Learning through interaction. This section of the study is to describe theoretically how undergraduate students use interactions to facilitate their language learning. In the area of English for specific purposes, the literature has revealed at least two important aspects in the conduct of an effective language course or program: 1) the language course or program needs to accommodate not only the target needs but also the students’ learning needs (Vifansi, 2002; Momtazur, Thang, Mohd, & Norizan, 2009). Target needs refers to the skills expected to be achieved as stated in the course outcomes and learning needs refers to students’ difficulties in attaining the goals of the course or program; and 2) the language course or program ought to consider both skills needed by students to fulfill academic tasks and perform job related activities after graduation (Bacha, 2003).
Often, students who are unable to express themselves competently compared to their peers who are more language competent have to deal with their handicap while undergoing their required undergraduate language courses. They need more time, space, and personal guidance to help them to be able to perform appropriately in class and later in future job environment. However, as discussed earlier, it is difficult for the lecturers to fulfill students’ individual language needs due to time and logistic constraints. In certain cases, some of the students somehow managed to overcome their difficulties assisted by their peers. For example, one of the methods to improve their language competence is through peer feedback where students (Zeng, 2006) respond to their peers’ written work or oral presentations. In writing activity, peer feedback means having other writers read and give feedback on what one has written (Hyland, 2005); or in speaking activity, it means other students give feedback on quality of oral presentations of other students. In short,
peer feedback allows students to negotiate their strength and weakness (Williams, 1957; Spear, 1988; Hyland, 2005) where the students can negotiate ideas, comments, corrections, and suggestions (Jiao, 2007; Kamimura, 2006; Zeng, 2006), allowing students to have the opportunities to improve their writing or speaking skills. However, it is important to note here that it is not the intention of the study to focus on peer feedback as students’ strategy in compensating their shortcomings. Peer feedback is briefly discussed here to illustrate an example of a method based on interactions could aid students to overcome their limitations in language learning.
Interaction has been regarded as an essential component of the learning process (Tu & Hsiang, 2000), and the level of interaction among learners affects the quality of their learning experience (Navarro & Shoemaker, 2000; Vrasidas & McIsaac, 1999). Interaction should promote learners to be active participants in the learning process where ideally learners involve in meaningful listening, speaking, reading, and writing activities as well as opportunities to reflect upon ideas, issues, and concerns (Meyers & Jones, 1993, p. 6). Learning through interactions also allows the shift from the traditional focus on teachers and learning materials to the students where they actively engage themselves in the learning process where knowledge is negotiated and acquired among their peers, instructors, materials, and learning context.
Past studies have revealed the impact of interaction on learning. For example, higher levels of interaction improve students’ learning achievement (Gokhale, 1995; Kekkonen-Moneta & Moneta, 2002) and encourage positive students’ learning attitudes (Althaus, 1997; Fulford & Zhang, 1993). In a more recent study, Grant and Hui Huang (2010) conducted a study on effectiveness of peer interaction aided by technology in facilitating language learning at undergraduate level. Their study reported that the
integration of online 3D virtual learning environment into formal classroom-based undergraduate Chinese language and culture became popular and effective among 400 Monash Chinese language and culture students. This was because the integration successfully offered more opportunities to learners to be involved in meaningful communicative activities. The major factor contributed to the success was the role of online integration in overcoming some pedagogical and logistical limitations of formal classroom-based curriculum such as overly teacher-focused curriculum and large class sizes. In another study using web-based bulletin board (WBB) to facilitate student interactions in veterinary distance learning, it was revealed that students who participated in the WBB discussions significantly improved their critical thinking skills (Yang, Newby, & Bill, 2008).
Since interaction is an established criterion in effective learning, mLearning could further facilitate learning as mobile technologies could enhance interactions among students and instructors. The pervasiveness of mobile technologies and devices such as mobile phones, PDAs, smartphones, and the new revolution IPads also supports synchronous and asynchronous communication that leads to collaborative learning among students and instructors. Furthermore, the variety in channels of communication that students can choose from such as SMS, MMS, voice calls, podcasts, blogs and many more could overcome cultural and communications barriers among students, instructors and the institutions. This further enhances meaningful interaction that is essential for meaningful learning. The media rich environment offered through mobile technologies that can be accessed by students at anytime, anywhere and just-in-time support different students’ learning needs that enables personalized learning, thus enhancing student-centered learning.
Social constructivist learning theory. The notion where knowledge is best negotiated and acquired through interaction with each other, aligned with beliefs of social constructionists (Kurt & Atay, 2007). The social constructivist theory is one of the pillars in constructivist theory that capitalizes on effective instruction delivery method through collaboration and social interaction (Powell & Kalina, 2009). This theory is frequently associated to Lev Vygotsky who outlined that learning develops within a social environment and not as an individual process (Hall, 2007). Vygotsky (1978) envisaged that social interaction precedes development where consciousness and cognition is the product of socialization and social behavior. He highlighted three (3) main themes in his learning theory:
1) Social interaction. Vygotsky argued that learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function (1978, p. 90). In other words, his theory holds that social learning precedes a child’s cognitive development. He stated that children’s cognitive development begin at the social level via interaction with other people (interpsychological) leading to the children’s development within themselves (intrapsychological). Social interaction is in fact the major theme in Vygotsky’s theoretical framework. This differs with Jean Piaget’s argument of child development, in which the child’s development precedes learning,
2) The More Knowledgeable Other (MKO). This theme suggests that a learner could learn from another person who has a better understanding or higher ability in a particular task, process, or concept. The MKO not only could be a teacher, trainer, coach, a lecturer or other more knowledgeable adult but the MKO may also come from their peers, a younger person, or even computers or in this study, a mobile phone,
3) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). ZPD is the most prominent theme, which describes Vygotsky’s theory. In his theory description, Vygotsky (1978) proposed that learning creates the zone of proximal development where a variety of internal developmental processes is triggered by the learning that operates only when the learners interact with people in their environment and in cooperation with their peers. Once the processes are internalized, they become part of the learners’ independent developmental achievement (p.90). Vygostky defined the ZPD as “The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by individual problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygostky, 1978, p. 86). In other words, referring to Figure 2.2, ZPD is the distance between the most difficult task someone can do alone and the most difficult task someone can do with help (Mooney, Carol, & Garhart, 2000, p. 83). Vygotsky stressed that an interaction is vital for a learner in the edge of learning where learners can benefit from the interaction to enhance their learning achievement. He added that interaction between the learners and other more skilful peers could effectively aid in developing their skills and learning strategies. In the context of this study, lecturers may include cooperative language activities where skilful peers could help less competent language learners within the learners’ zone of proximal development.
Figure 2.2. Zone of proximal development. Adapted from Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (p. 73), by L.S. Vygotsky, 1978,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
These more skilful peers are what Vygotsky termed as the ‘More Knowledgeable Other’ (MKO). MKO is an important concept that relates to the difference between what students can achieve on their own and what they can achieve with the guidance and encouragement from a more skilled partner. This concept implies that not necessarily higher interlocutors such as lecturers or instructors but other students could also qualify to be the MKO. Past studies have revealed that development of language skills such as writing (as product) in peer feedback activities (as process) is not always determined by higher-lower interactions as interaction at peer level can generate development of writing too (Zainurrahman, 2010). The assistance given by the more skilled learners here is what is also termed as ‘scaffolding’. However, Vygotsky never used the term scaffolding in his theory. The term was first introduced by Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) as a metaphor to idealize the role of a teacher who described it as, “…process that enables a child or a novice to solve a problem, carry out a task, or achieve a goal which is beyond his unassisted efforts... (p. 90)”.
Vygotsky suggested that when students are at their ZPD, they should receive the appropriate assistance (scaffolding) by their MKO just enough to achieve the task. Once the students gain mastery of the task, the ‘scaffolding’ may be removed and they could face
the task themselves. This is likened to scaffolding as a metaphor taken from building construction where the scaffolds are use to support workers to construct a building and the scaffolds will be removed once the building is completed (Johnson, Christie, & Wardle, 2005). However, in education, this metaphor is argued as more suitable for a “well-defined end” and is teacher-centered (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996, p. 183). This type of scaffolding is known as ‘Directive’ scaffolding where students are expected to acquire standard skills and knowledge taught through series of specified content and strategies designed by an instructor.
However, in practice, scaffolding should be a learner-centered strategy where learning ends are determined by the learners’ needs. This type of scaffolding, better known as ‘Supportive’ scaffolding manifests in instructions tailored to students needs depending on their own ability and interest (Lenski & Nierstheimer, 2002). In scaffolding, the ZPD actually serves as a critical concept. The ZPD concept was originally applied in face-to- face tutoring but later it was found to be also successful in other settings where computer software could serve as scaffolding support. For example, a software design framework, the Learner Centered Design (LCD) was developed based on scaffolding as main support for learners (Soloway et al., 1996; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976). ECOLAB (Luckin, 1998), a tutoring system developed based on the Vygotskian design framework provided interactive environments to assist children aged 10-11 years to learn about food chains and webs. ECOLAB was also found effective in assisting the children through providing appropriate challenging activities. The learner model was also able to track the learners’ individual capability and potential in order to provide the right amount of collaborative assistance during the activities. In this way, ECOLAB not only assists learners in reaching beyond what they could not achieve alone through the activities but also explicitly direct
Other examples such as QUADRARIC (Wood & Wood, 1999) assisted learners when needed where a tutor could continually monitor and respond to their activities that are logged into the system. The system also helped the tutors to determine the type of help to be given to the learners. Instead, DATA (Wood, Wood, & Marston, 1998) offered online assessments to learners and tutoring to them based on evidences of errors made. All these tutoring system capitalized on scaffolding the learners to reach their projected learning outcomes where assistance were offered based on the learners’ individual needs, level, and pace within their ZPDs. In all the examples given above, the MKO plays a significant role in providing the scaffolding for the learners to deal with their ZPD and the MKOs are usually a more capable peer, a tutor, or a lecturer.
However, the MKO may not necessarily be in human form. For example, Cook (2010) in his attempt to reconceptualize Vygotsky’s notion of ZPD, presented a study on augmented contexts for development mediated by mobile phones. He argued that the context of learning for the century is augmented and accelerated by mobile devices and technologies through new digital tools and media. This actually supports augmentation as a fundamental way in conceptualizing mLearning (Metcalf, 2006; Quinn, 2011a; Quinn, 2011b).
In short, Vygotsky’s theory of education as a fundamental human activity (Moll, 1992) involves people with roles as instructors and as learners where communication process exists between them in order to assist the learners to solve learning problems that they are not able to do so by themselves. In fact, Rogoff (1990) argued that problem solving in Vygotskian’s perspective is cultural based as she stated, ‘Interactions in the zone of proximal development are the crucible of development and of culture’. This means that education is not merely interaction between teachers and learners but also interaction between problems and knowledge in a culture of how to deal with the problems.
Conclusively, in ZPD, Vygotsky specifies four (4) factors in the educational process:
1) Someone in the role of the learner, 2) Someone in the role of the teacher, and
3) Something that constitutes a problem that the learner is trying to solve with the help of the teacher. The problem not only in the form of information or knowledge gap; it could also in the form to overcome one’s need to acquire competency or skill, and 4) The knowledge needed to solve the problem.
(Tiffin & Rajasingham, 1995, p. 24) The interactions among these four factors are fundamental communication process, which constitutes education. In other words, all the factors need to be present for education to happen. However, the presence of each of the factor needs to be in relation to the other for a limited time of period until the learners have solved their problem. This means that once the learners are capable of solving their problem, their ZPD disappears, and they no longer need a teacher for the particular problem. In the educational view, the theory implies that knowledge only exists in relation to a particular learner’s problem, and the role of the teacher only exists in the role of the learners for a particular problem.
In short, as Vygotsky’s theory of ZPD postulates learning through interactions in facilitating learners’ learning and cognitive development, the theory supports mLearning as mLearning also thrives on interaction and communication among individuals for learning too. Interestingly, if taken in the opposite perspective, mLearning could in turn support this learning theory. For example, one of the criticisms of ZPD is that it is impossible for a teacher or an instructor to attend to all students’ ZPD in the classroom due to time constraint and large class size. To add to the odds, different students have different ZPD
paces. However, through mLearning, via mobile technologies and devices, there is a larger repertoire of communication channels. This enables the students to seek help from other ‘experts’ (MKO) besides their instructors to meet their learning needs at their own pace in or beyond classroom walls detached from time constraint. Thus, Vygotsky’s theory of zone of proximal development serves as a theoretical foundation for mLearning in this study. The concept of mLearning outlined by the study and the theory adopted complements each other.
Scaffolding theory. Building upon Vygotsky’s ZPD, Bruner (1970), a cognitive psychologist introduced the scaffolding theory. This theory is most associated to development of language skills. In fact, Bruner developed the theory to describe the development of young children’s oral language acquisition through instructional support and process mediated by the adults in learning through the joint construction of language and gradually withdrawing their support as children gain independent mastery of the language. The key element here is learning through interaction between the adult and the child in assisting the child to develop something beyond his or her independent efforts. The assistance (scaffolding) will be gradually removed as the child gains independence in his or her learning. To give a brief example of how scaffolding is administered, Malcolm (2010) illustrates how a teacher guides his student in the process of ‘emergent writing’. At the initial stage, the teacher may take down notes while engaging the child to talk about a topic. Then the teacher could compose the essay together with the child throughout the writing process until the child could complete the writing the task independently. One could observe that through scaffolding, the role of the teacher changes along the child’s learning process from recording the child’s speech, guiding using instructions, to feedback corrections and encouragement, and finally to observation. However, Tharp & Gallimor
(1988) explained that scaffolding is not simplifying the task given to the learners, but rather simplifying the learners’ role in solving the task through gradual assistance from their instructor or more skilled peers.
In instructional setting, Brush and Saye (2002) identified two levels of scaffolding:
soft and hard scaffolds. Soft scaffolds are dynamic, situation-specific, immediate, and continuous assistance provided by a teacher or peer in the learning process. A teacher may
approach her students one after another in a classroom and converse with them in monitoring their progress. However, this level of scaffolding is impractical in large classrooms as it is difficult to attend to all students’ needs (Gallagher, 2011). Hard scaffolds on the other hand are static supports that are planned in advanced to assist students with a difficult task. This level of scaffolding is more student-centered where the teacher could provide cues or hints. For example, hyperlinks to information databases embedded in the students’ learning software (Jacobson, Maouri, Mishra, & Kolar, 1996) could assist the students in completing their task leading to higher level of thinking. These type of scaffoldings illustrated here are called ‘expert scaffolding’ where the teachers or instructors are considered experts responsible in providing scaffolds for their students. The main aim of the instructors as experts is to decrease the gap in students existing knowledge and the targeted knowledge. This gap is identified as the students’ ZPD as discussed earlier in this section and the main goal of the instructor is to assist the student across their ZPD (Bruner, 1985; Vygotsky, 1978).
Another type of scaffolding is the reciprocal scaffolding; a method involving a pair or a group of learners working collaboratively on a task (Holton & Thomas, 2001). These learners in the process could learn from each other’s experiences and knowledge that may lead to higher-level thinking skills. According to Holton and Thomas (2001), in reciprocal
scaffolding, the instructor and the student may switch their roles as an expert or a student, where learning would be a mutual goal. The student might learn about a new learning experience while the instructor could learn a new technique in doing a certain thing that is discovered by the student. In short, both could learn more through mutual interaction compared to following an action guideline.