Comparing CALL approaches: Self-access versus hybrid classes

W ith the steady increase of computer laboratories dedicated to language learning in many institutions in recent years, it is hardly surprising that selfaccess learning materials have attracted a significant amount of attention from second language learning textbook and software development companies. As Little (2001, p. 29) describes, the development of these self-access environments over the past two decades has been the Òsingle most important development affecting the learning of foreign languages in the world.Ó Different researchers advocate different reasons for using self-access materials. Wolff (1997), for example, argues that CALL can be used to promote certain aspects of learner autonomy such as working at one’s own pace, freedom to choose materials and one’s pedagogical path. Researchers such as Jones & O’Brien (1997) and Tamburini (1999) have suggested that self-study environments give learners the opportunity to work around tight scheduling constraints that make it difficult for them set aside time required for conventional language courses. There is, however, little documented evidence at this point to show how self-access environments compare to other language learning environments, in particular when CALL is used as a component of each environment. CALL at Osaka University of Economics (OUE) has proven to be an effective way of improving our learners’ EFL proficiency (Redfield & Campbell, 1999). In two other related studies, CALL, in the form of New Dynamic English (NDE), proved at least as effective as unrelated (to a CALL program such as NDE) formal classroom instruction (Redfield & Layne, 2000; Redfield, Bunday & Nuefer, 2002). NDE also proved to be equally effective in raising EFL proficiency scores over an academic semester as a web search program (Redfield & Levin, 2001; Levin & Redfield, 2003). Bill Gatton, president of DynEd Japan and local distributor of NDE, in seminars often speculates that CALL should theoretically be even more effective when used in conjunction with CALL coordinated classroom instruction. This is being investigated, looking at individual structures, but so far without conclusive results (Ryan, 2004). » FORUM

In a previous paper (Redfield & Campbell, in press) however, NDE in a lab only, self-access approach, proved more effective than a combination of NDE with formal classroom instruction (hybrid). In the lab only section, the learners were observed to be actively involved in the program, whereas in the hybrid section, the seemed to relax (speak in Japanese, engaging in non related activities) in the direct, hands-on section of the lesson (especially when the instructor was engaged physically in another part of the room), resulting in markedly less time spent on engaged in the activities).
NDE is a stand alone program, and does not come with an accompanying text (see http:// www.dyned.com/products/nde/ for further information about the NDE program). For the purposes of this study, it was decided that the NDE hybrid instruction therefore was not ideal for testing the effectiveness of combining CALL with contemporary EFL classroom activities. In the spring of 2004, OUE began piloting another CALL program, Side-by-Side Interactive (S-S), developd by Pearson Longman (see http://www.longman.com/ae/multimedia/tours/index. htm for more information). Since the S-S computer program was derived directly from the classroom materials found in the text form of the program, it was thought that using the S-S CALL program in a standalone self-access format and comparing with a hybrid version of S-S (i.e., using both the traditional text materials with the S-S CALL program) would be an ideal format for evaluation. The purpose of the present study therefore, is to look at S-S in a selfaccess program, comparing it to a S-S hybrid instructional treatment.

Research question
There is one main research question posed for the current study: Would there be statistically significant gains score differences between the self-access and hybrid groups on the NCT after one semester of instruction? The method used in dealing with this research question is described below.

Participants
Participants in this study were 197 Japanese undergraduates taking required EFL courses at a mid ranked local college. The self-access group was made up of two intact classes (n = 62), while four other intact classes were assigned to the hybrid instructional treatment (n = 135). Learners were assigned to their classes according to their last names by the administration. Only data from those students who took both the pre and post-tests were included in this study. Both groups used Side-by-Side Interactive as the CALL component of their respective treatments. Side-by-Side Interactive is the computer adapted version of the original two books in the venerable Side-by-Side textbook series. There are 52 lessons in each of this two part series, starting at the true beginner level and moving up to an intermediate level. At OUE we generally attempt to cover one level each academic year.

Instruction
Self access: Learners in this section of the study were required to complete the first twenty segments of book one of the Side-by-Side Interactive computer-based materials. All learning was confined to the regularly scheduled classroom period, with the instructor acting as a lab coordinator. Completion was checked by looking over each student's Òcheck-up testÓ and writing assignment for each segment. These are integral parts of the CALL program, and are recorded to disk. There was no hands-on teaching in this treatment, although the instructor (the senior author of this paper) was available to answer questions. Due to the fact that the context in which the CALL materials were used was actually an in-class activity, it is arguable as to whether or not this particular environment may be considered as self-access, but for this study, given that there was no active instruction on the part of the teacher, we have described this as self-access for comparative purposes.
Hybrid: Approximately one hour of the weekly ninety minute class was used for direct, instructor lead teaching, using the Side-by-Side textbook and coordinate materials determined by the instructor. The remaining thirty minutes were used on the computer, following a lock step approach, with each learner working on the same materials at approximately the same time. These lab sessions were held at various times during the lesson, and not at the end of each period. An effort was made to coordinate the lab sessions with the direct instructional sessions. For example, learners would spend time on a segment, then go over the same material orally with the instructor (the junior author of this paper).

EFL Proficiency Measure
The New Campbell Test (NCT) was used as the measuring agent. This is a fifty-item paper-based multiple choice test based on a study of the most current Japanese Ministry of Education curriculum guidelines for high school English. The NCT focuses predominantly on grammar, and is comprised of two parts; the first part consists of grammar-oriented gap-filling questions, and the second part deals with word order (see Appendix A).

Administration
Data was collected, scored, tabulated, and then statistically analyzed, using the StatView statistical package for the Macintosh computer. Repeated measures ANOVA and post hoc Fisher's protected least significant differences (Fisher's PSLD) tests were chosen as the appropriate statistical procedures for data analysis. The alpha for statistical significance was set at .05.

Results
The self-access group posted a mean of 34.048 on the pre-test (SD = 5.579, n = 62), with the hybrid group averaging 32.859 (SD = 5.698, n = 135) on the same measure. On the post-test, the results were x = 37.000, SD = 5.207, n = 62 for the self-access learners and x = 34.363, SD = 6.061, n = 135) for the hybrid group. See Table 1 for descriptive statistics. Because the NCT was administered both as the pre and post-test measure, a repeated measures ANOVA was selected to further analyze the data. This procedure yielded an f-value of 119.465, significant at the p = .0001 level, indicating significant differences. A post hoc Fisher's PLSD was performed to pinpoint the areas of statistical significance. This measure indicated that the total (self access and hybrid taken together) gain scores for the combined groups was significant at the p = .0001 level. The differences in self access and hybrid gain scores, with a critical difference of 1.688, also reached statistically significance, p = .0265. As in the previous study using New Dynamic English (Redfield & Campbell, in press), the self-access treatment proved more effective. See Table 2 for the ANOVA results.

Discussion and Conclusions
Non-English major students taking required undergraduate English subjects were taught over a single semester using either the CALL program Side-by-Side Interactive in a self-access format or in combination of lab and formal classroom instruction (hybrid). A repeated measures ANOVA found that together both programs were adapt at significantly raising EFL proficiency scores (p = .0001), but that the self-access treatment was superior in raising gain scores on the NCT (p = .0023).
In this study the self-access treatment proved superior in raising students' EFL proficiency over the course of a single college semester, thus replicating the results of our initial study (Redfield & Campbell, in press). Ideally, one would expect the opposite result, with the hybrid treatment yielding higher proficiency gains. Over a single college semester, this did not however prove to be the case.
Hypothetically, perhaps the self-access condition leads to more time on task, and hence more learning, than the hybrid condition. Observing the respective classes, we found the self-access learners to be more diligent than hybrid learners, who often seemed to breeze through the instructor lead classroom activities, spending most of their time relaxing or doing the activities in Japanese rather than English. This was especially true when doing pair and group work far from the eyes of the instructor. It is possible, however, that the learners involved in the self-access group may have performed differently if the language learning environment was not in a classroom situation. Under conditions where learners had more freedom over their time, O'Connor and Gatton (2004, pp. 207-208) found, for example, that many of the learners that were involved in self-access learning using NDE spent an increasingly large amount of time off-task, preferring to surf the Net, send email and chat to avoid doing the assigned coursework. After receiving warnings from the teachers, students performed the activities more actively and scores demonstrated improvement. The higher score for the self-access students could, then, be attributable to the fact that learners were forced to spend the actual time on task at the computer.
Because of the close correlation between the Side-by-Side Interactive materials and the Side-by-Side textbook, it is also possible that learners were less inclined to attempt the CALL materials as seriously as the self-access group as they had already covered much of the material in the teacher-fronted component of the class. Thus, the actual time spent on task is an issue that may also have had an effect on the outcomes of the study, but they were not directly investigated here.
It should also be noted, however, that it is quite possible that another instructor might have gotten higher results from the hybrid treatment, as instructors differ in their approach and ability. Some classes of low level non-English majors also appear more open to oral English instruction than others. In this particular case self-access instruction was statistically superior to hybrid instruction, but the results certainly might have been different with other hybrid instructors or in other classrooms.
There are several areas which require further investigation. Firstly, as described above, the self-access environment was in fact a supervised self-access context, which may have had an affect on the way in which the learners used the CALL materials, particularly in terms of the time they spent on task. If the self-access sessions were unsupervised, would the study yield similar results? There is also a need to investigate how the learners in the hybrid learning environment utilized both the CALL materials and the textbook materials. That is to say, while the overall time for each group was 90 minutes per class, it is necessary to see how much of this 90 minute period in both cases was spent actually engaged in learning activities and how much was spent on other things. Furthermore, this study ran over a single semester, limiting itself thereby to the beginning stages of the CALL program.
Research is also needed to determine whether the differences between the two groups would be sustained over longer periods. Further investigation of learning in a non-supervised self-access learning environment compared with the supervised environment of the current study would also shed light on the role of teacher as facilitator even when the teacher is not directly involved in the instructional process. Students' impressions of the two different formats is another aspect that warrants further investigation. Felix (1997), for example, showed that although learners involved in self-access learning demonstrated improvements in proficiency, they still showed a clear preference for teacher-fronted learning environments. It is possible, however, that students involved in the supervised self-access tasks may find this a preferable environment compared to the hybrid classes.
In conclusion, this study has served to shed some light on the relationship between the use of CALL as a self-access resource as opposed to being used as a component to be used in conjunction with formal classroom approaches. There still remain questions as to the significance of the amount of time spent on task in each of the two approaches, as well as role of the teacher as supervisor in self-access environments. Other approaches to the hybrid treatment, to be determined by individual instructors or in integrated language centers, might lead to significantly different results as well. Ryan, K. (2004, June). Blended vocabulary learning: An initial investigation. Paper presented at the Far East English Language Teaching Association Annual Conference (PAC5), Vladivostok, Russia, June, 2004. Tamburini, F. (1999. A multimedia framework for second language teaching in self-access environments. Computers and Education, 32, 137-149. Wolff, D. (1997)

Appendix: NLT Test B
Choose the correct answer. Only one answer is correct.
1 Where is the moon?
(a) The sun is in a sky.
(c ) The sun is in the sky.
(b) Sun is in a sky.
(d ) Sun is in the sky.