From April 15 through 19, 2011, I had the privilege of representing the TESOL CALL Interest Section at the meeting of the International Association for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL). This was the first in what we hope will be a series of annual exchanges between the CALLIS and IATEFL’s Learning Technologies (LT) SIG under the sponsorship of the British Council; special thanks is due to the British Council’s Michael Carrier, a former CALLIS Steering Committee member, for both the inspiration and the funding for this project. My opposite number, Gary Motteram, attended the TESOL conference in New Orleans representing the LT SIG and has reported on his experiences there to the IATEFL home crowd. The British Council did an interview with Gary and me that at the time of this writing is still available at The British Council Interview of Gary Motteram and Phil Hubbard.

For those who may not be familiar, IATEFL is based in the United Kingdom and like TESOL is international in scope. It has roughly the same number of SIGs (special interest groups) as TESOL has interest sections, covering many of the same themes. The CALLIS and LT SIG have similar interests but the two organizations differ in their operation. IATEFL does not have anything like the CALLIS-run Electronic Village during the conference, nor anything corresponding to the EV Online sessions. However, the LT SIG has a full day of presentations in a set room during the conference, creating in essence a technology-themed mini-conference within the larger one. In addition, the LT SIG organizes conferences with international affiliates and provides travel scholarships for the annual IATEFL conference. In the former category, events are planned for Morocco, Turkey, and Cyprus in the next year. I return to the discussion of possible collaborations at the end of this article, but for now, let me share some of my experiences in Brighton to give CALLIS readers a snapshot of what is happening in the LT SIG with technology and language learning.

Figure 1. Brighton Pier, near the conference venue (photo by Mr.Hubbard)

I arrived in Brighton the afternoon of 15 April in time for the last couple of hours of the PCE (preconference event) on “Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs): From Methods to Madness.” The plenary for the event was given by Pete Sharma, whose appearance coincided with the release of his new book on the topic, 400 Ideas for Interactive Whiteboards. He enthusiastically shared several of the 400 ideas for using IWBs from that co-authored volume. He was joined by five other presenters for a final panel on “IWBs: What are they good for?” An interesting discussion between the panel and audience members developed around the question of whether IWBs led to inherently more teacher-centered classes.

The PCE was followed by an LT SIG-sponsored set of sessions on mobile learning. Among the more interesting bits that came through this were provided by Neil Ballantyne: the idea that people like to snack on their phones and the observation that in Hong Kong on the metro everyone is now on their phones rather than reading papers. Paul Sweeney and Caroline Moore presented results of a survey of mobile apps, noting that many of the apps are not very good in terms of making use of the technology, particularly for smartphones, and that there is a pervasive view among users that apps should be free, making it difficult to convince business-side creators to commit resources for development.

Figure 2. Caroline Moore presents a survey of the “appmosphere”

The main conference began on Saturday, and the first technology session I attended featured a talk by Anisoara Pop on integrating asynchronous tools into writing and speaking. This was the first of many talks at the conference that relied centrally on free Web 2.0 tools. She focused on the use of blogs and asynchronous voice tools such as Voxopop to help her students build confidence in using English to communicate with a real audience. In one of the more widely attended sessions, Russell Stannard provided demonstrations of a number of Web 2.0 tools for connecting what goes on in class to what happens outside. One I particularly enjoyed was Storybird, where students can use free images provided by artists to collaboratively create and share storybooks. Stannard’s free site, Stannard's Training Videos, includes demonstrations with screen captures of how to use many of the tools he showed.

Other presenters I heard who built their work around notions of Web 2.0 included Byza Nur Yilmaz and Isil Boy, who presented action research on online vocabulary and online writing using wikis in Turkey, noting problems they uncovered, such as poor IT skills among students, and proposed solutions. Raquel Oliveira gave an animated demonstration of how she used Twitter Twibes as a transformative tool in two classes in Brazil; the site allows students to form groups and engage and communicate within their group, going beyond the limitations of the 140-character tweet. Meltem Bizim and H. Sibel Taskin Simsek showed how they used a blog as an e-portfolio for writing and incorporated podcasting and voice thread software to encourage oral communication, noting that keeping track of student performances in these media can be quite time consuming.

In addition to the special session following the Friday PCE, a number of other presentations featured mobile learning. Gavin Dudenay presented a case for moving us out of the text mode we seem to be locked into, a world of dictionaries and word-a-day apps, into using the power the newer smartphones and mobile tablets provide. He noted there are already apps for watching TED talks on iPhones and Android devices and demonstrated some non-ELT apps to emphasize the point that we should look away from our profession for transformative educational ideas.

Figure 3. New tendencies in mobile-assisted English learning as outlined by Tatiana Kozhevnikova

Tatiana Kozhevnikova presented another session on mobile learning, “New Tendencies in Mobile-Assisted English Learning.” She provided an example of how children on a museum field trip can utilize their mobiles to take pictures of exhibits and, along with text descriptions of the photos, use these materials to document and share their experience. She also noted that dedicated mobile devices like museum audio guides in English can be used to support authentic learning. Other talks I attended on this theme included Kalyan Chattopadhyay making arguments for promoting mobile e-learning in India and Neal Ballantyne providing case studies of different ways two students and a teacher use their mobiles in class.

Outside of Web 2.0 and mobile learning, Graham Stanley, the LT SIG coordinator, spoke on “Learning English Through Digital Play,” offering suggestions on how to “gamify” your classroom. One such suggestion incorporated Chore Wars, an online role-playing game where players get points for completing tasks they dislike (such as doing ESL homework assignments). New IATEFL President Eric Baber also presented on technology in “A Vision of Students Today: The Future of Learning and Teaching,” which synthesized aspects of gaming, mobile learning, and Web 2.0 under the general theme of learning as social interaction. He cited a study showing that the average engagement time using a mobile device is 3 to 7 minutes and noted that as a trend, this suggested the need to develop shorter learning activities.

Not all the talks I attended were technology-focused. Among those others was a provocative discussion by Alex Ding and Barbara Sinclair on “Autonomy in Language Education: The Struggle Against Ideology and Misrepresentation.” They contended that various critical theories have subverted the role of teaching in the development of autonomy, in particular diminishing the importance of learner training. They call for teachers to engage in a dialogue with their students rather than following the idealized views of critical theorists. As an aside, I believe autonomy is a particularly important concept for CALL given the additional opportunities and challenges that the Internet has provided to language learners. The concept of learner autonomy seems to have more traction in IATEFL than TESOL: The former has had a SIG devoted to it for 25 years (Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group).

The British Council-sponsored venture that supported bringing me to Brighton was introduced to the LT SIG at large during the open forum on Monday and received a warm reception. A surprise visitor to the forum was TESOL Executive Director Rosa Aronson, who introduced herself to the group and expressed her interest in possible future TESOL/IATEFL joint ventures. Possible collaborations between the CALLIS and LT SIG mentioned at the forum included sharing links to one another’s web pages, one or more EVO sessions with either LT SIG people or a mix of CALLIS and LT SIG, having an invited CALLIS speaker at one or more of the LT SIG-sponsored conferences, and collaborating on a publication. In addition, assuming we have British Council support for another round of exchanges, we would try to have the representatives present at the conference they were visiting; in the case of TESOL this could be at the Academic Session, one of the InterSections, or one of the Electronic Village fairs.

Ultimately, it is up to the leadership of the CALLIS and the LT SIG to follow up on these initial contacts and continue to develop this nascent partnership. However, regardless of how any formal collaborations proceed, it is worth pointing out that there are already individuals with membership in these two groups who have visited in and even presented at both conferences, and this will no doubt continue. Let me encourage those of you in the CALLIS to join them. Become a member of IATEFL and the LT SIG to expand your understanding of technology in ESL/EFL teaching and learning. Even better, try to attend an IATEFL conference and experience this firsthand as I did. The next one is in Glasgow, the week before TESOL in Philadelphia (see The 2012 IATEFL Conference at a Glance Schedule). Combined, the two conferences would make an excellent way to spend an extended spring break.

Reprinted from the CALL Review Winter 2011 issue