Learning with Technology: Language Learning Strategies ... - AsiaCALL

AsiaCall Online Journal Vol. 1 No. 1 November 2006

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Learning with Technology: Language Learning Strategies and Perceptions of Learners in an Online Environment

Zaini Amir

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia


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ABSTRACT

The use of online learning in delivery of language materials as a modern educational means has been expanding rapidly. Online learning through the Internet is changing the nature of formal education forever and has influenced the way knowledge is transmitted. In many parts of the world, public and private institutions of higher learning are opting for online learning as a new approach to deliver instruction (Harasim et al. 1997; Haughey and Anderson 1998); however, it needs to be asked if the online learners also need new strategies while learning online. The ability to use appropriate learning strategies is one of the factors leading to successful student learning, and is also one of the requirements enabling online learners to be on their own most of the time or use independent learning skills. This paper will examine learning strategies and students’ perceptions of the online experience by undergraduate language students from a virtual university in Malaysia. The results presented in this paper are the initial findings based on a quantitative approach to the strategies employed and also the students’ perceptions of online learning. In addition, a qualitative approach looking at the students’ learning strategies was also performed through interviews and observations.


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Introduction

When online learning is discussed, it refers to learning via a computer network (Harasim et al. 1997; Haughey and Anderson 1998; Khan 1997). Online learning provides a new learning environment often called the learning network. It is the emerging paradigm for education in the 21st century (Harasim et al. 1997). In realizing the new paradigm, the shift of control of learning from the teacher to the student is very significant. Indeed, the learning network is truly a learner-centered environment (Doherty 1998). It is a model that emphasizes active and interactive learning, research and problem solving. Implicit to this model is the intent to foster learner control by facilitating the learner’s ability to guide his or her own learning (Doherty 1998). Although a great deal of knowledge about students’ learning strategies has been accumulated in recent years, very little is known about their use in the new environment of online learning. Due to the nature of this new model, it is likely that students need to be highly self-regulated and responsible for organizing and reflecting on their learning. This is one of the advantages of the online environment; that is, encouraging self-directed learning. The investigation of language learning strategies over the past two decades has increased our understanding of the processes learners use to develop their skills in a second or foreign language. Research has been conducted in strategy use according to factors such as level of study (Cohen and Aphek 1981; Tyacke and Mendelshon 1986;


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Chamot and Kupper 1989) and gender (Ehrman and Oxford 1989; Oxford and Nyikos 1989). Research on the influence of different learning environments on learners and on the means they use to develop language skills has been quite minimal, to date, though the importance of such research has been emphasized. (e.g. Stern 1983; Skehan 1989; O’Malley and Chamot 1990; Jones 1993). An important element of research on learning strategies in online environments is the issue of learner autonomy. According to Legutke and Thomas (1991), there is great benefit to be gained from closer research endeavors between the learner autonomy scholars and language learning strategy research. Learner autonomy can be defined as the way learners behave within a self-instruction context and the strategies they employ to develop target language skills.

Learning strategies

Language learning strategies are the operations or processes which learners employ to learn the target language. Research into what learners do to learn a language has resulted in the recognition of specific learning strategies (e.g. inferencing, advance organization and self-talk), and attempts have been made to classify them in some way. Research has been carried out either through the framework done by Oxford (1990), or through the metacognitive, cognitive, socio-affective scheme used by O’Malley, Chamot, Kupper (1989) and others. According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990), there are three main categories of


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strategy use, depending on the kind and level of processing involved: metacognitive, cognitive and socio-affective strategies. Within the metacognitive category are those strategies which involve “knowing about learning and controlling learning through planning, monitoring and evaluating the learning activity”

(O’Malley, Chamot and

Kupper 1989: 421). Cognitive strategies are more directly related to individual learning tasks than metacognitive strategies and involve the transformation of the material to be learned.

A third type of learning strategy identified in the cognitive psychology

literature shows the influence of social and affective processes on learning: social strategies involve interaction with another person while affective strategies are concerned with the management of one’s feelings about learning and language use. This taxonomy was used for this study because, in the first place, the scheme has a strong foundation in general learning theories, particularly in terms of the role of metacognition in learning. Moreover, the categories fit well with questions about differential strategy use by online learners. For example, it is possible that the absence of classroom instruction to guide the online learners in planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning influences the patterns of metacognitive strategy use. Also, since the online learners generally study on their own, their opportunities to use social strategies are very much fewer than those available to classroom learners. In this study, the model of second language acquisition suggested by Ellis (1994) is adapted as a framework for learning strategies employed by students in an online environment. In this model, individual learner differences together with factors that are social and situational in nature are shown to affect the learner's use or choice


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of learning strategies. Also, the use of different types and frequencies of strategies influences language learning success. This model also shows that success in language learning can also affect the learner's strategy use.

Objective of the Study

The study reported here explores the relationship between the learning strategy choice, the students’ perceptions of the online learning mode, the online learning environment and the instructional context. The specific objectives are: To identify and describe some of the characteristics that can facilitate students’ online learning. To determine, through information such as the place where computers were used and the purpose of using the computer To determine, through the use of the Virtual Online Instructional Support System (VOISS), factors that may facilitate the students’ learning process. To identify the learning strategies employed in an online Business Communication course. To determine the students’ perceptions of the online language learning environment.

Methodology


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Both quantitative and qualitative data were employed in this study. Quantitative data were collected using survey methods.

Questionnaires were

distributed to students who attended a Business Communication course. They were from two different classes and each class was made up of students from three programs - namely from the faculties of Information Technology, Business Administration and the Humanities and Social Sciences. The data collected relates to four main sections of the questionnaire: Items related to personal details such as employment status, gender, working experience, computer ownership, online access to instructional materials, frequency of surfing the Internet, places of using computer and purpose of navigating the Internet. Items related to interactions using the computer to learn online through VOISS. Twenty items are included in this measure. Items related to strategy use while attending the online tutorial sessions. Twenty-five items are in included in this measure. Items related to perception of online language learning environment. A total of 75 questionnaires were completed and returned to the researcher. Qualitative data was collected through interviews and observations made on the online tutorial sessions (OLT). The observation was conducted during the students’ online tutorial sessions from June 2003 until November 2003. As for the interviews, they were conducted in October 2003 and November 2003. Qualitative data was recorded and analyzed through observation.


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Findings

This section describes the findings based on the quantitative and qualitative data that was collected and analyzed. It includes results from quantitative analysis such as the students’ characteristics, students’ utilization of computers to access the instructional materials and computing knowledge and skills.

Students’ Characteristics

The survey revealed that the respondents were comprised of diverse groups, as shown in Table 1. They came from three major fields of study - that is, Information Technology, Business Administration and the Humanities and Social Sciences. There were more females than males. A majority of students owned computers and have access to the Internet.

Table 1 Distribution of respondents according to selected personal characteristics in UNITAR Characteristics

N

Field of Study

75

%

Information Technology

32.0

Business Administration & Management

65.0

Humanities and Social Sciences

3.0

Characteristics

N

%


Gender

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75

Male

42.6

Female

57.4

Computer Ownership

75

Yes

80.0

No

20.0

Internet Access

65

Yes

80.0

No

20.0

The survey showed that the students were relatively young, with an average age of 21.5 years (Table 2). They used the computer to surf the Internet an average of 25.1 hours per week or about 3.6 hours per day.

Table 2 Distribution of respondents according to selected personal characteristics in UNITAR Characteristics Age (years)

N

%

75

< 20

4.0

Mean

21.5

20 – 22

67.0

Min

19.00

23 – 25

27.0

Max

26.00

> 26

2.0


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Frequency of surfing the Internet Always (almost everyday)

52.0

Often ( at least 5 times a wk)

35.0

Sometimes (less than 5 times a wk)

13.0

Students’ Utilization of Computers to access the Instructional Materials

A majority of the students used computers to access the instructional materials at the university and at home. Only a small proportion used computers at cyber cafes or at friend’s homes as shown in Table 3.

Table 3

Distribution of respondents according to place where they use the computers to access the instructional materials in UNITAR Not at all

Place

N

Sometimes

Often

%

75 University

11.0

29.0

60.0

Home

19.0

30.0

51.0

Cyber cafe

33.0

42.0

25.0

Friend’s home

41.0

31.0

28.0

Most of the students spent time on the computer doing academic research,


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surfing the Internet and communicating with others. About one third of them spent time on the computer playing games and reading the news. Only a small proportion of them used the computer for shopping as shown in Table 4.

Table 4

Distribution of respondents according to purpose of using the computer in UNITAR

Purpose of Using Computer

Not at all N

Sometimes

Often

%

75 Academic research

2.0

9.5

88.5

Surfing the Internet

4.5

10.5

85.0

10.0

15.0

75.0

7.5

54.5

38.0

Shopping

56.5

33.0

10.5

News

16.5

48.5

35.0

Communicating Games

Students’ Perceptions towards Online Learning Environment

Table 5 indicates the perceptions of the students toward the online learning environment. More than three-quarters of them said that the major benefit of online learning is that they do not have to attend classes. More than half of them indicated that it makes their learning easier. Other reasons include saving on expenses, being


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more comfortable following online interactions than face-to-face meetings, better able to understand following the language class, and preference in learning online alone, with a partner or in a group.

Table 5

Distribution of respondents according to students’ perceptions towards online learning in UNITAR

Benefits

Yes N

No %

75 Makes learning easier I do not have to attend class I can save on my expenses

64.0

36.0

76.0

24.0

41.0

59.0

12.0

88.0

14.5

85.5

I can understand the language class better by online learning I am more comfortable following online interaction than face-to-face In the online class, I prefer to learn -

alone

57.0

43.0

-

with a partner

77.0

23.0

-

in a group

64.0

36.0


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Facilitating Online Learning

The author made the observations based on the online tutorial sessions of the undergraduate students at UNITAR, the first virtual university in Malaysia. The virtual learning is supported by VOISS (Virtual Online Instructional Support System). It includes various interactive learning modes such as discussion online, tutorial online, consultation, and providing feedback. Interaction can be performed synchronously and asynchronously. The VOISS also provides other features such as materials online, schedule, updates, assignments, instructors’ information and students’ information. In essence, VOISS is the main delivery mechanism for online learning in UNITAR. One of the requirements for UNITAR students is to attend the online tutorial, which is carried out synchronously. It is usually conducted for two hours per session and the students will “log-on” from their homes, cyber cafes and study centers. The instructors conduct the tutorials from their own personal computers. In most cases the tutorials are not fully attended; that is, about 60% of the class were in attendance. The reasons cited for not attending were that the students have no facilities to access the Internet, the server was down, and other problems frequently faced when attending the tutorials. These problems include being unable to hear clearly what the instructors were talking about; not having microphones to ask the instructors questions,


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or being unable to see what has been typed on the screen of their computers. The online tutorial is supposed to be an opportunity to interact with lecturers and other students. Students were expected to study the course materials first and participate in discussions as well as ask instructors to clarify anything that they were not sure of, but most of the time this did not happen. Although online learning enables students to assume much of the responsibility for their own learning, nevertheless it does not eliminate certain expectations they have of their instructors. Students expected their instructors to be the “expert” giving explanations and delivering the content they should have acquired themselves.

The traditional

expectations about the role of a teacher still remain among students.

Student

participation in the online tutorial was not as active as the instructor had expected. It was sometimes just another delivery session by the instructor that happened online. The instructors posted announcements in the announcement module for students reminding them of their face-to-face meetings and online tutorials. Online discussion could also be conducted asynchronously, whereby the instructor could put a topic in the forum module and students were invited to participate in the discussion on the topic. E-mail was used for interaction between the instructor and the students. Most of the time students used e-mail to ask for help pertaining to the course materials when they could

not access the course materials, and for requests for materials to be

sent to them individually. Other requests include permission to submit assignments later than the due date and permission to be absent from the face-to-face meetings and


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online tutorials, even though attendance was supposed to be compulsory.

Language Learning Strategies used in the Online Environment

The questionnaire was developed from the classification of strategy use reproduced in O’Malley and Chamot (1990: 137 –139). The results showed that the online learners made greater use of metacognitive strategies with regard to the strategy of self-management. Self-management is used to manage the learning process based on the learner’s understanding of how she/he learns best. It includes what Rubin and Thompson (1982: 117) call “identifying one’s successful learning experiences, understanding the critical elements in these experiences and applying them to new situations.” This is further supported by O’Malley and Chamot (1990:205) when they note that self-management involves “understanding the conditions that help one successfully accomplish language tasks and arranging for the presence of those conditions”. The most frequent response of online learners to questions about their use of social strategies was that they had “no opportunity” to use either questioning or cooperation. Self-management takes place when learners draw on their understanding of how they learn best to set up the learning conditions they have found to be favorable, and to manage their interactions with the target language. Thus, self-management is used by online learners to obtain maximum benefit from language learning sessions. The results showed that the online learners also made greater use of resourcing strategies. Evidence of students’ use of resourcing and resourcing strategies


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involved students’ requests for help (Chapel and Mizuno 1989). Oxford (1990) defined resourcing strategies as using resources for receiving and sending messages. It involves using resources to produce messages in the new language. The online help can be seen as evidence of use of resourcing, a kind of cognitive strategy.

Resourcing is an

important strategy to be investigated as an essential advantage in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) materials (Liou 2000).

Metacognitive strategy use

The metacognitive strategy use by online learners was classified according to the following three dimensions established by Brown et al. (1983): planning, monitoring and evaluation.

For the online learners, the majority of metacognitive strategies

related to planning activities, a finding consistent with other studies carried out with classroom learners (e.g. Chamot and Kupper 1989).

Online learners made

proportionately greater use of the monitoring and evaluation dimensions of metacognition.

Discussion

Online learning is a new phenomenon and it is the emerging paradigm of learning in the 21st century. One of the major contentions of online learning is that there is a significant shift of control from the teacher to the learner. The learners can


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interact online, either synchronously or asynchronously. However, can the learners learn successfully or effectively online by themselves?

Do they need the guidance of the

instructors? The study indicated that there is some sort of reluctance among student to take control of their own learning. This may be because of the inherent expectations in the Malaysian culture that learners are the passive players while the instructors are the active players. As such, a majority of the learners are moderately ready for online learning. The wider and increased use of metacognitive control by online learners found in this study can be seen as a response to the demands placed on those learners by the online learning context. Sussex (1991: 181) observes that “both distance learning and online learning involve high levels of student control and direction”. Online learners need to manage the learning process for themselves since their learning context does not provide the kind of regular direction and guidance that is normally found in a classroom environment. In terms of the three dimensions of metacognitive strategy use, online learners made greater use of the monitoring and evaluation dimensions. Monitoring has been shown to be critical in distinguishing effective from ineffective learners (Nisbet and Schucksmith 1986; Chamot and Kupper 1989; O’Malley, Chamot and Kupper 1989) but the use of this strategy has not been explored in relation to effects from the learning context. The monitoring strategies which online learners were particularly concerned with were comprehension monitoring - that is, checking up on their understanding of the target language - and problem identification, which includes


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identifying the aspects of a task which are preventing its successful completion. The increased use of monitoring by online learners in this study can be attributed to an absence in their learning environment of two functions normally performed by classroom teachers. The image of online learners to emerge from this study would be of students who respond to the demands of a self-instruction mode of study by developing a knowledge of how they can manage the process of language learning for themselves. To do this, they use all dimensions of metacognitive control (planning, monitoring and evaluation) in their learning. The single most important metacognitive skill in all of this is self-management. The online learners who were using more metacognitive strategies were behaving more autonomously in their learning when working with the target language. Online learners have limited opportunities to work with others in learning the target language; thus, they need to use more effective means to manage their learning. It is possible that online learners compensate for the lack of support that comes from social contact by focusing on their ability to manage their feelings as they arise in relation to the learning process.

Conclusion

The results presented in this paper have permitted preliminary insights into how learners respond to the strategy use and perceptions in an online environment. For the online learners, it is the frequent use of a wide range of metacognitive strategies


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that enables them to develop a degree of autonomy. The findings also show that online learners succeeded in developing and applying their self-knowledge as language learners. Such individually-derived self-knowledge provides the basis for the use of selfmanagement strategies which appear to be important in the development of a more autonomous approach to language learning. Paul (1990: 34) argues that the most important criterion for success in online education should relate to learner independence and that “the ultimate challenge … is to develop each individual’s capacity to look after his or her own learning needs”. The perceptions and learning strategies of the online learners in this study can also provide information that will help online language instructors better prepare other online learners for the realities of learning in the online environment. It can also provide the online learners with the learning strategies that have been successfully implemented by other online learners. The transferability of these strategies or their basic principles to resolve the challenges faced by other online learners may improve the online learning process.

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