A new tool for teachers and researchers involved in e-mail tandem language learning

Abstract

This paper presents a new teacher interface for the Electronic Tandem Resources (ETR) site, the student interface described in Appel & Mullen (2000), and a new version of the site designed specifically for research purposes. The main features of the original site geared towards the language learner were the creation of a virtual environment for tandem language learning and the provision of tools and data intended to help foster the development of learner autonomy. The new teacher interface supports the integration of tandem language learning activities in the foreign language classroom and addresses the difficult issue of performance assessment and task evaluation. Computer-mediated communication activities between students in different countries are notoriously difficult for teachers to monitor. Nevertheless, there is evidence that in certain situations it is beneficial for the teacher to be able to monitor these activities. The teacher interface of the ETR site offers a user-friendly interface which requires only basic computer skills, and gives teachers access to data such as the date of the most recently sent messages, the number of words sent by students and the percentages of text written by each student in their respective L1 and L2, without giving teachers access to the content of the messages, thus preserving students’ privacy. Furthermore, a slightly different version has also been designed for evaluation of the learning by the researcher investigating second language learning in an electronic tandem environment. This interface has been designed for setting up experiments and some of its features allow for control over variables related to the experiment. The interface records time stamps for sent and received messages.