FLEAT III

[ Conference Reports ]

Foreign Language Education and Technology: An International Perspective

12-16 August 1997
University of Victoria, Canada

Report by Graham Davies, EUROCALL President

FLEAT III was the third in a series of conferences dating back to 1981. FLEAT, for the uninitiated, stands for Foreign Language Education and Technology. Each of the FLEAT conferences has been organised jointly by two of the oldest professional associations with a focus on language learning technology: LLA, the Language Laboratory Association of Japan; and IALL, the International Association for Language Learning Technology, which is based in the USA. If the second acronym does not make sense it's because the "LL" originally stood for "Learning Labs", but the IALL's brief is now much wider and includes computer labs.

The venue of FLEAT III was the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The conference was hosted by Peter Liddell, aided and abetted by his colleague Mary Sanseverino, conference co-ordinator, i.e. the person who does most of the running around. I am no stranger to Victoria, having given the opening keynote here at the CCALL 2 conference in 1993 and having visited the city no less than four times in the meantime. I therefore looked forward to attending another conference in this delightful city, and I was not to be disappointed.

FLEAT III began with a social event, a beach picnic on a beautiful reserve owned by the Coast Salish Nations, followed by a visit to the spectacular Butchart Gardens. This was a pleasant ice-breaker, preparing us for the serious stuff over the next three days.

Keynote Address

I was initially unimpressed by the opening keynote address, which was given by Roger Schank, Director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences, Northwestern University. The address began on a personal note - very anecdotal and focusing mainly on his personal battles with his children's schoolteachers - but it improved as he got into his stride, finishing with impressive demonstrations of software packages created by his development team. The packages he showed were not designed specifically for language learners but all embodied the principle of the trainee making mistakes in a safe environment and learning from them - a feature that CALL developers could certainly take on board.

Parallel Paper Sessions

There were so many parallel sessions that I had to be highly selective. Brief comments on those which impressed me most follow.

Peter G�lz, University of Victoria: 'Bridging the Gap - Delivering Distance Education Courses on the Web'. This was an informative talk, outlining Peter's exceptional work on the design of Web-based courses for students of German. Readers can read his paper and experience the courses he is working on at: http://web.uvic.ca/german/fleat.

Claire Bradin, Michigan State University: 'The Dark Side of the Web'. Claire's talk aimed to present the pros and cons of Web-based courses but tended on the whole to play down the hype. I found myself nodding in agreement with Claire when she pointed out that a whole new generation of CALLers assume mistakenly that "doing it on the Web" is the only way to deliver CALL and have little idea of CALL before the advent of the Web. Claire's paper can be found at: http://www.msu.edu/user/bradincl/darkweb.

Read Gilgen, University of Wisconsin, spoke on 'The Ethics of Technology'. This was a thought-provoking presentation, questioning the teacher's right to replace human beings with technology.

June Thompson, University of Hull, presented an update on CTI Modern Languages and EUROCALL in a parallel session subtitled 'National and International Cooperation', and I added my bit in the same session on EUROCALL's involvement in the work of the newly-formed European Language Council.

Plenary Panel Discussion

I also took part in a in plenary panel discussion entitled 'Futurewatch: Language Learning and Technology in a Global Context', in which three panellists - Claire Bradin representing North America, Shoichi Fujikake representing Japan, and myself representing Europe - were invited to present their vision of the future. Apart from Professor Fujikake's presentation, in which he outlined the vision of every student owning an MPC and being able to study anytime and anywhere, this session was somewhat downbeat about the future of technology, eliciting questions and comments from the audience on who should control technology, the idea of a future without books, the negative effects of bean-counters in education and various models of open and distance learning.

Exhibition

The Vendors' Mall was rather small in view of the number of participants at the conference, but Tandberg, Sony and Sounds Virtual were very much in evidence, and smaller companies, e.g. Athelstan and World of Reading, seemed to be attracting a large number of enquirers. EUROCALL and the TELL Consortium were represented by June Thompson and Jo Porritt.

Poster Sessions

The poster presentations tended to echo what was also offered in the parallel sessions. I was particularly impressed by a poster presenting a Web-based Italian course offered by the University of British Columbia: http://web.arts.ubc.ca/italian.

The conference closed with a salmon barbecue hosted by the Coast Salish Nations, at which we were entertained by dancers and storytellers. The setting - on a beautiful stretch of coast close to the University of Victoria - was idyllic, and I shall never forget the glorious red sunset.