the picture for a better understanding of a poem.
4. Students will be able to generate ideas about a poem better when they hear it so Hess advises teachers to practice the reading for �maximum effect.� By means of multimedia, you can achieve the �maximum effect� easily since you can re-record your poem reciting till you are satisfied. As for this program, Song is recited by a professional and I acknowledge her in the program.

Another theory that lies behind the development of the program is the learning theory of learner autonomy. Kelly (1963) emphasises that each individual has different personal constructs that he uses to deal with a learning task and some of the alternative ways of constructing are better adapted to man's purposes than are others. Likewise, Nunan (1994) asserts that learning will be enhanced if learners are given space to make choices. The software I deigned; therefore, does not have a prescribed order but allows users to have freedom to choose what to learn first.
As far as the design of the program interface is concerned, Lonfils and Vanparys (2001) suggests three main requirements for the main screen: giving direct access to the main tasks, making the chosen mini-world (sub-topic) explicit, and making the overall structure transparent. Likewise, Vanderdonckt (1998) emphasizes simple and constant tools that allow actions to be accomplished easily.

3. The Description of the Program
The software was constructed using Authorware version 6.5. It contains all of the same information in the parallel worksheet but presented with graphics and sound. It is designed to encourage flexible learning so the users have freedom to choose any topic they wish to learn first as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1: the main menu

The screen design is based on simplicity and uses a few colours. Figure 2 shows how the screen layout is divided and it is consistent for every topic in order that it is easy for users to navigate.

Figure 2: Diagram of screen components

After users click to choose the topic, they will see the sub topics -- content and quiz�which they can view in any order they design. They can also repeat any information as often as they want. For example, after they finish an exercise in the quiz part, they can repeat the content part again to review the information. However, in the quiz part immediate feedback is given for every answer together with further explanation. Each user has a chance to answer each question for three times (there are five choices for each question).

Figure 3: example of content page


Figure 4: example of quiz page in which users are required to log on.

As for the poem page, there are two sub topics � vocabulary preview and a poem called Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star. Figure 5 shows that the vocabulary preview part uses a book metaphor. Users can progress by paging back and forth by clicking at the red arrows.

Figure 5: vocabulary preview page

As for the song part, the same gap-filling exercise given in the parallel worksheet is presented but with the audio clip taken from http://www.luminarium.org-- a digital library site for Medieval, Renaissance and 17th century English literature. Listening to the clip, learners are more engaged with the poem and they are also learning how to recite the poem. If a learner drags a word to a wrong gap, the word will be dragged back to the same position. This provides learners immediate feedback and makes it easier for them to achieve the task.

Figure 6: drag-and-drop activity on the poem page
Every screen offers learners a button to go back to main menu if they wish to progress to another activity or if they wish to leave the program.

4. English through Poetry: Program Evaluation
4.1 The participants
The learners who took part in this study totalled ten non-native speaker graduates who are enrolled in various master courses at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There are different nationalities of Chinese (70%), Thai (20%), and African (10%) and there was a reasonably balanced representation from both genders with 60% of the group being female. Finally, 70% of the participants have been in a self-access centre to practice foreign languages and are familiar with computer-based materials.

4.2 Procedure

First, the participants were given a worksheet to finish within thirty minutes and then a questionnaire seeking their attitude

towards learning by the paper-based material. A week later, the same group of participants was given English through Poetry

CD to work on and a questionnaire concerning their views towards the software. To ensure that the evaluation results are valid

and reliable, data gathering are also from an observation while they were using both materials and an interview afterwards to

encourage them to compare the software with the worksheet. In particular, the study attempts to explore the following main

questions:

1. What are the participants� general attitudes and reactions towards the key provided at the bottom of the worksheet?

(This imitates a normal practice for paper-based materials in two language centres mentioned in the introduction.)

2. What are the participants� general attitudes towards using the software in comparison with the paper-based material?

3. Is there any difference between the paper-based and computer-based materials in terms of encouraging learner

autonomy?

4. Which features of the software are assessed as positive/useful by learners and which aspects in the software they like

to see improved?

4.3 Findings

A number of points were raised by this evaluation process:


1. Concerning the key provided at the bottom of the worksheet, 70% of the group said they noticed that the key was at

the bottom before they started doing the exercise. There are 30% who admitted the key was so tempting that they

copied some answers when they could not find the answers themselves.

2. All student volunteers said that the software is more motivating than the worksheet and according to the questionnaire

all chose to recommend the former to their friends rather than the latter.

3. The software is able to encourage learner autonomy better than the worksheet. When asked if they follow through the

given order of topic in the worksheet, nine out of ten users do and the only one who did not do so explained that he

skipped the second part �John Donne� because it was too long and then it lost his interest. On the contrary, for the

multimedia program, the position of each topic also starts from �metaphysical poet� at the top and to �poem� at the

bottom but there are more numbers of learners (four users) who chose the topic in accordance with their interest and

did not follow through the given order.

4. In the questionnaires, the participants were asked to indicate on a Likert scale to what extent they agreed with the

provided statements and the result is presented in Table 1 and Table 2 (for the worksheet and for the software

respectively). A space was given for adding comments for the software and the result is shown in Table 3.


Table 1: Participants� attitude towards English through Poetry worksheet

Table 2: Participants� attitude towards English through Poetry program
In terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the software, the findings are as followed:


Table 3: Students� views of strengths and weaknesses of the program

5. Conclusion
The findings from this study show that with graphics and sounds computer-based materials are more motivating and be able to encourage more learner autonomy than paper-based materials. The result; moreover, gives a significant implication to the current style to produce worksheets in a self-access centre in my country�Thailand. Some students may copy the answers if keys are provided while learners cannot do this with computer-based materials since the program will not allow them to progress or give an answer till they finish each question. The final conclusion I want to draw from the study is that the creation of a learning material should focus on a long-term development. To put a program in use with learners will trigger new ideas how to develop it and this will facilitate learners� needs and their learning at most.

References
AYRES, R., 2002. Learner attitudes towards the use of CALL. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 15(3),
241-249.

HESS, N., 2003. Real language through poetry: a formula for meaning making. ELT Journal, 57(1), 19-25.

LONFILS, C. AND VANPARYS, J., 2001. How to design user-friendly CALL interfaces. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 14(5), 405-417.

MATTIX, M., 2002. The Pleasure of Poetry Reading and Second Language Learning: a response to David Hanauer. Applied Linguistics, 23(4), 515-518.

NUNAN, D., 1994. The role of the learner in the learning process. IATEFL Annual Conference Report, 1994, 8-11.

PETERSON, M., 1998. The virtual learning environment: the design of a website for language learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 11(4), 349-361.

SCHWIENHORST, K., 1998. Co-constructing learning environments and learner identities- language learning in virtual reality [online] Available from: http://www.tcd.ie/CLCS/assistants/kschwien/Publications/coconstruct.htm [Access on 11 May 2005].

TRINDER, R., 2002. Multimedia in the business English classroom: the learners� point of view. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 15(1), 69-84.

About the author


Navaporn Sanprasert is a second year Integrated Ph.D. student in Educational and Applied Linguistics. She has a BA and MA

in English from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. She has been teaching at the Faculty of Humanities, Kasetsart

University, Bangkok, Thailand since 2001.

navaporn.sanprasert@ncl.ac.uk

SOURCE: http://research.ncl.ac.uk/ARECLS/vol2_documents/Navaporn/navaporn.htm