1 of 19

​

​

A Telecollaboration Model for �Reaching the Long Tail of Languages

Thor Sawin & Gabriel Guillén�

​

​

April 25

Kraków, Polska�UNICollaboration 2018

2 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES�

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

  • The Long Tail Concept (Anderson, 2004)�
    • Not only selling mainstream products, but also a “long tail” of digital options (books, music, movies, etc.)
    • Better supply & demand matching
    • More power to the consumers…?

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

Long Tail

PRODUCTS

Mainstream

POPULARITY

Wired (2004)

3 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES�

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

  • The Long Tail Concept (Anderson, 2004): An analogy from the movie industry�
    • Blockbuster, focusing on blockbusters
    • Netflix, focusing on “selling less of more”
    • Netflix again, trying to be Hollywood...

�

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

PRODUCTS

POPULARITY

The Economist (2017)

4 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES�

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

  • The Language Long Tail

�

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

23 dominant languages, spoken by half of the world

2,464 endangered languages

7,097 LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD

SPEAKERS

The Salzburg Statement for a Multilingual World (2018)

5 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES�

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

  • The Language Learning Long Tail�
    • In the US, 62.62% of students take Spanish & French
    • 97% of students take Spanish, French, ASL, German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese, Arabic, Latin, Russian, Korean, Greek, Portuguese, and Hebrew (14 languages)
    • 2,46% take other languages
    • What if… we could reach the Language Learning Tail, allowing students to choose any target language(s)?

�

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

��7,097 POTENTIAL TARGET LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD

​

STUDENTS

Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education (MLA, 2016)

?

6 of 19

MIIS presents an interesting case study

​

  • Professional Masters’ degree school
  • 700 students - trade diplomacy, development, environmental policy, terrorism, international education, transl/interp, language teaching
  • Most have international experience (Peace Corps, teaching abroad, international experience), and also want to work internationally
  • Language policies:
    • At least 200-level (A2) in a Language Other Than English (LOTE) for admission, or do Summer Intensive program
    • Non-English speakers automatically qualify via their L1
    • Must take 180 hours of language instruction, 60 hours can be Intercultural Competence

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

7 of 19

Languages we support through content-based language classes:�

  • Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French, Mandarin, Japanese�
  • (Korean, German, Portuguese only available for translation/interpretation students)

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

8 of 19

Many students’ multilingualism doesn’t fit our policies (cf. Murphy, Magnan, Back & Rucks 2009):�

  • People with acquired B1-B2 proficiency in large languages that “don’t make the cut”: Italian, Portuguese, Hindi. Not enough to offer a class, yet widely-used enough to feel the absence�
  • Heritage speakers cannot develop academic/professionals skills at the 400-level (C1) (can be sent to a 200-level French class instead): Farsi, Romanian, Tagalog�
  • Returned Peace Corps volunteers who speak a language have no means of validating those language skills, get put into a “familiar” language - can’t continue their studies
    • Hassaniya (Mauritania), Amharic → Modern Standard Arabic
    • Kyrgyz, Moldovan → Russian
    • Mam, Aymara → Spanish�
  • Those with clear professional goals in one country or region are left to develop those skills on their own: (e.g. Kinyarwanda in Rwanda, Bislama in Vanuatu, Oromiya in Ethiopia) �
  • Those who need to develop more than one language simultaneously: Maghrebi Arabic & French; Kazakh & Russian.

​

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

9 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

So what models exist for recognizing existing LCTL skills, supporting their development?�

Traditional LCTL classes

  • Requires a big enough language (Turkish, Swahili, Hindi), big enough university (Michigan State, UC Berkeley)
  • 100-level (A1-A2) only: Rarely available at the 200 level or up
  • Awkward split of heritage and non-heritage learners
  • Still very hard to recruit, train teachers (Wang 2009)

​

Fee-based tutorials

  • Extra costs for students beyond what is advertised OR institution must absorb costs
    • Hard to recruit qualified teachers locally - “I know someone who speaks X and could teach it”
    • Little quality control for both learners and teachers

​

Online class (with or without teacher, or taught at a partner university)

  • A larger pool of available options (Godwin-Jones, 2013)
  • Imbalance in “present” and “absent” students (Big10 Consortium)
  • Teaching well is a hurdle, teaching well online is a higher hurdle (Winke, Goerther, & Amuzie, 2010)
  • Fully online: Little synchronous oral interaction in target language
  • Self-instruction online: University of Arizona, Pitt, REFLEX-LCTL Department of Defense

�

​

10 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

So what models exist for recognizing existing LCTL skills, supporting their development? (cont.) �

External summer intensives

  • Critical Language Scholarships from US government
  • Well-trained teachers, critical mass (e.g. Indiana University Eurasian program)
  • Rarely go beyond A2 level
  • Expensive - Revenue goes outside the institution
  • Precludes summer internships
  • Attrition during rest of the year

​

Personal app use outside of school credit

  • e.g. Hello Talk, iTalki (among other language learning social networks and platforms)
  • Entirely up to learners – no institutional support/involvement
  • Lack of systematic curriculum

​

�Even at very large and well-resourced universities, LCTL instruction is often held to a different standard of quality and expectations than the “big languages” are

​

​

�

​

11 of 19

Based on a survey of LCTL methods, an optional solution would include:

  • Freedom from need to find trained LCTL teachers
  • Revenues stay inside the institution
  • Systematic proficiency-oriented and framework-aligned curriculum
  • Could equally apply to a language of 20,000,000 or a language of 20 speakers
  • Could apply to more than one language simultaneously
  • Could serve learners of all levels A1-C2
  • Give opportunities for oral interaction
  • Learning could be spread over time, without gaps for attrition

​

Argument for “2nd choice language”: language class is about more than proficiency

  • Learning another culture/perspective
  • Learning how to learn another language in the future

​

What if we doubled down on these skills, and let each learner pick the language to grow them in?

​

​

​

​

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

12 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

Community Hat

Tandem Hat

Language User Hat

Community & Partnership Building

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Spontaneous & Guided Conversations

Language* Learner Hat�������Language=Culture

IC Reflections & Class Discussions

​

​

​

​

​

​

Recordings & Multi Word Expressions

13 of 19

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

  • Recording tasks, adapted from the Growing Participator Approach (Thomson, 2012), allowed simultaneous focus on language, culture, intersubjectivity

One of the activities at the tandem session (Friday)

RECORDING�They record expert for 30s-2min: picture description, favorite things, first memory, how to do something, something they are proud of, etc.

“MASSAGE” RECORDING�They replay recording, pausing to negotiate new or passive language content

NOTES �They capture linguaculture and interpersonal information

REFLECTIONS �They share thoughts and evidences of learning from recordings and tandem sessions

VOCABULARY LIST�They include new single words and MWE in the Course Quizlet. They add pictures and “authentic” context

RE-TELLING RECORDING�They listen to the story and record themselves re-telling it and telling own story

Course Assignments (Monday and Wednesday)

14 of 19

  • What we learned from Spanish in the Community, and the telecollaboration literature which is relevant to our Long Tail proposal (for more information, go to https://www.recicle.org/curriculum)�
    • There’s an opportunity to use recording tasks as the core input for the course (data-driven learning): a source of linguistic, interpersonal, and intercultural information
    • There’s a tension between these recording tasks, spontaneous conversational practice, and community building tasks (relationship building tasks)
    • There’s an opportunity to change the mindset about language learning. Learners increase confidence, autonomy and linguistic awareness, with a new focus on language and what they can do with the language
    • And again, there’s a tension between tools and spaces, between recreating a “language lab” and creating a supportive ecosystem, where language use and language needs emerge naturally

​

​

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

15 of 19

Language teacher �development coach

A2 Mam

B2 Kyrgyz

A1 Turkish

C1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

A2 Urdu

B1 Ayisyen

B1 Senegal Fr.

A1 Kabyle

B1 Derijah Ar.

C1 Amharic

  • Partner = expert speaker, NOT teacher
  • Coach = expert in language development, NOT language
    • Language acquisition methods
    • Dispositions: HUMILITY, hospitality, ambiguity
    • Curate available web resources
    • Troubleshoot partnering and technology
    • Oversee assessment

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

Learner enrolled in class

Expert partner(s) �in the world

16 of 19

Design Features

  • Any language (for which a speaker can be found), any level
  • Develop multilingualism (from multiple partners, or a single multilingual partner), rather than bifurcated monolingualism
  • Focus on ways of speaking in a community of speakers, �Instead of academic writing
  • Empower SLA-trained teachers to create SLA-savvy learners
  • Conversation partners → level-appropriate, quality narrative tasks
  • Train learners to:
  • Collaborate in face-to-face and online virtual exchanges
  • Observe and interpret interculturality
  • Explore interpersonal and cultural similarities/differences (avoid essentialization)
  • Use audio recordings as linguaculture input
  • Identify and automatize lexical items (not words)
  • Induce/elicit grammar patterns from narratives
  • Strategies for finding and sharing language discoveries
  • Soliciting feedback and negative evidence
  • Predict, map, and reflect on own language progress

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

A2 Mam

B2 Kyrgyz

A1 Turkish

C1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

A2 Urdu

B1 Ayisyen

B1 Senegal Fr.

A1 Kabyle

B1 Derijah Ar.

C1 Amharic

Language

Coach

17 of 19

Courses

LCTL 101 = first semester of enrollment

  • Initial 3-week training = CALL, ethics, critical ICC, narrative curriculum, working with a language partner
  • 12-week language partnering w/ ongoing support = identifying/evaluating references, language aptitudes & strategies, choosing narrative tasks

LCTL 102, 201, 202 = 2nd, 3rd, 4th enrollments:

  • Full 15-weeks of language partnering, w/support
  • Learners of “big languages” could adopt this model in a complementary fashion (learn the oral Spanish of Amazonian Peru, learn the oral French of Casamance in Senegal)

​

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

A2 Mam

B2 Kyrgyz

A1 Turkish

C1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

A2 Urdu

B1 Ayisyen

B1 Senegal Fr.

A1 Kabyle

B1 Derijah Ar.

C1 Amharic

Language

Coach

18 of 19

Assessment

  • Portfolio-based (Linguafolio)
  • Lexical vocabulary sets (AnkiApp)
  • Recordings of re-told narratives
    • Partners’ comments
    • Reflections
  • Can-Do statements (CEFR/ACTFL)
    • Reflections on growth
  • Digital narratives, project-based learning (Bilingual Pecha Kucha on discoveries)

​

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL

A2 Mam

B2 Kyrgyz

A1 Turkish

C1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

A2 Urdu

B1 Ayisyen

B1 Senegal Fr.

A1 Kabyle

B1 Derijah Ar.

C1 Amharic

Language

Coach

19 of 19

  • Don’t need an expert teacher for LCTL (preferable if they don’t have strong ideas about “what a learner needs”) just an expert speaker
  • Finding speakers w/ internet tricky, but easier than finding trained teachers

An important choice:

  1. Run this as tandem learning (LCTL learners would also give feedback on partners’ English)
    • Levels wouldn’t need to match
    • Harder to find English-learning speakers
    • Cheaper for university, more flakiness in partners
  2. Compensate partners at rates equivalent to language tutors locally
  3. Provide employment opportunities
  4. Spread of internet payment makes possible

​

Language

Coach

A2 Mam

B2 Kyrgyz

A1 Turkish

C1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

B1 Farsi

A2 Urdu

B1 Ayisyen

B1 Senegal Fr.

A1 Kabyle

B1 Derijah Ar.

C1 Amharic

LANGUAGE �LONG TAIL

�LCTL TEACHING�PRACTICES

​

LANGUAGES IN THE �COMMUNITY

LONG TAIL�PROPOSAL