Universidad de Antioquia School of Languages Adolfo Len Ruiz Hernndez FL Writing and Multimedia Use Action Research Report

Advisor: Clara Ins Arias Toro September, 2007 Medelln, Colombia

FL Writing and Multimedia Use FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING AND MULTIMEDIA USE This paper comprises a report of the project Foreign Language Writing and Multimedia Use. This project arose from observations and teaching practices carried out through the first semester of my teaching practicum. It is a requirement to receive my B. Ed. degree in Foreign Languages (English, French).

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 1

Universidad de Antioquia School of Languages Adolfo Len Ruiz Hernndez FL Writing and Multimedia Use Action Research Report Advisor: Clara Ins Arias Toro September, 2007 Medelln, Colombia

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

4 5

DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT THE PROBLEM 6

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OBJECTIVES MAIN OBJECTIVE SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE PLANNING ACTION 12 12 12 12

DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIONS DATA ANALYSIS 15

14

FINDING INTERPRETATION OF DATA CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS REFLECTION REFERENCES APPENDIXES 23 24 26

17 22

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 3 ABSTRACT This action research project explored the impact of the use of multimedia to enhance the writing skill of Grade 9 students in an English foreign language class, in a public girlschool in Medelln, Colombia. This research study was carried out during my Practicum year and the results show that implementing multimedia activities in the language classroom does help students both, increase positive attitudes and behaviors towards language learning, and improve students overall language skills, especially the writing skill. Nonetheless, the impact of the project on the students language skills was lessened due to time constrains.

KEY WORDS FOR RETRIEVAL Multimedia in the language classroom, foreign language writing, writing skill enhancement, CALL, motivation and autonomy, modes and amount of input.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 4 Computer use is widely spread in todays world. Computers and all the facilities that they present, such as easy manipulation and sharing of information and information presented in a multimedia way (images, sounds, videos, and texts), offer a broad range of new possibilities in the teaching and learning processes carried out in educational contexts. This is why it becomes crucial for educational systems to implement such useful tools. In the case of language learning, computer interface is bringing into language classrooms new ways for teachers to help their students improve their Foreign Language (FL) skills. This Action Research Report (ARR) presents the results of a research project carried out through my teaching practice in the Institucin Educativa Santo Angel (IESA), in Medelln, Antioquia. The main objective of this ARR is to find ways in which students can enhance their writing skills using multimedia as part of the development of the language class. I am a pre-service teacher-researcher in the teaching practicum of the B. Ed. in Foreign Language Program of the School of Languages, at the Universidad de Antioquia, coursing the tenth semester teaching practicum. This study emphasizes my role as a facilitator of the learning process. It presents me as a promoter of the searching of information through available means, and not as someone who perceives himself as the only source of knowledge. This project bases its importance on its practicality, validity and applicability, since it complies with the governments new policies which see the implementation of new technologies in the classroom as a promising path for education enhancement.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 5 DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTEXT The IESA is a girl-school located in El Rodeo Sur neighborhood. This institution is located in the southwest of Medelln and is classified as socio economic strata 3 4 (middle class). It considers life as the primary and most prevalent gift from God. Likewise, humankind is conceived as unique, intelligent, thoughtful, and in a process of change. Its philosophy is defined by the Gospel values: justice, truth, freedom and love. Its main concern is the improvement of the life of all the members of the educational community. Concerning English, its syllabus emphasizes the development of linguistic skills and competences through content-based instruction. It also proposes the use of different sources, means and procedures to gain access to information facilitating, thus, Language Learning (LL). Textbooks are not followed. Activities are prepared by the teachers depending on the topic to be taught. The institution provides them with a few grammar books, dictionaries, reading books, cassettes and video tapes. There is also an English laboratory in which there are 42 headphones, a sound system, a TV set, and a VCR. My Cooperating Teacher (CT) is one of the two teachers in charge of guiding the FL learning process in secondary. She holds a B. Ed. Degree in Foreign Languages. She sees English as a self-improvement tool that provides opportunities to learn new things. The course in which this Action Research Project (ARP) was developed is 9th-02. The number of student is 37. Their average ages are 14 and 15. In general, the level of English can be classified as low intermediate. I believe that their proficiency level is higher compared with the average level in public institutions. Students participation and involvement in the class is outstanding and it is easy to perceive their high motivation towards LL.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 6 THE PROBLEM During the first semester of the practicum I devoted most of my time to observe and record in my journal the school context, the English class development, students attitudes towards LL, and the teachers performance. One of the things that surprised me the most was that the IESA was well equipped in terms of multimedia (something not common in most public institutions). I also saw that, in contrast with other public institutions where I had taught, students were highly motivated towards FL learning. This significantly facilitated the teaching and learning process since students were almost always engaged with the activities performed. I also observed that, according to my previous experience observing and teaching classes in other public institutions and based on talks I have had with partners and colleagues, students language levels were above the average level in public institutions. Given these factors, I started to have high expectations about the results concerning the students proficiency levels. In contrast, I started to realize that the aforementioned aspects did not result in much progress in terms of language skills. I saw a big gap between the

institutions language teaching ideals (stated in the syllabus) and reality. The class, even though taught in English, was reduced to controlled interactions with simple utterances and involved only grammar and vocabulary. This is contrary to the syllabus objective, learning through real life communication. Most of the activities were developed around photocopies of lists of vocabulary concerning a topic and were only addressed orally. The teacher modeled the pronunciation and students repeated it. Then, the teacher posed questions using specific structures that included the vocabulary being studied, and the students would answer them. Given this kind of oral interaction, no attention was given to the students writing skills. At the moment of evaluation, a written exam, instead of the oral exam more proper of the process, the students written production reflected the lack of work in this skill.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 7 In cooperation with the teacher, I started to implement activities aimed at promoting new ways to approach the contents to be taught. Some of these activities included authentic material, such as crosswords, matching, hangman, bingo, reading and writing exercises, different pronunciation modeling sources (i.e. audio tapes and CD-audios), whole class interaction, and vocabulary in context. From talks with my CT and the students, I learned

they liked the activities because they provided an amusing way to learn. With these activities students began to produce a little more during the class. For instance, during the whole class interaction activities, students wanted to talk to their classmates and use the vocabulary they had learned. Given these facts, I started to build up a hypothesis: the more input and opportunity for FL interaction, the more probable for production to occur. From a survey I conducted in order to know the students backgrounds, needs, and interests, I learned that students preferred activities in which language is present in a more authentic way (i.e. songs, role plays, games, and readings). I contrasted this information with some observations I kept in my journal about the non-existent input from resources available in the institution. Bearing in mind all this information, particularly the poor development and promotion of writing and my reflections, I decided to develop this ARP in which the students LL process, and writing skills, could be enriched through the use of the resources the institution had. I defined this project under the following research question: How can I, as a practicum student, foster the FL written output of my ninth grade students by using multimedia?

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 8 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND As the world of technology takes a core role in everyday life, a great challenge for education and educators emerges: to take to the classroom all the benefits of technologies so that the learning process can be enriched. This, of course, also applies to language learning. In this field, efforts to develop computer programs to be implemented in language classes started to show results in the 1960s (Ahmad et. Al, 1985 cited in Lee, 2001) when the University of Illinois presented the Program Logic for Automated Teaching Operations (PLATO) project. This software was mainly composed by a range of activities aimed at grammar and vocabulary drills, and translations. With time, this kind of software was developed into more efficient and effective computer programs that allowed teachers to present their students new possibilities for language learning. As this new language learning feature started to expand it adopted the label Computer Assisted Language Learning, better recognized with the abbreviation CALL. Those who are more aware of the necessity of taking the benefits of CALL into the classroom are making big efforts to promote, on the part of educational systems, the use of the different and varied types of media (multimedia) as powerful tools to harness the teaching and learning processes. Most of these technology promoters make significant efforts in order to demonstrate to their colleagues the advantages of using all the possibilities new technologies provide them with. In the same way, their efforts are addressed at providing technology-nave teachers with arguments and examples of effective ways to use technology and at helping them eliminate their fears concerning the implementation of multimedia-directed classes. Jackson (2002), for example, asserts that several ELT experts aver that implementing multimedia in the classroom helps students learning process be more effective. This claim is supported by Brett (1998, cited in Jackson, 2002) who experienced that as multimedia can be

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 9 easily manipulated by students according to their needs, this gives them autonomy in their learning process, allowing students to make decisions about what steps to take in order to respond to their own needs. Besides, as it is interactive and integrated, it fosters motivation. Kataoka (2000) gives an account of the advantages of using computers for language learning. He presents three standpoints: the first one is related to the great number of

possibilities for real communication and use of authentic material (given that the internet provides the students with lots of information in different types of formats, as well as with chat and mail services) through the use of computer interfaces. Students can have more access to authentic material in the target language used in real communication, which gives them more possibilities to work on their own fields of interest. Besides, students feel more engaged with tasks in which real communication and meaning negotiation are present. The second standpoint, which is in agreement with the asseveration of Paige (in Hall & Austin, 2004) that this kind of technology-supported learning processes help students to meet their learning needs, is related to the opportunities students have for individual manipulation of equipment This gives them the possibility to decide the pace for their own learning process and reduce levels of anxiety related to fears of making mistakes in front of their classmates. Finally, the third standpoint deals with the possibility that teachers have to address the students different learning styles given that the materials used for a class can be presented in a broad range of possibilities (e.g. video, text, images, sound, combined, etc.) This particular point is also connected to input. As material can be presented in different ways, students can access the same information from many different sources. That is, the amount and modes of input is larger. This, according to Krashen (1981), is one of the most important factors affecting language learning. Finally, the possibility of using some tools (like chats, the internet,

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 10 conferencing systems, games, etc.) just for fun, keeps students highly motivated and engaged with their LL process (Andrews, 1997) In addition to the aforementioned advantages, another important aspect of using multimedia in the language classroom is the possibility to foster specific skills, in this particular case, writing skills. Using computers interfaces for writing purposes provides the students with lots of possibilities related to what to write for, who to write to, and how to write. Students and teachers who use computer software (word, word pad, etc.) experience an easier writing and revising task than those who use pen and paper (Pennington, 1993; 1996a, cited in Kataoka, 2000). Besides, interfaces such as chat rooms and e-mailing foster students motivation towards writing given that these kinds of interaction occur in a real communication context. That is, students do not write only to accomplish a writing task to be revised only by the teacher, but to express their ideas to someone else who will respond accordingly. Finally, to use a computer also means to be able to use software designed for language learning purposes. On the Internet there are web sites that offer teachers free-to-use software addressed to language learning. These computer programs allow students to have varied amount and modes of input (video, text, audio, images) (Willets, 1992) and then, output in terms of writing, such as practice on drills, and to receive immediate feedback about their performance. This gives students indirect motivation to remain involved in the task. In this ARP, the software used for the multimedia implementation was CLIC 3.0, a free distribution program for the development of multimedia educational activities. It allows the creation of different types of activities: puzzles, associations, scrambled letters, crosswords, identification activities, exploration, written answers, text activities and others. The activities contain text, graphics, sounds and other multimedia resources. The program

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 11 registers the results of the activities in a database, which allows the teacher to keep a record of the students performance and progress. Concerning writing skills, I took into account only the grammar aspects of the language for assessment, namely, morphology, syntax, semantics, spelling and punctuation, cohesion, and coherence, given that this aspects are more measurable with numbers. Morphology is understood as the branch of linguistics that studies the structure and form of words. This aspect was taken into account under three categories: word form, verb tense, and article use. The first one refers to a mistake produce by a slip or confusion in the form of a word (i.e. Travel agent vs. travel agency). The second one refers to a mistake in the form of a verb in a tense that is not the appropriate for the correct meaning of a sentence. (i.e. I had a great weekend and learn a lot about my grandmother. vs. I had a great weekend and learned a lot about my grandmother). And the third refers to a mistaken use of an article form (e.g. a vs. an) or the use of the indefinite article instead of the definite one. It also refers to the lack of the article when it is needed or the presence of it when is not necessary. (i.e. There is store vs. There is a store. In front of the my house vs. In front of my house). Syntax is defined as the system of rules for the structure of a sentence in a language. This aspect will be assessed under two categories: add/omit a word, when the student either missed a word when it was needed or added a word where it was not necessary (i.e. There is police vs. there is a police station. In front of the my house vs. in front of my house), word order, which refers a word or group of words that are placed incorrectly in a sentence. (i.e. A bakery very beautiful and big vs. a very beautiful and big bakery)and incomplete, when a statement is written as though it expresses a complete idea. (i.e. In the Christmas to dance, eat delicious cookies, fruits and turkey).

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 12 Semantics is defined as the branch of linguistics that studies the aspects of meaning expressed in a language. Under this aspect there are the following categories: word choice, which refers to an error in meaning or grammar produced by the use of a word where another one should be used. (i.e. We looked for in the house vs. we searched in the house. In the left vs. to the left), word order, and incomplete (explained above).

OBJECTIVES In order to carry out this project, I established the following main objective: To foster students FL written output by using a computer

interface (Clic 3.0) to increase the amount and mode of language input. In the same way I established the following specific objectives to facilitate the accomplishment of my main objective: To design lessons related to the English syllabus to be

implemented with Clic 3.0 To design writing tasks to measure the students development.

PLANNING ACTIONS This research project has been developed under the principles of Action Research in which the participants of the learning and teaching process share the same goal: to take actions in order to improve the specific educational context and the teaching and learning processes they are part of. A very important stance in this kind of research is reflection. This is the basis on which actions will originate and the crucial point to which taken actions will

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 13 return after passing by observation. This is the spirit of Action Research, a cycle of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting in order to develop new plans of action. (Selener, 1997) As the number of students in the educational context in which I developed this ARP project was high, I decided to ask three students to allow me to use their writing outcomes as data for the project. I thought that in order to get different results for this research, I should take into account what Mayer and Moreno (1999) term individual differences, which in this case I will apply to refer to language proficiency levels. I decided to ask my students as I think that they reflected, somehow, different levels of language proficiency found in the class. Thus, Student 1 evidenced a high level in contrast with the average level of the class. Student 2 evidenced an average level. And Student 3 evidenced a level under the class average proficiency level. These students performance in the class was the same as the rest of their classmates. The three received the same instructions that the rest of the class for the tasks used for data, the same amount of time to do the tasks, and the same type of help as the rest, so that the data collected was as similar as possible as the outcome of the rest of the class. I decided to gather three different types of data. The first type of data reflected the outcomes of the students at the beginning and at the end of the implementation of the teaching actions. The second type of data reflected the students performance when using the computer interface (CLIC program). And the third type of data reflected my observations and

reflections about both the research development and the students overall performance. For the first type of data I decided to have two written assignments, one for each stage of the process (pretest and posttest). These two tasks had similar, not identical, instructions concerning a topic, length, and time. For the second type of data, taking into account the short period of time available for the implementation of the project, I used a bank report (database) provided by the CLIC program in only three different multimedia implementations. These

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 14 reports included the number of session each student took, the number of activities completed from those proposed, the number of activities resolved correctly, the time spent in each of the activities, the time spent in the session, and a percentage intended to measure the overall performance in each session. And for the third type of data I kept a journal in which I recorded different aspects of the educational context such as students behavior, class development, and students overall output (focused on written output). These notes let me keep trace of my perceptions, thoughts and reflections through the whole process. As

explained above, all of the students took part in the same kind of activities and my observations and reflections were centered in the overall performance of the class. For the data analysis, I used Burns (1999) five stages for data analysis: assembling, coding, and comparing the data, building interpretations, and reporting the outcomes.

DEVELOPMENT OF ACTIONS At the beginning of the second semester of my teaching practice I started to teach all the classes in the group, 3 hours a week. According to the Practicum Work Plan, during the first weeks I had to establish a plan for the implementation of actions and the data gathering as well as the analysis of the data gathered. The pretest activity (first type of data) was collected on September 21 as part of a class activity. In the previous classes students had worked on creating their dream neighborhood. This activity was developed trough two kinds of tasks: a written one, a piece of text, and an oral one, oral presentations. During the oral presentations students took note following some recommendations and parameters given by me. All this previous activities had as objective to prepare students with the language they needed for the pretest.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 15 This writing task was aimed at evidencing what they had learned from the previous class sessions and at having a starting point to establish later comparisons and contrasts. Students were given 30 minutes to write at least one page about their dream neighborhood. While students were doing the given task, I took notes about what I observed concerning students behavior and general class development. In the same way, after the class was over I completed my notes based on my impressions. The multimedia implementation from which I got the reports, took place on October 18 and 25 in the Computer Room of the institution. However, students had had a previous introduction to the program during a class session carried out on September 29. This first contact with the program did not have the expected results given that all of the students did not have the opportunity to operate it because of the number of computers. Due to difficulties arising from extracurricular activities done during class time, students were asked to do the first set of activities at home in order to have the opportunity to become familiar with the interface and with the way to operate the program, and at the same time not to be affected by the reduced time class allocated to my activities. Nonetheless, on October 18 the data from this set of activities was collected consecutive with the data from the second session. The posttest activity (first type of data, in a second stage) was collected on November 15 as a closure activity. Students were given 30 minutes to create a free composition of at least one page that reflected what they had learned during this practicum experience.

DATA ANALYSIS Before reporting the treatment of the data gathered for analysis purposes and the analysis itself, it is crucial to mention limitations and factors that arose from my teaching practicum experience that weakened and affected the interpretations and final results of this

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 16 research study. First, the way in which the project had to be developed. Due to events at the university, the two semesters of my practicum year had to be planned in a way that would allow us to complete it without delays. To accomplish this, it was necessary to make some adjustments with which I agreed when they were proposed to me. Those adjustments included the completion of the first part of the process in half a semester (from April to June) so that we could start the implementation of the project proposal in the second semester of the year. Nonetheless, due to school extracurricular activities, the implementation as such was only possible during the last month of the school year. This significantly reduced the possible impact of the project in the students LL process. Second, most of the difficulties I had during the final part of the project (the one concerning the data analysis and the report of the findings and interpretations, as well as the reflections that emerged from the research process) were due to personal matters which prevented me from devoting the necessary time to carry the project out within the established time (up to February 2007). These difficulties forced me to take one semester more to present the missing part. This fact, of course, affected the reliability of the results as this process was done after several months from the implementation of the actions. All the data analysis process was done inductively, that is, the categories emerged from the data gathered. In order to maintain reliability, data from the different types of techniques was analyzed through comparisons and contrasts among results from the same participant. In the same way, participant results triangulation was done in order to avoid the limitations that could arise from data analysis from only a type of student. Moreover, a triangulation among the results from the three different types of techniques was developed. This triangulation let me evidence differences and similarities in the learning process of the participants so that

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 17 interpretations were not a result of intuitions or anticipated outcomes, but of the analysis of the overall research process itself. Journal entries: At the beginning of the implementation of actions, it was planned to take into account most, if not all, of the journal entries from class observations and reflections. However, after the analysis of several entries, I did not find much data to make interpretations concerning the implementation of actions and the impact of the use of the computer interface in the students writing performance. I decided, then, to use only observations and reflections registered in my journal in the sessions in which actions and multimedia were implemented. After reading and analyzing the journal entries I recorded from the sessions explained above, I saw that many of my comments were addressed mainly to three categories that I call: motivation, autonomy and input (meaning modes and amount of input). Pretest and Posttest: First, I analyzed each of the students written samples. I identified their mistakes and classified them into categories. I counted the number of mistakes under each category and ranked the categories according to the number of occurrence. I also counted the number of simple and complex sentences. Then, I briefly explained the mistakes under a same category paying special attention to those that were similar. After that, I tried to establish a possible explanation for those kinds of mistakes. Finally, I established the part of the language that was affected by that specific type of mistake. In a second stage, I compared and contrasted students samples in each type of technique (i.e. pretest and posttest) trying to arrive at conclusions.

FINDINGS AND INTERPRETATIONS The main findings of this project constitute a support for students behavior in the language class as well as for the students writing skill improvement during the

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 18 implementation of my teaching practice. In this part, I will report three crucial factors for writing skill enhancement. I will refer, first, to motivation, promoted by the use of multimedia in the language classroom; second, to autonomous work, facilitated by the corrections the software provided and the easy manipulation of the program; and third, to modes and amount of input, an appealing and essential feature of the CLIC program.

Multimedia as promoter of motivation in the writing skills enhancement process Even though at the beginning of the project I saw that motivation was not a problem in this context, I recognized that the reflections I wrote based on the lessons I implemented, were focused on how the activities kept students motivated. For instance, in the session in which I presented the CLIC 3.0 program to the students for the very first time, I prepared a set of activities such as filling in the gaps, listening and completing, matching, verb conjugation, etc. That day I wrote in my journal: Even though the class could not be developed as expected, due to the number of computers and the poor familiarization (sic) of the students with this kind of technology, students showed very high levels of interest and motivation towards the completion of the activities. What is more, given that this was the last class of the day, some students even asked me to stay a little bit longer so they could try. (Journal, Reflections # 11, September 29). A very relevant detail worthy of highlighting is that although the activities as such were not new for them, but the fact that they were presented in a computer interface that allowed them to interact in a different way with the exercises, made of the session an appealing and highly motivating experience (Brett, 1998, cited in Jackson, 2002). In none of the multimedia-driven classes students showed boredom. Even in activities in which learners normally would show apathy, like completing texts, conjugating verbs, grammar drills, etc, students displayed involvement. Likewise, as Kataoka

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 19 (2000) remarks, the fact that students had the possibility of manipulating the software at their own pace and that the program gave them scores during each activity, helped them to reduce levels of anxiety as they were more focused on competing against their classmates than on being worried about making mistakes.

Multimedia as promoter of autonomous work Regarding autonomy, I found that students liked so much the activities presented in this multimedia way that they wanted to take the software with them so they could practice the activities at home. Taking this into account, I talked to my CT and asked her about the possibility of asking the students to bring CDs to burn the software and the activities so they could install them in their computers at home. This way they could be more familiar with the software and take more advantage of the classes with multimedia exercises. She told me it was the students decision. Before asking the students, I also talked to my Advisor and explained to her that this could help me to overcome time constraints. She agreed but asked me to be sure that all the students could do it, not just some of them, because this could create problems. I took the proposal to the students knowing in advance what their answer would be. They all agreed. During the second multimedia implementation (the first I kept a CLIC report of) I saw that students had developed abilities to operate the software. Concerning that session I wrote in my journal: Today, I could happily observe that the strategy of giving my students the software for them to practice at home showed good results. I could see that they were more capable of operating the program. I didnt need to spend too much time explaining how to start the interface and find the activities. Thanks to this I could keep reports of activities that were planned for two different sessions. I could also notice that some of the students, those that

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 20 showed the most motivation, were more familiar with the vocabulary used to explain how an activity should be completed. These facts evidence that students are using CLIC at their home as a way to foster their language skills. (Journal, Reflections # 14, October 18). In order to support this last statement I have to say that students evidenced general language learning improvement. After working at their homes, students were more capable of using the target grammar structures. They also demonstrated to be more fluent in their written answers when completing texts. Besides, students showed more understanding of pieces of audio used for transcription purposes.

Multimedia as a crucial tool to address students different learning preferences and to increase opportunities to receive input: Modes and amount of input During the first part of the project implementation I noticed that: Even though students are normally motivated in the classes, their involvement increases when the activities proposed present different ways to do a task or different ways in which the information to be learned is presented (a piece of audio, a reading, a game, a drill practice, etc.) For example, students are more engaged (sic) in those activities in which vocabulary is presented in context, instead of in lists (Journal, Reflections # 1, July 19). I designed the CLIC activities so that students were provided with different types of input. In some, students had to match images with words and definitions while listening to their pronunciation. In others, students could hear some conversations at the same time that they were presented with the transcription for them to complete. In another activity, they had to describe the feelings of a character from a video. I found two important factors here. The first one was related with the fact that this variety of input had students more involved and motivated than if they were presented only

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 21 with a type of activity (Andrews, 1997). The second was that since students could manipulate the software according to their own speed of learning and processing of information, they could set their own pace (Kataoka, 2000). This made them more comfortable and more capable to solve the activities than if they had to solve them at their classmates pace. In terms of language skills enhancement, particularly writing skills, in the analysis of the pretest and the posttest I found that when students were more exposed to writing tasks and in such different ways (amount and modes of input: Willets, 1992), as they were through the CLIC program, they handled the syntax rules of the language more easily since repetition made them more aware of sentence structure. In one of the students posttest the influence of the activities developed in class, and especially those developed through the software implementation, was very evident. This is the case of the syntax improvement in the written samples. The student clearly followed the structures fostered in the CLIC activities. Equally, I discovered that when students felt more comfortable with correctly using sentence structure, they felt more confident to write, regardless of a correct expression of meaning. Likewise, I saw that the CLIC activities helped student to improve semantics. Students made more mistakes related to semantics in the pretest than in the posttest. Mistakes in the posttest related to semantics were more linked to words and phrases that they did not use during the multimedia implementations. This evidenced that those CLIC activities aimed at helping students to learn how to write about given ideas, using a number of expression and words, were mostly a success. Students also showed improvement related to clauses and sentences division. I came to the belief that activities aimed at the use of punctuation were very important because they helped students tackle translation problems. I concluded that the results in the posttest

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 22 regarding sentence division improvement were highly influenced by the type of exercises developed with the CLIC program.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS The main conclusion of this action research project is that the use of multimedia in the language classroom does help students to enhance overall language abilities, and results to be a prominent tool to foster students writing skills. Likewise, this way to complement language instruction also provides students and teachers with crucial factors such as the increase of motivation and involvement in language activities as well as autonomy toward the completion of language tasks on the part of the students. Finally, the broad range of possibilities, amount and modes, to present information and activities to the students, makes of computer interfaces a very valuable tool in the language learning and teaching processes. I believe that if teachers take the risk of bringing to their language classrooms the benefits of multimedia, efforts will result in their students language improvement. Nonetheless, it is necessary to mention that due to the characteristics of most public institutions in Colombias educational system, the implementation of multimedia-driven language classes continue to be, in most of the cases, a utopia. Concerning research, I consider that action research is a great tool that helps teachers to take a leading role in the solution of class problems. In my case, it gave me the opportunity to be part of the solution of a problem by using resources that were not utilized for language learning purposes and to give my CT a new way to address students needs in their English learning process.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 23 REFLECTIONS My life as an educational researcher can be reduced to the last three years of my existence. This makes me very inexpert in the field. Nonetheless, I can say that my evolution as a researcher has taken big steps. During this ARP, I saw the fruits of all the years I devoted to studying in this program. This action research process also helped me to be aware of the necessity to go beyond in the language learning and teaching fields. It made me see the importance of being a reflective teacher in order to strengthen, and to question in order to change, if necessary, the principles and beliefs on which I founded my teaching action. Concerning teaching, all I can say is that this experience made strengthen my willingness to devote my life in favor of humankinds education in order to make of this world a better place to live.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 24 REFERENCES

Andrews, B. S. (1997). Multimedia in the foreign language classroom. Retrieved August 15, 2006, from the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Web site: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/23 /43/9a.pdf Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Chun, D. M., & Plass, J. K. (1996). Effects of multimedia annotations on vocabulary acquisition. The Modern Language Journal, 80, 183-198. Fu, H. (1996). Multimedia teaching in Chinese courses: Practice and suggestions. Retrieved August 15, 2006, from the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Web site: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/25/ 35/83.pdf Hall, M. H. and Austin, T. Y. (2004). Integrating technology in an interactive, content-based classroom. Content-Based Second Language Teaching and Learning an Interactive Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson, P. (2002). Multimedia in the classroom. Retrieved July 8, 2006, from the Bristish Councils corporate Web site: http://www.pt.britishcouncil.org/inenglish/ie2002a32pj.htm Jones, L. C., & Plass, J. L. (2002). Supporting listening comprehension and vocabulary acquisition in French with multimedia annotations. The Modern Language Journal, 86, 546-561.

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 25 Kataoka, K. (2000). Computer for English language learning in Japanese schools. Retrieved August 15, 2006, from the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Web site: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/10/ ca/2a.pdf Krashen, S. D. (1981). Second language cquisition and second language learning. Retrieved Abril 3, 2007, from Stephen D Krashens Web site: http://www.sdkrashen.com Lee, K. C. (2001). Selecting and Integrating CALL software programs into the EFL

classroom. Retrieved July 15, 2006, from the ERIC Digests Web site: www.eric.ed.gov Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (1999). A cognitive theory of multimedia learning: Implications for design principles. Retrieved July 12, 2006, from the University of New Mexico Web site: http://www.unm.edu/~moreno/PDFS/chi.pdf. Mustafa, Z. (2001). Non-courseware factors involved in using multimedia in foreign language instruction. Retrieved August 15, 2006 from the Resource Center (ERIC) Web site: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/0000000b/80/0d /75/1a.pdf Willets, K. (1992). Technology and Second Language Learning. Retrieved July 15, 2006, from the ERIC Digests Web site: www.eric.ed.gov

FL Writing and Multimedia Use 26 APPENDIX A: DATA COLLECTION CHART

RESEARCHER: ADOLFO LEN RUIZ HERNNDEZ DATE: Jan , 2007 RESEARCH TOPIC: FOREIGN LANGUAGE WRITING AND MULTIMEDIA USE RESEARCH QUESTION: How can I, as a practicum student, foster the FL written output of my ninth grade students by using multimedia? PARTICIPANTS: Three Grade 9-2 students, Cooperating Teacher, Adolfo Len Ruiz Hernndez (researcher). Data What the data is How to get the Participant Who Where + When How often source data s gets te to get the data techniques data People: Students Pretest activity: Students Me In class, at the Once, at the beginning of the implementation Grade 9-2 performance in written text (Class institution of the project. students writing activity) September 21 People: Students Software Students Me In class, at the Twice. The first one, on October 18, in class Grade 9-2 performance in a application. computer room, time. The data collected corresponded to two students computer interface Program Clic 3.0 in the sessions. The second time was on October 25, institution. in class time. The data collected corresponded to one session. People: Grade 9-2 students Me Students performance in writing. - My reflection on my role as a teacher. - My role as a teacher itself. - My interpretations on students performances. Posttest activity: written text (Inclass activity) Journal Keeping (Teacher diary/journal Burns, 1999). Students Me Me Me In class, at the institution After class, at home. Once, at the end of the implementation of the project. November 15 Three times a week.