Main Study (Spring, 2008)

After all the discussion and reflection in February, I went back to Taiwan with a more relaxed mind and a more open attitude. Like the Balanced Research Plea Li (2006) proposed, “‘balanced research’ should involve researchers moving back and forwards between pre-designed and adapted plans in the course of research, especially in authentic social contexts such as a language classroom. Such adaptations or changes should neither be simply attributed to the researcher’s lack of foresight nor be regarded as something detrimental to the success of a research study”. In my Main Study, especially after the third listening course (Class C) was included, I went through a more dynamic and fluid teaching and researching process, as my teaching was more closely integrated with my research. At several points, several things were going on simultaneously in three different courses. There were more improvised moments in teaching which led to spontaneous decisions in research, which made it difficult for me to write the narrative. Therefore, instead of presenting Phase Two in a chronological order, I will briefly summarise the three courses and then present some emerging themes shared by two or three courses. I believe when I later analyze the data, this phase will appear more clear to me (for further discussions, see 6.3 ‘The role of collaboration and reflection’ and 7.1.2 ‘Issues in the process of appropriation’ ).

To facilitate the following discussion, I will present the e-learning course as Class A, the B-Learning course as Class B and the freshmen listening course with the one-month project as Class C. In the 2nd phase, both Class A and B were run the 2nd time, but for Class C, this online learning mode is a new learning experience for students. The following table outlines the background information of the three courses.

Table 4-1 Description of Class A, B and C Class A e-learning Class B b-learning Class C b-learning

Course Title Intermediate

Listening Computer Assisted Listening Comprehension Freshmen Listening Lab

Course Type Elective Elective Required

Semester-long Semester-long Year-long

Student Major Non-English Major English Major English Major

Year 2ndyear and above 3rdyear and above First year

No. of Students 25 24 33 Length of online learning One semester 16 weeks One semester 16 weeks One-month 4 weeks Modality of Interaction Reduced F2F meeting (3 times) Regular weekly F2F meeting Regular weekly F2F meeting synchronous & asynchronous discussions asynchronous discussions asynchronous discussions

In my study, all of the courses are listening courses but serving three different groups of target students. This arrangement does not result from an intention to study different modalities or to compare e-learning and b-learning, but merely a result of the simple demand for more courses, a common situation many language teachers face in reality. In order to facilitate later discussion on how I modified the courses for different target groups in the data collection process, it is necessary to present the overview of the course design. I will explain the fundamental structure of the listening course, including the objective in designing this listening course, the choice of listening materials, the audio/video websites, and the assignments, the listening diaries and the group recording project. After presenting the overview of the listening course, a unique feature of the online courses offered in the AIEDL programme, the role of TAs, is then illustrated before the conclusion.

4.2.4.1 Class A (e-learning): Intermediate Listening

Probably because the course was offered for the second time in the spring semester, we had a much smaller number of 25 students than in the fall semester. This time the course was offered under the Social Science College and there were two students from Life-Long Learning Programme. This group of students seemed to be more prepared for online learning and their own responsibilities. With this small number, I only had to work with one TA Ya-ren who had helped in the fall semester. I met with her in the week before the semester began for an interview which originally I thought would last 30 minutes but she shared with me her own experience of online learning as a student and it lasted for more than one hour. As described in 3.4, the course design and the listening materials remained the same except for the last month. When I was making plans for Class C, I thought the same idea could be applied to other classes. Therefore, instead of me choosing what to listen, starting in May, the last month, students took turns to share websites they actually listen to.

4.2.4.2 Class B (b-learning): Computer Assisted Listening Comprehension The B-Learning course was also offered for the second time, and in the spring semester students in the third year were also allowed to take the course. Similar to Class A, students had better clues about what the course was like and some of them had even talked to those who took the course in the fall semester to get an overall picture. I also booked the lab for the first month so that students had more time exploring the use of EngSite and their questions could be answered immediately in class. In the very first class, I explained why doing the listening before they came to class was essential in this course and shared with them the discussion I had with the students in the fall semester. To avoid making the assumption that they would read the instructions online, at the end of each lesson I showed them what they were expected to listen to for the next class. As I mentioned above, the listening diaries were the main focus in the first two months. I took extracts from the diaries students wrote for them to discuss in small groups. As for sharing their own websites, students in this B-Learning course could actually present the site and elaborate the reasons and examples in more details.

4.2.4.3 Class C (b-learning) Freshmen Listening Lab

This course offered to freshmen in the English department is the only required course among the three and also the only year-long course, which means I taught this group of students for two semesters. I had chosen Class B (third year students) as the b- learning course to study in the fall semester because I was not sure whether the freshman group could adapt themselves to a new learning mode while they were adjusting to the college life. However, after the first semester, I found that this group of freshmen in Class C were actually very used to technology no matter in their daily life or in the academic learning. I tried to integrate several units of online learning in the fall semester, 2007 and they reacted well. Therefore, I decided to try a one-month online listening project by the end of the semester. Moreover, we had classes in the lab, where all students had a computer with Internet access in front of them, which made it easier for them to interact with each other even during the class time. For the above reasons, I decided to run a one-month online project in May.