The Impact of the use of new information technologies and the Internet on the teaching of foreign languages and on the role of teachers of a foreign language

Contribution by CRLE, Catalonia, Spain

Francesca Vidal Santallusia

Catalonia is one of the autonomous communities in Spain having its own language recognised by the Statute of Autonomy, which establishes the right to know and use the Catalan language and its status as an official language in the territory together with Castilian. The Statute makes the public authority responsible for normalising the use of the Catalan language in all spheres of life, particularly in administration, education and the media.

Thus, foreign language becomes the third language present at school in the statutory curriculum, with implications regarding organisation and methodology.

The study of at least one foreign language is compulsory from the age of 8 and allowed earlier, and is a core subject in compulsory, post-compulsory education and some fields of Vocational Training.

The policy for compulsory education is on the generalisation of the teaching of English and the offer of a second foreign language on a voluntary basis. The languages that stand most chances are French, German and Italian.

The policy on diversifying language education is very clear through the existing network of public funded Official Language Schools (12) teaching from four different foreign languages (the smaller ones) to 15 (the bigger ones). Languages taught at these schools are considered as special-system education.

ICT initiatives in Catalonia

Curriculum requirements

The Education Law (1992 and amendments 2000) states that ICT should be integrated across the curriculum.

Many of the general requirements and those specific for the language area apply consequently to the foreign language curriculum; the following are references to the use of ICT in the secondary foreign language curriculum:

SGTI (ICT in Education Programme –formerly PIE) and CRLE (Resource Centre for Foreign Languages)

The Catalan Ministry of Education established in 1986 these two units: PIE to set up and coordinate action plans related to ICT in education, and CRLE those concerning foreign language teaching and learning.

The increasing relevance of ICT potential in the field of foreign language education has led in the last decade to a close collaboration between these two units in the implementation of action plans to make ICT integration in the language curriculum possible. This has implied provision of equipment and materials (CD-ROMs, e-learning...) to all schools, teacher training and ready-to-use classroom material design, as well as dissemination of good practice, as described below.

Equipment

Provision of Internet connection and equipment (hardware and software) to all schools, specifically addressed to fulfil the needs of foreign language teaching and learning and to foster and support students’ development of information handling and communication strategies. From 1995-2000 all Secondary Schools Modern Language Departments were equipped with two multimedia computers, 3-4 mini-labs and a set of 10 CD-ROMs in English and 5 in French. This software was composed mainly of general and specific reference material (Encarta, Cinemania, Dangerous Creatures, History of the World, Encyclopaedia of Science, Encyclopaedia of Nature, The Way Things Work, Ancient Lands, Encyclopédie Hachette, Encyclopédie des Animaux), but also two other titles for vocabulary learning purposes (Community Exploration and Triple Play Plus). In 2000 all public primary schools were equipped with access to the Internet and a bundle of CD-ROMs (5 titles of the Living Books series, Games in English, The three little Pigs, English with Toby 1, Atout Clic, Le famille Papyrus, Encyclopaedia- Les animaux, Mini Loup Le petit and Mini Loup à L’école).

Teacher training

In 1995, and with the aim of fostering the integration of ICT as an added value to the teaching and learning a foreign language, in-service teacher training materials were designed and piloted with future-to-be trainers (all of them foreign language teachers), that were entrusted the following year to lead the face-to-face teacher training courses offered around Catalonia. These materials set up a series of tasks whose completion required the use of ICT tools and the resources available, such as Word Processor, CD-ROMs. e-mail and the WWW. The aim of the activities was that teachers became aware of the potential of the tool to facilitate teaching-learning rather than they became experts on how the tool worked. Of course, in five years (1995-2000), ICT developed very fast, and more and more teachers were ICT skilful, which allowed the chance to deepen much more on methodology than in the use of the tools themselves. In 2000 it was possible to integrate web editing whenever participants’ skills allowed it. It is important to highlight that all the trainers were foreign language teachers.

With the advent of distance education, new materials were designed to offer two new TT courses, one (http://www.xtec.es/formacio/curstele/d56/index.htm) that focussed on the design of classroom activities and web publishing and a second one that focussed on relevant ICT tools to be used in project development. The former is delivered on a distance basis, and teachers use Hot Potatoes and Güeb (a programme to design interactive web pages) to create ready-to-use classroom material to exploit resources available on CD-ROM and the WWW; in the latter teachers design WebQuests on chosen topics. It is a combination of face-to-face sessions where teachers decide on a topic, develop search strategies and learn how to use the tools they will use to carry out the project while in the distance phase and to publish the outcomes. These courses were piloted during the school year 2000-2001 and are presently being held for the first time, during the present school year (2001-2002).

Students’ Portal

A portal (http://www.edu365.com) addressed to all Catalan students, which, among other services, contains FL support materials for primary and secondary education and an ask-a-teacher online service. (http://www.edu365.com/primaria/muds/angles/index.htm / http://www.edu365.com/eso/muds/angles/index.htm)

XTEC

The Catalan Education Network (XTEC) gives service to all schools equipped by SGTI, allowing the realisation of collaborative and team work, at Catalan, Spanish and International level. The CRLE, through its web page, within the XTEC server, is responsible for all resources and information concerning foreign languages.

ICT support offered by CRLE

Maintenance of a web page (http://www.xtec.es/crle).

• Access to guidelines and support material published by the CRLE for primary and secondary education for three foreign languages: English, French and German. (http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/02_5.htm / http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/02_5s.htm)
• On-line catalogue of the resources available at CRLE. (http://www.xtec.es/cgi/mediateca_crle)
• Catalogue of general web links that may have an interest for the three foreign languages mainly taught in mainstream education. (http://www.xtec.es/crle/05/recursos.htm)

Innovative school projects on the integration of ICT tools in the FL curricula

• Provision of teacher training to the teachers involved. The CRLE designs the two-year period teacher training based on two different levels. During the first year all the teachers involved take part in a major TT event designed to provide input and reflection, as well as tailor-made workshops on specific issues concerning the innovation theme. Monitoring implementation of projects at school level is offered by the CRLE and takes place during the second year.
• Provision of specific material decided by CRLE and specific budget to fulfil each school’s needs to implement the project at school level.

Specific support material to foster meaningful integration of ICT

• Supplementary material for CD-ROM use in primary education: Just Granma and Me and Little Monsters at School.
• Supplementary interactive activities for early learning: Henny, the Hen and Pauline, la poule.
• A 35-hour credit, Weaving your own Adventure, to integrate CD-ROM use in Secondary education. (http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/weaving/index.htm)
• E-learning online educational content within the Internet in the Classroom project, one of whose goals is to follow the emerging standards related to the management of educational contents, while promoting among publishers the awareness of the need to avoid Internet-based incompatible learning systems. The first public announcement was in 1999. Since then two modules of the distance course designed by Santillana NetLanguages are available on the web for XTEC users. They consist of ten thematic units for each pre-intermediate and intermediate levels, integrated in a virtual school with supplementary material, such as catalogues of resources available on the web, and a teachers’ guide that offers guidelines concerning possible itineraries to approach the content offered in the course, either to reinforce the practice of different skills, to learn vocabulary, to enhance knowledge of a specific topic, to carry out net search activities… There was a second announcement in the last semester of 2001 and, by September 2002, there will be further e-learning content that will cater for:
  1. Bridging the gap between primary and secondary education. "Bridging the Gap" is a set of 10 thematic units, with a suggested itinerary to complete the tasks and with an open entrance to each unit through different skills and/or development of a web-based project for each unit topic;
  2. Lower secondary (The elementary level of the NetLanguages course).
• Four WebQuests specifically designed for foreign language learning two for French and two for English: Off to Ozz, How to be a Responsible Consumer, Partons en Côte d’Ivoire, Comment Devenir un Consommateur Responsable. (http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/webquests/index.html)

Conclusions and recommendations

Throughout the last five years, we have witnessed the process followed by some teachers and/or schools to integrate ICT as an educational tool that adds value to the teaching and learning of a foreign language. There are several factors that have contributed to the speed and quality with which this integration takes place, and have also had an impact on foreign language learning and on the role of the teachers. Among these factors the following should be considered:

1. Teacher’s role

The role that "traditionally" has been assigned to teachers that use technology in the classroom (facilitator, tutor...) cannot be acquired overnight. ICT has actually an added educational value when those professionals who decide to take the step of integrating ICT in their teaching practice have gone through this reflection and implemented an approach that allows to view technology as a challenge that facilitates teaching and learning rather than a threatening and imposed tool.

Everyday use of ICT in the foreign language classroom has a direct impact on the teacher’s role derived from different reasons:

• Technology changes very fast, which not only requires continuous updating from the part of the teachers, but also raises awareness on their own creativity to envisage the potential that ICT offers to get the most out of it.
• The lack of control over technology as a whole imposes a student-centered approach that focuses on the development of information handling strategies and problem solving skills, eventually leading to students’ control over their learning process, and making them potential autonomous learners in all fields.
• ICT frees the teacher to constantly find ways to set up meaningful and authentic tasks, for instance, the publication of students’ outcomes on the web, e-mail exchange, participation in international collaborative projects...
• Teachers and students should be open to accept and to benefit from each others’ expertise on ICT, becoming all knowledge providers, thus, sharing, experimenting and learning together.

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2. ICT school policy

School ICT policy regarding computer and information literacy skills must show conviction on the educational impact and benefit of using ICT in any subject area. Whenever ICT has not been viewed as related to language learning, FL teachers have faced great constraints in accessing hardware and software, even when there have been instructions from the part of the Ministry of Education that the equipment was specifically addressed to FL teaching and learning.

3. Premises

Premises. Does the school have a FL classroom where equipment can be allocated, or do groups have to move where the resources can be found? Does this space have to be shared with the rest of the subject areas? FL teachers who have been lucky to count on a specific space providing the relevant tools and materials have risked much earlier to experiment with it.

4. International projects

   School involvement in cross-curricular European projects has demanded the contribution of FL teachers and in many cases the direct integration of cross-curricular contents in the FL curricula. Since most tasks carried out by students are information-exchange oriented, ICT has been integrated in a meaningful, authentic way as essential tools in order to fulfil the needs to complete projects successfully.

Secondary Education. Samples of Good Practice

Three samples of good practice are described; IES Manolo Hugué and IES Ronda have carried out a global integration of ICT in foreign language teaching and learning, undergoing different implementation phases, with quite different level of resource provision, but reaching similar goals. Both cases have indeed contributed to include their experiences as support to ICT policy in the corresponding schools. The third sample, IES La Serreta, intends to highlight how important the use of ICT has been in the development of a cross-curricular project, independent of teachers’ and students’ ICT skills or ICT school policy.

IES Manolo Hugué. Caldes de Montbui

IES Manolo Hugué (http://www.xtec.es/centres/a8043486/) is located in the town of Caldes de Montbui, 35 km from Barcelona, and has a population of students that come primarily from middle-class families.

Although ICT has been integrated in the English classroom since 1995 in compulsory and post-compulsory secondary education, the process described focuses on the last four school years. One of the teachers of English has acted as a springboard, starting the integration of ICT at a small scale, as a response to personal motivation to experiment with the challenge provided by the technologies, as well as the need to switch to a teaching approach that was much more centred on the students and that ensured that the students' needs were fulfilled. Her profile, as described below, and teaching practice has encouraged the other two FL teachers, English and French, to follow suit.

This integration has been progressive, as described in the section below, according to the resources available in the school, and world-wide, and the ease to access them. Thus, the kind of activities that have been carried out since the experience started have accordingly been oriented towards engaging learners in collaborative development of information handling and communication strategies.

Teachers have constantly been designing learning material for the tasks posed to learners. IT tools have proved to be of great help when drafting and re-drafting to update them, as well as when changing the format in which learners have made use of them (from printed copies to web pages within the school's website).

Resources and activities

The effort and time invested has had a reward concerning the increase of resources that have been made available, either by parents or the school itself, or in a more general context by the Ministry of Education (hardware and software, specific budget to innovation projects).

The school has a Language classroom where equipment could be allocated from the beginning, even when it was not much what they could count on. Most of the experience was implemented in this space at the beginning, when access to the computer room was much more limited. The table below shows the increase of resources available in the Language classroom throughout the last four school years. Access to the computer room, and the recently-installed audio-visual equipment, has gradually become easier.

	Lang. classroom				Computer room 1				Computer room 2				Audiovisuals room
	99	99	00	01	98	99	00	01	98	99	00	01	98	99	00	01
Mini labs	4	6	6	6
Computers	1	4	4	10	9	9	9	9	--	9	9	9	--	--	1	1
Video	1	1	1	1	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--
Internet Connection	--	--	--	3	3	3	3	3	--	3	3	3	--	--	1	1
Beamer & screen	--	--	--	3	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	--	3	3

The integration process of ICT started in 1998-99 with the organisation of classroom corners to better suit the needs of heterogeneous groups with different levels of proficiency, and the identification of corners and software for skills development, and design of material (worksheets) to be used in each of them:

• Listening and speaking - mini-labs and video
• Language practice (grammar and vocabulary) - multimedia computers. Software used: CLIC (http://www.xtec.es/recursos/clic/) and language practice CD-ROMs such as Triple Play Plus, Community Exploration...
• Reading - multimedia computers. Software used: CD-ROMs of general and specific reference such as Dangerous Creatures, Cinemania...
• Writing - computer. Software used: Word.

Information handling and communication strategies - computer connected to the Internet. Services used: e-mail and WWW for information exchange.

In the following school year, the Foreign language department's project on the integration of ICT in foreign language learning in compulsory secondary education (12-16) is selected as an innovation project to be carried out along the next two school years, throughout which the following activities can be highlighted:

Continuous evaluation and reorganisation of existing material and design of new material in web format, including interactive activities.

Integration of ICT in the implementation of the following task-based projects:

• I love Animals - compilation
• Virtual English - process
• Philadelphia - exploration and information search
• Weaving your own Adventure - design and creativity

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During the school year 2001-2002 they design a web site within the school main web page to foster the online use of the existing material, with the aim of providing students with supplementary resources to be used online at any time and place.

Classroom management

The experience has been carried out with groups of 16-18 students, either in the language classroom or in the computer room. When in the language classroom, students work in pairs and switch corners when they have completed the corresponding tasks associated to each space (listening, writing...). This kind of organisation allows the teacher to give support to individual students, when needed. Most assignments can be completed in one or two periods. The students' worksheets contain the instructions to complete the task, the task itself and a separate answer key for correction, when relevant. Task-based projects are much more focused on building up collaborative work, and oriented to enhance students' creativity, and thus contribute their personal background to group outcomes, some of which have been published on the school's web page, i.e. Philadelphia (http://www.xtec.es/~dpermany/webphiladel/contents/index.htm) In these projects, grouping is flexible according to the tasks posed to students throughout the process. Both approaches allow students to become autonomous and aware of their own learning process.

.Samples of student's worksheets

Worksheets to explore the CD-ROMs:

• Dangerous Creatures.
• Ancient Lands
• Worksheet to revise grammar -simple past and other language skills, like writing, reading and listening.

Teacher's profile

Technology-minded and eager to take risks, and pilot new materials and activities. She was granted a sabbatical year to produce materials to integrate ICT tools in the English classroom, during which she designed Virtual English (http://www.xtec.es/~dpermany/creditvirt/index1.htm), a set of activities that provide for 35 hours and include students’ information exchange via e-mail, and web page design to present outcomes. Together with two other teachers she designed Philadelphia (http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/philadel/index.htm), a 35-hour credit that approaches the topic from different views: cinema, music, health and cities, and that focus is on net search activities and presentation of outcomes. She implemented Weaving your own adventure (http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/weaving/index.htm), a 35-unit credit designed by the Centre de Recursos de Llengües Estrangeres as an example of ICT integration in activities to develop information-handling strategies while carrying out a project. She also piloted the NetLanguages materials (http://www.xtec.es/aulanet/virtualschool) and the TT course described in point 1.4, as well as How to Become a Responsible Consumer (http://www.xtec.es/crle/02/webquests/english/2index2.html), a WebQuest.

IES Ronda. Lleida

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IES Ronda (http://www.xtec.es/centres/iesronda/) is located in the middle-size town of Lleida, about 160 km from Barcelona and with some 150,000 inhabitants. The students come from two completely different social backgrounds: upper middle class from a new-built area, and low class gypsy families that settled down in the area some generations ago.

The school has always been open to innovation, being the headmaster a key individual to support all innovation activities carried out by individual teachers to motivate the rest of the staff to take up new challenges towards improving their teaching practice and consequently raising the standards of the education community they serve. When visiting the school, one has the feeling that the headmaster is everywhere, either in corridors with groups of students, or in the staff room talking to teachers, in his office dealing with problems that can arise, or even in the playground.

The school has a language policy that has allowed to integrate CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) and to offer three foreign languages, which is quite unusual in Catalan public schools. There is a special concern towards fostering the study of a second foreign language. While one would expect parents asking about their children’s' marks in maths, most of them are worried about the chances their kids have of taking up a second foreign language.

The school submitted a "Strategic Action Plan" in 2000, with the aim of integrating ICT in all subject areas as well as in school organisation and dynamics, in which the foreign language teachers worked in close collaboration with the ICT teachers, taking a very active role.

Resources and activities

The school support to contribution of the teachers to the innovation has allowed participation in the annual public announcements, called by the Ministry of Education, for innovation projects and for grants awarded to groups of students. The opinion of the students who were awarded with the grant can be read on the school website (http://www.xtec.es/iesronda/02depart/estran/projec/london/porta/porta.htm).

The computer rooms have always been available for foreign language learning, which teachers highlight as very important to keep their motivation up throughout the process.

Resources provided to increase students' cognitive skills when searching for relevant information on the web include specific tasks and learning goals, such as:

Spotting multimedia elements that students may want to select and include in their outcomes;

Consolidating learning on a specific topic through identification and analysis of information to reach conclusions;

Increasing the ability to build knowledge of a specific aspect within a topic.

Samples of materials designed

Samples of students' outcomes

Teachers' profile

IES La Serreta. Rubí

IES La Serreta (http://www.xtec.es/iesserreta/) is located in the town of Rubí, about 25 km from Barcelona. The school has a population of 800 students that come from different socio-cultural backgrounds.

The school was selected for its project on the integration of ICT in the school year 1999-2000. The innovation described below, though, focuses on a learning experience carried out by one of the seven teachers of English with a group of 20 14-year-old students in their 3rd year of secondary compulsory education, from September 2000 to March 2002, on the theme "Accessible environments". Although initially ICT tools were not seen as essential for the development of the project, the reason why it is worth including this example in the present survey is the relevance that technology has acquired along the process and for the publication of the outcomes (http://www.etsav.upc.es/ personals/laserreta/). The project's main objective was to motivate students to improve their communicative skills in English while investigating issues that would raise their awareness on citizenship and human rights.

Resources and activities

The students received information on accessibility and completed / performed a series of coherent tasks designed by the teacher, in which they, in wheelchairs or blindfolded, assessed the accessibility in the town (http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/laserreta/ R_map.htm), the school (http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/laserreta/ac_r_sch.htm), and other public buildings, such as the Town Hall (http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/laserreta/ACC_tHl.htm) or the Post Office.

They gathered information from different sources: they attended lectures on the topic (http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/laserreta/lecture.htm), carried out surveys interviewing disabled people, visited associations, searched the net, read books and magazines and watched films. At the same time, the students created a story about a disabled girl and her friends at school, and wrote about their experiences and feelings in a diary (http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/laserreta/lid_rubi.htm). They also developed a TV programme, You are the One (http://www.etsav.upc.es/personals/laserreta/you_are.htm), with the same characters and they wrote the script, acted and recorded the programme in video format. The outcomes of the case study of the accessibility of disabled people to public buildings and spaces in Rubí were awarded a grant that covered the expenses of the group to complete the project during a 15-day stay in England, where they carried out a parallel case study of Portsmouth. In the present school year the group has been working on the presentation of the outcomes of the comparative study (http://www.etsav.upc.es/ personals/laserreta/compare.htm) of the two towns.

Classroom management

Project work has proven to be an excellent approach to improve the students' knowledge of themselves as individuals and as citizens. Students got so involved in the project that they devoted as much time as required to have the outcomes ready for the deadline. They have also risen awareness on citizenship and have become much more concerned with issues arising from their own environment.Students' use of technology has developed throughout the project; they started by using Word only, but now their web pages have contributed to building the collaborative project outcomes.

Teacher's profile

Experienced teacher, eager to get involved in innovation activities. She had basic ICT skills when the project started and has mentioned that she has become more and more skilful, together with the students, throughout the development of the project.