by Jane Evison and Richard Pemberton
University of Nottingham (Nottingham, UK)
Keywords: blog, community, engagement, out-of-class learning, podcast
Abstract
This paper reports on a two-part project which involved students engaging with two types of social software: podcasting and blogging. The idea began as part of an “ePioneers1“ initiative in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham and continued as part of a university-wide programme focused on “integrative learning.” The genesis of the project, which combined audio podcasting with blogging, was the desire to improve the learning experience of students on the MA TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) course at the University of Nottingham. The aspiration was to do this by promoting postgraduate students’ engagement with theory and research, and by increasing their opportunities to engage with the content, their tutors and their classmates outside formal classroom settings. Although there was a strong focus on the needs of international students, whose first language was not English, the project was designed to be of benefit to all the students taking the course. Whilst access to the students’ blog sites is restricted to course members, the podcasts – which became known as “TESOL Talk from Nottingham” (or TTFN) – are freely available at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttfn. We continue to record podcasts and upload them to the site.
Introduction
Podcasting, the automatic transfer of audio or video files from a server to a client, is being used increasingly in higher education (HE) as mobile learning gains popularity. Blogging, the publishing on the web of chronological postings which can often be commented on, is also becoming widespread in HE. The educational benefits of these types of social software are being reported in the literature relating to both language learning specifically, and HE more generally. As with reports on any newly emerging technologies, most publications tend to be quite practical “hands-on” guides or reports of small-scale initiatives, but Rosell-Aguilar (2007) is a useful overview of podcasting and pedagogy, and Kerawalla, Minocha, Kirkup & Conole (2009), although reporting on one specific project, includes quite extensive coverage of blogging and pedagogy. Successful HE/language learning-focused projects have shown that podcasting can be useful for teaching listening strategies (O’Bryan & Hegelheimer, 2007), improving listening skills (Abous, Camarena & Facer, 2009), and fostering language awareness (Kavaliauskienė & Anusienė, 2009), and implementers of blogging projects have reported the fostering of greater language experimentation (Ducate & Lomicka, 2008), enhanced written professional communication skills (Blackstone, 2009), and improvements in grammar editing ability (Harwood, 2010).
One of the aspects of our students’ learning that we foreground is critical engagement with the theoretical constructs and research which underpins the TESOL field. We feel that this engagement needs to be fostered from the beginning of the programme. In the autumn semester, the students attend three compulsory modules: Applied Linguistics for TESOL, The Language Learner and Language Learning, and Developments in TESOL Methodology. All our students are experienced English language teachers, and they are encouraged to draw on their own language learning and teaching experiences as a way into the theoretical aspects of the topics (through learner diaries and structured evaluation of their own practice, for example). In addition, it is also important that their critical engagement with academic theory is developed, and so, as part of the course, we encourage our students to form out-of-class informal study groups or “learning circles.” These learning circles are an integral part of our programme, with three different circles being formed in week one of the autumn semester, each functioning as a forum for out-of-class activities relating to one of our three core modules. The podcasts are not the subject of every learning circle meeting, but they are one of the alternative sources of input alongside academic articles, practical tasks and studentselected topics for discussion. In the case of podcasts, students listen to the podcast individually before the group meets to discuss their responses to the tasks set. It is the summary of these discussions that is posted to the module blog by a secretary, who is chosen by the learning circle members on a weekly basis. Example tasks can be found in Appendix 1, and they show that some kind of individual preparation is required before learning circles meet to discuss as a group.
The aims of these learning circles are to help students:
- clarify and further develop their understanding of course content;
- develop their ability to reflect and think critically;
- share experience with classmates (especially with those from different backgrounds); learn in a collaborative and supportive environment.
Whilst there is a tendency for proponents of the use of Web 2.0 technologies in formal learning to set up online environments in opposition to face-to-face ones, with the latter being associated with the traditional views and practices of the establishment and its desire to “constrain and contain,” and the former with “collaborative, volatile and challenging” nature of the web (Hemmi, Bayne & Land, 2009, p. 19), we take a more integrative approach, in which we hope in-class and out-of-class encounters (both face-to-face and online) will be conneocted by an interweaving thread of developing reflection and criticality.
Approach/Methodology
This project has been informed by a number of interconnecting theoretical perspectives:
a) Conceptualising podcast discourse
A large proportion of podcasts in HE are not produced primarily with broadcasting in mind – more often than not they are “opportunistic” recordings of face-to-face academic encounters such as lectures, which are then made available via virtual learning environments, often for revision purposes. However, our podcasts were specially made without a “real” audience being present but with a “virtual” one in mind. It was important to us that our MA TESOL students did not receive the podcasts as “extra lectures” but understood them as dynamic academic events of which they themselves were a crucial part. This understanding of podcast discourse draws on Goffman’s (1981) concept of the “participation framework.” A participation framework rejects simplistic dyadic models of talk based on the alternating roles of speaker and listener in favour of a more dynamic framework, which is able to accommodate both the podcasters “in the studio” and the audience, who are not passive eavesdroppers, but are “ratified overhearers” (Goffman, 1981), who co-construct the podcast event. This is a socio-constructivist view in which understanding is actively created and is predicated on the student being part of a social context and engaging in social interaction (e.g. Vygotsky, 1978).
b) Scaffolding and integrating out-of-class learning in a safe environment
The integration of Web 2.0 technologies into HE requires careful consideration in order to provide a safe environment in which participants can express themselves and comment on the views and experiences of others. However, face-to-face out-of-class encounters such as our learning circles also require careful handling. For this reason, for those meetings, we have adopted a responsive and dynamic approach of the kind suggested by Kerawalla et al. (2009) as appropriate for blogging in particular – encouraging students to ask themselves questions about what kinds of skills/behaviours were needed. This is because we felt it was important to “sensitize the students to the decisions they may need to make” (p. 41) rather than dictating in advance the kinds of behaviours we expect. And in the same way that we do not specify how learning circle meetings should be structured, we do not provide models of blog postings.
c) Understanding an evolving discourse community
Swales’ (1990) work on academic discourse communities is relevant to this project because it highlights how students are apprenticed into the discourse norms of the academic community to which they seek membership. This model, which is largely concerned with academic writing, suggests that these discourse norms are for the most part already established and are associated with the generic conventions of the discipline (e.g. how to write research articles or academic essays). In our case, however, we were using new technologies (podcasts and blogs) which did not have established discourse practices associated with them. This suggested that discourse norms would not be fixed, but would evolve throughout the programme. In this respect, we were keen to facilitate the evolution of a dynamic podcast community, which would have some of the spontaneous and responsive nature of Lave and
Wenger’s “communities of practice” (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). At the same time, we were aware that some of our students might feel unsure about “performing” in this kind of environment because of its unfamiliarity, but also because of anxiety related to their perceptions of their level of English.
Implementation
We addressed the three theoretical perspectives introduced in the previous section in our development of the podcasts and blogs, and their integration into our teaching:
a) Producing accessible and appropriate podcast discourse
All our podcasts, which total 21 so far and which are usually between 20 and 30 minutes long, have at least two people interacting and involve conversations and interviews on TESOLrelated topics. See Figures 1 and 2 below for examples of how the podcasts are made available on the TTFN site.
Figure 1: Screenshot of one of the podcasts on the TTFN site
<RP> OK, everybody, welcome again to TESOL Talk from Nottingham. I’m here with Jane as usual, and this time we’re joined by Professor Colin Harrison …from the School of Education. And, Colin, you’re an expert in reading and literacy, …am I correct?<CH> Er [<RP> laughs], on a good day, definitely.<RP> Glad, to have you with us. So, er, Colin we wanted to ask you a little bit about some of the, um, you know, current approaches to, er, teaching reading especially in the UK. But we, we wondered if we could kick off, if you could tell us a little bit about some of your own history: how you came, er, to, to be interested in the teaching of reading, development of reading.
Figure 2: Excerpt of a podcast transcript on the TTFN site
Although we do prepare in advance and agree on some key points to cover, the podcasts are not scripted and are not edited for content. Guest podcasters are always given the opportunity to listen to the recording before it is uploaded to the web. This gives them the chance to say that they do not want it to be used at all or to have parts edited out if they so wish. So far, neither of these things has ever happened. As the “hosts” of the podcasts, the two tutors have the greatest responsibility for the discourse, working hard to make key points clear, reformulating what they feel might be rather complicated, and pointing out to the audience where further information may be found. All our podcasts are transcribed by a professional transcriber who has worked closely with us to produce the level of detail we feel is useful for our students, so we are able to offer this important support to the audio itself.
b) Scaffolding and integrating out-of-class learning in a safe environment
In order to give easy access to the podcasts, they have their own dedicated website which can be reached through the easy-to-remember url, www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttfn. It is unfortunate that any listeners to the podcasts cannot comment about them on this site, but we do not allow this because we cannot monitor these comments to stop unwanted ones from being posted, and we cannot easily prevent the site from being spammed. However, and more importantly pedagogically, we want our students to be able to respond to the podcasts (and to other aspects of their programme) in a supportive and safe environment, and so for this reason we provide a password-protected alternative virtual space: our three course blogs. See Figures 3 and 4 below for examples of responses to one of the podcasts on one of the blogs.
Figure 3: Excerpt of Learning Circle discussion summary on one of the blogs
A said…I like your review, thanks for interesting summary!
B said…Thanks A, Glad you liked it! It was a very interesting way to look at our professors in a different perspective 🙂 What are we going to find out next?
Jane said…Glad you think this ‘different perspective’ of your tutors is positive. Did you see the other podcasts where we talk about our own learning experiences? That might give you a few more interesting ‘nuggets’
Figure 4: Responses to the discussion summary posted in Figure 3
c) Supporting an evolving discourse community
Although the complete set of podcasts provides a useful online self-access resource for our students (or anyone else who accesses the TTFN site), our biggest concern is to scaffold the students as they become part of the academic world at Nottingham in general, and part of the TESOL community specifically. The nature and role of the learning circles, podcasts and blogs are introduced at induction, through the module guides, and again in the seminars themselves. We place great emphasis on the integration of the face-to-face sessions, podcasts, learning circles and blogs. For this reason, learning circle tasks are carefully structured so that students know what is expected of them in a particular time frame. The advantages of the blogs, we believe, are that there is greater sharing throughout the process, that it is easy for students (as well as tutors) to comment on the summaries of learning circle discussions, and that they are more dynamic spaces where multiple academic discourse communities can develop.
d) Timelines
Although we aimed to create podcasts throughout the year, there was a phase of intense activity in the early autumn of the first two years of the project when we prepared for the new cohorts of students. Ideally, we aim to get all our new students invited to the blog in the first week of the semester, but this is not always easy to achieve because of issues such as students joining the programme late, problems with internet access, and student lack of familiarity with Web 2.0 technologies.
Figure 5: Timeline
Evaluation
a) Did we produce accessible and appropriate podcast talk?
There are two ways in which the podcast discourse has been evaluated. The first is through the linguistic analysis of the podcast transcriptions. Because of the level of detail of the transcriptions, we have been able to carry out both computerised analysis (“corpus analysis,” e.g. Evison, 2010) using commercially available corpus handling software (Wordsmith Tools, version 5), in conjunction with the kind of detailed qualitative investigation associated with conversation analysis (e.g. Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008) and used to great effect to analyse media discourse (e.g. Evison, 2010). Analysis of the podcast discourse has revealed the strategies used by the hosts to create both podcast and podcaster identity, particularly at the beginnings and ends of the podcasts. The second source of evaluation is through student feedback. A detailed open-ended questionnaire was completed by students from the 2009 cohort (see Appendix 2), and in response to questions 3 and 5 designed to elicit comment on the roles and language of the podcasters, the following key points emerged:
- consensus about podcaster roles: hosts, journalists (digging for information), (friendly) interviewers, colleagues rather than supervisors;
- consensus about allowances made to the podcast audience: key questions asked, explanations given, clear, supporting information given, “they lead us to focus on what they want to talk about”, “when they are talking they just let the conversation flow – within perhaps a framework of what needs to be said.”
These results suggest that we have achieved our aim of producing clear and engaging academic conversations and interviews. One student summed it up thus:
The idea of podcasting is to allow listeners “an ear” into the conversation. Richard and Jane tend to summarise their comments regularly, which would not be the case if they were just having a general conversation between themselves.
b) Did the podcasts and blogs help to scaffold and integrate in-class and out-of-class learning?
Two thirds of the way through the 2008 autumn semester, we collected data on the students’ podcast listening habits as part of a broader survey of learning circle activity. We were particularly interested in seeing the demands that learning circle-related activities made on students’ time. At this stage of the semester, the students have listened to an average of 6 podcasts (with a minimum of 2 and maximum of 10). The results showed that of the three task-types set, those based on podcasts were the least time-demanding.
Figure 6: Activity and time spent preparing for lesson cycle
Qualitative comments from the 2008 students also suggested that, after the first few weeks of the semester, their concerns about assignment deadlines (the first one was mid-November) made them less well-disposed towards learning circle tasks which required them to do lengthy preparation. This suggests that podcasts are time-effective learning circle tasks, and may be particularly useful towards the end of the first semester.
Qualitative comments about the podcasts from the 2009 students in response to the prompt How do you feel when you read what other students have blogged? showed a sense of engagement across a range encounters with different people. Responses included:
- Useful as an alternative perspective to look at certain topics.
- We can compare our ideas with other people’s, we learn or realize what we didn’t completely understand through other groups’ summaries.
- Sometimes you can find different ideas from mine.
c) Did an academic discourse community evolve in a supportive environment? Qualitative comments from the 2009 students in response to the prompt If you had to describe the blogs […] to someone from another university, what would you say? suggested that as a discourse community, these students are growing into the space, and that the learning circles and blogs are flexible spaces that are growing with them. At this stage, it appears that the blogs are supportive environments which promote student and tutor engagement. They certainly appear to foster the students’ reflections and a critical but supportive response to the ideas of others:
- It’s a space where people feel free to talk about what they learned and are interested in, or not sure, related to English teaching.
- Informative, productive and lively place where we shar.ie our ideas freely.
- It is a good way to share ideas and know more about other students. I like this way.
- They are mostly the reflections of what we learned from the TESOL course.
- The blogs are a platform for students and tutors to share opinions about what we have learnt.
Although students in the 2009 cohort were asked about blogging generally, not specifically about blogging summaries of learning circle discussions, several commented about the added responsibility of blogging on behalf of a group. One student summed it up by saying “I was a bit worried and checked my summary many times because many people will read it,” another said “It felt like submitting an assignment,” and a third, “I felt nervous because there might be some spelling/grammar mistakes that I might not be aware of when I blogged.” It does seem that it would be useful to encourage students to check their posts with their learning circle, or one designated member of that circle, an idea which resonates with Blackstone’s (2009) use of “blogging buddies” in his blogging project. In relation to blogging generally, roughly the same number of students reported being uncertain/intrigued when they first posted rather than overtly anxious, and for the most part the students reported a growing feeling of confidence and a sense of getting used to the online environment as they helped create their own online community.
Conclusion and Further Developments
In terms of podcast generation, in addition to continuing to record tutor-hosted interviews, the next step is to support students to produce their own podcasts. Feedback from the current students indicates that there is interest in this approach, but that students perceive a need for appropriate scaffolding and a supportive timeline within which to work.
At this stage it is becoming increasingly important that we research our use of podcasts and blogs in more detail. Not only do we feel this on a personal level, but the literature suggests that systematic research into the pedagogic paradigms of Web 2.0 practice is vital (Ravenscroft, 2009). One important part of this would be to analyse the discourse of the blog postings more closely, particularly in order to compare blog postings which are made on behalf of a group of students (i.e. a learning circle) and postings/further comments which are not. This would give insights into different online behaviours and responsibilities that could be used to inform future tutor behaviour, as well as refine the guidelines given to the students at the beginning of the course.
References
Abous, M., Camarena, M., & Facer, B. R. (2009). MALL technology: Use of academic podcasting in the foreign language classroom. ReCALL, 21(1), 76–95.
Blackstone, B. (2009). Pedagogical blogging: Implementation in a tertiary-level professional communication course. English Language Teaching World Online, 1. Retrieved August 16, 2011, fromhttp://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2009/11/24/pedagogical–blogging implementation–in–a–tertiary–level–professional–communication–course/#more–758
Ducate, L., & Lomicka, L. (2009). Podcasting: An effective tool for honing language students’ pronunciation. Language Learning and Technology, 13(3), 66–86.
Evison, J. (2010) What are the basics of analysing a corpus? In M. McCarthy & A. O’Keeffe (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics (pp. 122-135). London: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Harwood, C. (2010). Using blogs to practice grammar editing skills. English Language Teaching World Online, 2. Retrieved July 17, 2011, from http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2010/08/11/using–blogs–to–practice–grammar editing–skills/#more–1107
Hemmi, A., Bayne, S., & Land, R. (2009). The appropriation and repurposing of social technologies in higher education. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,25(1), 19-30. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation analysis: Principles, practices and applications (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Kavaliauskienė, G., & Anusienė, L. (2009). English for specific purposes: Podcasts for listening skills. Coactivity:Philology, Educology, 17(2), 28-37.
Kerawalla, L., Minocha, S., Kirkup, G., & Conole, G. (2009). An empirically grounded framework to guide blogging in higher education. Journal of ComputerAssisted Learning, 25(1), 31-42.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. J., & O’Keeffe, A. (Eds.). (2010). The Routledge handbook of corpus linguistics. London: Routledge.
O’Bryan, A., & Hegelheimer, V. (2007). Integrating CALL into the classroom: The role of podcasting in an ESL listening strategies course. ReCALL, 19(2), 162-180.
O’Keeffe, A. (2006). Investigating media discourse. London: Routledge.
Ravenscroft, A. (2009). Social software, Web 2.0 and learning: Status and implications of an evolving paradigm. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning,25(1), 1-5.
Rosell-Aguilar, F. (2007). Top of the pods: In search of a podcasting pedagogy for language learning. Computer-Assisted Language Learning, 20(5), 471–92.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wordsmith Tools, version 5. Available at: http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/version5/index.html
Website: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ttfn
Appendix 1
Example tasks
Follow-up to an ‘Applied Linguistics for TESOL’ seminar on grammar, and preparation to the next on vocabulary
Listen to the podcast Grammar and Lexis and then, in your learning circles, compare your individual answers to this question:
Why do you think Richard is a ‘vocabulary’ person and Jane a ‘grammar’ person?
Post a summary of your discussion on the Applied Linguistics for TESOL blog
Preparation for a ‘Developments in TESOL Methodology’ seminar on learner-centred approaches
Listen to a podcast on Humanistic Approaches (Jane and Richard talk to Barbara Sinclair)
Discuss your reactions to what they say with your learning circle
Blog a summary of your discussion
Appendix 2
Open-ended questions
PODCASTS
1. When you have to listen to the podcasts for learning circle tasks, what procedure do you follow? (e.g. Do you listen individually? How many times do you listen? Do you listen as a group? Do you take notes? Do you read the transcript?)
2. If you had to explain what the TTFN podcasts are to someone from another university, what would you say?
3. In what ways are Richard and Jane’s roles in the podcasts the same as or different from their roles in class? In what ways do their roles change (or not change) if they have a guest with them for a podcast?
4. How is the language of the podcasts similar to or different from the language used in class?
5. Do you think that Richard and Jane think about you when they’re podcasting? [Give reasons]
BLOGS
6. If you had to describe the blogs that we use for Applied Linguistics for TESOL, Developments in TESOL Methodology and The Language Learner and Language Learning to someone from another university, what would you say?
7. How did you feel the first time you posted to any of the module blogs?
8. How do you feel now about posting to the blogs?
9. How do you feel when you read what other students have blogged?
PODCASTING AND BLOGS: THE FUTURE
10. Would you like to listen to student TTFN podcasts? If so, what kind of student podcasts would you like to listen to? What roles would people have?
11. What do you think the benefits and challenges of making your own TTFN podcasts with some of your classmates would be?
12. Is there anything else you’d like to say about the podcasts or the blogs which would be useful for us in the future?
[1] A video of us talking about this project can be accessed at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/epioneers/outcomes/podcasting/ [back]
About the Authors
Jane Evison lectures in TESOL at the University of Nottingham and is the course leader for the MA TESOL (web-based). Her teaching interests are spoken language and applied linguistics, classroom interaction, and teacher development. She is currently researching broadcast academic conversations, seminar and small-group talk, and the discourse of “friendly first encounters” in English.
Richard Pemberton teaches at the MA and PhD level in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham. He has over 30 years TESOL experience in the UK, Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong. His research interests include second language listening, vocabulary acquisition, mobile language learning and developing criticality.