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Guidance for the Simuligne teleconferences
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Le texte, en anglais, est de marie-Noelle Lamy et les ajouts en français sont de Thierry Chanier.
1. Introduction
These Guidelines only deal with 'facilitating' methods, and not with the nature and scheduling of Simuligne tasks, nor with the technological features of WebCT forums/'chats', nor with the location of the different forums/'chats's (as this information forms part of the training set in place by the Besançon team). The only thing you need to bear in mind when reading these Guidelines is that each tutor-group will have
- A - several task-related asynchronous forums (more about this in your training sessions)
- B - two or three synchronous 'chats' (over the whole 10 weeks)
- C - a general asynchronous forum
These Guidelines cover facilitating in C. Le forum général s'intitule dans chacun des groupes "Principal".
The need for speed has meant that these Guidelines had to be left in English. The Lexica Online veterans among you will recognise entire sections (!) , but we have updated and augmented them using our more recent experience.
Finally: the very best 'guidelines' often come from the discussion that takes place between us during the course of the pilot. There is a forum specifically for this (Simuligne_Tuteurs), where only you the tutors, Marie-Noëlle, Xavière and, in this case, Thierry as well, will have access. I'm sure we can look forward to fruitful insights and really practical tips from that source!!
2. Facilitator roles
Role in pacing the conference
Questions
- Where I am supposed to intervene as a facilitator and what is my role at each point?
- What if students get through the material too fast?
- What if students fail to complete tasks by the deadlines?
- What if they complain that there is too much work?
Answers
Social induction
When you very first meet your group, you should appear on the forum before them, having posted a welcome message. Then your role is to greet the students individually as they enter the forum. Help everyone get to know each other, At this stage many of them say that they are unconfident (this is communication 'nerves' and is not restricted to writing in L2, see Harasim extract in Further reading:): if so, reassure them that they are ‘at the right level’ of French for Simuligne.
Technical induction
We have designed an 'Etape Zéro', which gives students time to get ready for using theWebCT software. By the time the 'Etape 1' of Simuligne starts, they should have no major technical questions but inevitably some will! And they will come to you for answers. If you know the answer, of course, give it! Sometimes another student will be faster than you and will provide it. During your training the Besançon team will explain what to do if you don't know the answer to a student query.
Early conversations: accents and English keyboards
This is a constant topic of discussion in the early phases of these conferences. Hopefully students who have teleconferenced with us before will have it sorted, but keep a list of French-character keystrokes at hand so as to resolve these queries quickly. In training, discuss this with Besançon to make sure you are using the best method for creating those special characters.
Les accents sont susceptibles de poser problème pour de multiples raisons : difficultés de les taper sur les claviers anglais, environnements WebCT qui n'accepte pas les accents dans les sujets des messages, par exemple, impossibilité d'utiliser des accents dans les noms de repertoires et de fichiers, etc. Aussi, nous vous recommandons vivement la ligne de conduite suivante :
- pour les usagers disposant d'un clavier français (principalement en France) :
- accents obligatoires dans les documents écrits RTF ou HTML ;
- accents obligatoires dans les corps des messages (forum et courriel) ;
- pas d'accents ailleurs. En particulier, pas d'accent dans les sujets des messages, les noms des forums.
- pour les usagers disposant d'un clavier britannique :
- accents obligatoires (ou fortement recommandés) dans les documents écrits RTF ou HTML (pas d'accent dans les noms des fichiers correspondants) ;
- pas d'accents ailleurs.
Throughout Simuligne, what is my role in the presentation of course tasks?
Simuligne is 'clés-en-main'. Stimuli and instructions are up on the site already, as well as a rubric called 'Le pourquoi du comment', which aims to give rationales to students as to why they are being asked to do these tasks at each stage. But the human 'voice' behind all that is you. Your job is to be a regular presence on the forum. You will accompany the students as they carry out their tasks, encourage, sympathise, congratulate, re-explain the rationales if necessary, joke, tease (appropriately) etc. You will also deal with the students' questions, respond to remarks, draw attention to contributions of particular interest etc.
Keeping to the conference phases and pacing
The Simuligne scenario has been constructed with a clear breakdown and scheduling of tasks. We prefer to release new tasks at set times as it allows participants to ‘refocus’. Some Simuligne tasks are collaborative, and some are synchronous so you may need to chivvy some people. So the answer to the two questions about ‘fast’ students and ‘slow’ students is: don’t change the pace set by the team. If your group gets through each task fast, keep them chatting until the next task is due. Don’t set new tasks to your students (with the exception of 'Strategy modelling, see Role towards the group). In the past they've sometimes set themselves new tasks (e.g. translating entire poems!) Of course don't discourage them, unless it interferes with their 'core' Simuligne tasks!
Peaks of external work for students
Past experiments have often fallen foul of the TMA workload problem: students are happy to take part in the conference ... until they have a TMA deadline, and then they disappear (Note for the Besançon team: TMA means “Tutor-marked Assignment”). To avoid this we have recruited alumni. But some of our previous Lexica people were so keen that we have accepted them, even though they are currently registered on some of the OU French courses. Shortly after the start of Simuligne we hope to have a list of confirmed participants, with an indication of who is an alumni and who is a live OU student. We will let you have this information.
Pensez aussi au fait que les natifs de Besançon peuvent aider les apprenants dans leur travail. Ils peuvent jouer le rôle de compagnon. N'hésitez pas à le leur demander, s'ils ne l'ont pas déjà fait de leur propre chef..
Role towards the group
Questions
- How much individual attention should I give to students?
- How do I communicate with a whole group of people on this medium?
- What do I do if people don’t interact as a group?
- What if somebody 'monopolises' the conversation?
- What if a student in my forum is somebody that I know personally?
Answers
- Try not to feel that you have to address every single message, apart from the social exchanges at the very beginning. Sometimes a 'silence' from you will give time and space for students to answer each other. See the student query about the verb 'to join' in EXAMPLE 2.
- Do as much bouncing back of questions as possible. Frequently bounce one individual’s questions back to the group, or find some way of getting the group involved. See EXAMPLE 3
- Strategy modelling: instead of answering a question, provide a model for how students can explore the topic further. See EXAMPLE 4 and EXAMPLE 5.
- Create a feeling of inclusion by starting messages with e.g. Chers tous et toutes or Chers amis or Bonjour tout le monde. Finish off similarly: Au revoir tout le monde, etc. Draw students' attention to other students, naming them: see EXAMPLE 6 and EXAMPLE 7.
- Failure to interact as a group could be because
- people aren’t logging on at all. We do expect a drop-out . But we don’t want the survivors to under-participate: if you worry that they are doing so, alert Stéphanie.
- students send declarative statements to the forum as opposed to interactive ones: in this case you need to draw out (of whatever they've said) a question that you can bounce back to the group
- students split off into buddy pairs and hold quasi private dialogues: this is good for the pair, but again, try to draw out some issue of more general interest, and draw it to the attention of everyone else.
- If you know your participants personally, it won’t harm. Handle the situation inclusively (e.g. 'Susan fait référence à une soirée française que nous avions organisée à Manchester. On avait eu du mal à trouver du vrai Brie. Vous avez le même problème, vous , les autres?'). You'll find that the others are keen to compare and contrast their own experiences and will join in.
- If somebody 'talks' too much, management is difficult. Observe for a while to see if it is curtailing others' participation. If you feel it is, you could send a (very diplomatic!) private email, with suggestions about being more interactive, i.e. writing shorter messages, messages that include questions for others, or that refer by name to others, and to interesting things that others have said.
Techniques for conversation management
Questions
- What should conversations be about?
- What if I don’t know about the topic itself?
- What if students are ‘wrong’ or politically incorrect about a topic?
- How long should a conversational thread go on for?
- What do I do if the topic is going nowhere?
Answers
- By the end of your training you will know what Simuligne topics are about. But personal and social chit-chat are also important throughout. The group's forum will also be a place where if they wish they can have exchanges evaluating the Simuligne tasks, or the whole principle of the Simulation, or the way the pilot is going. They may well talk about their own learning strategies, or their relationship with languages in general. All good grist to the conversational mill.
- When people ask questions about specialised topics, their peers will frequently come up with answers. Just follow their lead. Remember: a facilitator is not a resource, but should direct people towards resources. In this case, students are resources for each other (as, of course, are the Simuligne web-site resources). Les natifs de Besançon sont également des personnes resources.
- Students sometimes make erroneous statements about language. Here's a (real) example: 'the subjunctive isn’t used in French these days'. Don’t rush in to correct them. Maybe the statement was meant as a joke and the originator will come back later and say so. Maybe another student will respond. If you feel it is important that the misconception should be challenged, raise a question for the whole group to think about.
- If an individual's prejudices are coming through and/or there is a risk of conflict in the group, please alert Stéphanie.
- Length of conversational thread is not an issue. In our experience, thread length varies between 3 and 17 messages . What is desirable is that the bulk of material in a thread should be student-originated, and that everybody's interventions should be brief.
- If a thread runs out after 3 messages but you really think that the topic was worth pursuing, start a new thread, using a new header, and relaunch the topic under a new guise.
- Un forum ne doit pas contenir trop de messages sinon il devient difficile à parcourir. Vous aurez sans doute envie de temps en temps de fixer un forum en l'état, de sauvegarder son contenu et de repartir avec un forum vide. Les personnes du groupe pourront continuer à lire dans le forum de sauvegarde les anciens messages, et il poursuivront les conversations dans le forum du début maintenant vidé. En tant que responsable (designer) de votre groupe, vous avez les droits pour effectuer ces opérations relativement simples. Mais si vous préférez que nous le fassions pour vous, alors contactez Stéphanie.
3. Self-management for facilitators
Facilitators' messages
Questions
- How much should I write?
- What tone and register should I adopt?
- How should I respond to the language (Fr or Eng) chosen by students for their messages?
Answers
- Don't write long messages. A screenful is a lot to cope with. If you have to write as much as this, aerate the text and use paragraphs.
- The tone should be friendly, of course. The register can be ‘spoken’, with shortcuts etc, as long as it doesn’t make it harder for students to grasp. Humour needs to be used very carefully, as it is easy to misinterpret.
- Some people will go into English (particularly when asking about technical things) Don’t draw attention it. Simply ‘echo’ what they have said, in French, and leave them to draw their own conclusions. (see also LANGUAGE POLICY)
Time-management
Questions
- How often should I log on to read?
- How often should I contribute?
- How often should I contact students by private e-mail?
Answers
Parts of the Simuligne task require you to read/hear and feedback on mini-assignments that individuals send to you. It will be clear to you from the training when this has to happen. Below are comments relating to the less prescribed part, i.e. the group’s forum.
- It is wise to check the state of the conversation on the group’s forum on a daily basis, in case something needs answering urgently. This is crucial in the first few days of the conference. Later, if there no urgency, store up messages and set yourself a fixed time for responding, coming online every 2 or 3 days.
- How often you should contribute to your group’s forum depends on what we mean by 'contribute'. If we break ‘contributions’ down into ‘holding messages’, ‘encouragement to interaction’ and ‘thought-out responses’, this is what you might aim for APPROXIMATELY:
Etape 0 and first part of Etape 1
Try to be present on the forum on a daily basis, or every two days. At the very beginning just send in brief encouraging to make it clear that you are there, and that a social group is forming. ‘Encouragement to interaction’ can start from the utset, but limit it to social interaction.
After the middle of Etape 1
- Send in ‘holding messages’regularly. Vary the way in which you do this. See EXAMPLE 9, EXAMPLE 10and EXAMPLE 11
- ‘Encouragement to interaction’ messages should also be sent in fairly frequently (say every 2 days).
- ‘Thought-out responses’ take more of your time, so be more sparing with them. Try to make them as group-oriented as possible (e.g. by including names of group members with interesting things to say on the matter). You could decide to post your ‘Thought-out responses’ on the same day every week if that makes it easier for you, but tell them so e.g. ‘Je vais y reflechir et je vous dirai samedi ce que j’en pense’ Whenever you promise to come back with a contribution, you must of course honour the promise.
- Private e-mails: don't encourage people to use those, as they rob the team of data (i.e. we can't get hold of them for our research). Please keep copies of emails sent to you by participants. You will however be asked to use email for returning individual 'homework'.
Effective use of message headers
Specific headers e.g. 'Ce que je pense des traversins a la francaise' or 'Les "campus novels", un genre litteraire britannique?' are easier for all participants to work with than vague ones that say e.g. ‘Reponse à Annabelle’, or ‘Probleme difficile’. So do make sure your message headers are useful to students and encourage students to focus their message headers too.
N'oubliez pas ! WebCT, n'accepte pas les accents dans les titres de messages (de forum ou de courriel). Il n'y a, par contre, pas de problème pour en mettre dans les corps des messages.
4. Language policy
Questions
- Do I correct errors and if so, how?
- What if I make an error or leave a typo?
Answers
There are two contexts for error correction. - The first is when you are sent written (or audio) tasks by students and have to correct and send them back. It will be made very clear to you in the training exactly when this should happen, and you should give qualitative feedback based on accuracy and range (for written tasks), and pronunciation (for the spoken one).
- The second context is in the forum of your group. There, as you have probably guessed, we favour ‘fluency’ (in this case messaging interaction) over accuracy. Technology also influences this: one of the Lexica Online tutors last year noted in her report that 2 of her students were experiencing instability in their software, so were rattling messages off at great speed in order to avoid being caught in a crash. Clearly correcting their 'mistakes' would merely add insult to injury! Nevertheless, students frequently raise this issue on the forums: 'Why aren't you correcting our messages?' Again, don't answer directly: simply open up the discussion among them, and you will probably find that 50% want to be corrected while the other 50% are strongly opposed! Sometimes a student asks for an error to be deleted from the forum, or they send in a remorseful message (one Lexica Online header read ‘J’ai honte! J’ai honte!’). Deletions from the forum: it can be done (by the Besançon team only), but we don’t encourage this. Instead, be reassuring. Explain that the point of the forum conversation isn’t about correct spelling or grammar, and that everybody makes mistakes, including teachers.
Echoing
This is a technique for tackling accuracy non-intrusively, and you should aim to use it whenever feasible. It's what we all do when teaching face-to-face and here’s an example:
Student : Je le trouve difficile à comprendre les mots de la chanson 'Le temps des Cerises'.
Facilitator: Bonjour tout le monde! Myrah trouve difficile de comprendre les paroles de la chanson 'Le temps des Cerises'. Qu'en pensez-vous, les autres? Quelqu'un peut-il l'aider?
Evaluations of past projects has shown that whilst we have always used this technique, students haven’t always realised that we were doing it, and they later regretted not having been told. You’re very welcome to reinforce the message that students should pay attention to the way you rephrase some of their language. (Needless to say you will only be able to deal with major errors. To ‘echo’ every error would be unmanageable in terms of time, and ruin the spontaneity of the conversation).Our own errors
We all make them! Non-French native tutors get subtle things wrong sometimes, and U.K.-based French natives can be guilty of inadvertent anglicisation. As for typos, they are bound to happen. None of this should worry you. Should you feel particularly horrified that you have posted a message with a glaring error, you can always post another one and make amends.
5. Further reading:
We realise that there is very little time for you to read up on text-based conferencing. But in case you are really keen, here are some ideas:
- Gilly Salmon’s website: http://oubs.open.ac.uk/e-moderating. Gilly is a member of the O.U. Business School who has had several years of experience of moderating and training moderators for FirstClass conferencing. She has just published a book about it, some extracts of which are on the site. The reason we mention Gilly's model is not so much for you to adopt it, as to give you wider view of the issues concerned with moderating (or, in our terms, facilitating).
- Goodfellow, R 'Lessons we have learned' In this internal O.U. report, Robin discusses issues that arose when teaching students on the Institute of Educational Technology online courses. His lessons have relevance for us. http://iet.open.ac.uk/pp/r.goodfellow/lessons/intro.htm
- Harasim, L is a researcher in CMC who has many observations on the site: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/edres/research/sharp/sharpannbiblio/networke.htm
- WebCT themselves have created a very large site full on resources, including articles on e-tutoring. http://www.webct.com
Selected illustrative examples from Lexica 1998 (L210 students)
EXAMPLE 1
Facilitator
Bravo, R. et A.! Vous etes les premiers a vous parler regulierement et le contenu de vos contributions m’impresssionne beaucoup.
Qu’est-ce que vous faites ce week-end? Peut-etre que les autres du groupe nous diront, eux aussi, ce qu’ils vont faire – ou auront fait.
A la prochaine.EXAMPLE 2
Student 1, on 1/5/98
Bonjour a tous!
[...] Je suis content de devenir membre du groupe! Il me fallait necessaire de trouver le mot juste pour ‘join’parce qu’il existe plusieurs mots aux sens differents [...]
Amities et a bientot,Student 2, on 6/5/98 [Between 1/5 and 6 /5, there were replies from the facilitator but none was about the word ‘to join’]
Bojour, j’ai lu votre message ce soir et puis j’ai commence a faire le travail sur le text Barbara. La j’ai trouve le verbe <s’impliquer> pour join. Je ne sais pas si on peut dire je suis content de m’impliquer au groupe, mais j’ai l’impression que s’impliquer a le sens de joindre quelque chose et de faire un bon effort, de travailler bien qu’est-ce que vous en pensez?
EXAMPLE 3
Student 1 on 5/5/98
Dans l’article sur la chanteuse Barbara j’ai choisi les mots <giflait l’air.>, et <griffait le silence>. Je trouve tout de l’article et les deux dernieres locutions en particulier, tres difficile. ‘Gesticulating’? ‘Beating out the tempo’?? pour la premiere, et pour la deuxieme, ‘breaking the silence’? Aidez-moi quelqu’un ou quelqu’une. Je nage completement!
Facilitator on 6/5/98
Bravo! Vous etes le premier a commencer la tache, mais comme vous le savez peut-etre, on a des problemed de diskettes. Plusieurs de vos camarades attendent le logiciel alors ils ne peuvent pas encore repondre a vos questions. Ils pourraient peut-etre vous expliquer ce qui se passe?.
A vous, les autres!EXAMPLE 4
[Strategy modelling: a facilitator replies to a student who was asking about the meaning of ‘chaloupait’:]
Vous n’avez pas trouve le verbe ‘chalouper’ mais est-ce que vous avez cherche le nom qui en est la racine? Il est certainement dans le dictionnaire. A vous de le trouver!
EXAMPLE 5
[Strategy modelling: a facilitator tackle a question posed by two students about the meaning of the phrase 'au-delà du dicible', found in an article but nowhere to be found in their dictionaries.]
Merci, vous deux, car avec de courts messages, vous avez posé des questions importantes. D'abord, prenons le problème des informations qui ne sont pas dans le dictionnaire. Dicible n'y est pas. [...] . Mais réfléchissons: nous avons tous dans la tête des connaissances qui peuvent nous servir. Par exemple: DICible est de la famille de DICtée, DICtion, et même bénéDICité. Quel est le sens qui est en commun à tous ces mots? Pouvons-nous par conséquent déduire le sens de: 'au-delà du dicible'?
EXAMPLE 6
Facilitator
Bonjour, P. et bienvenue.
Je suis tres contente de vous lire. Vous avez raison, notre groupe est tres competent et ils se parlent regulierement. Vous aussi, vous ecrivez couramment!
Merci d’avoir partage avec le groupe vos propres methodes – je suis sure que le groupe en profitera.
J’attends avec interet votre prochain message.EXAMPLE 7
Facilitator
Salut, D.
Et felicitations – vous etes ledeuxieme du groupe a commencer la premiere tache. A propos, est-ce que vous avez lu la reponse de R. (je crois que c’est lui) ou il presente sa liste?EXAMPLE 8
[Two students had chatted about where they were from. One was from the Dales. The other lived in the South of England but had a favourite watercolour hanging in her lounge: 'Beckermonds' by Sam Chadwick, though she mentioned in passing that she didn’t know who Chadwick was or where Beckermonds was. The dialogue went on:]
Student 1 (Dales-based)
[...] J’ai fait des recherches de Sam Chadwick qui est bien connu pour ses aquarelles. Il peignait... [etc]. Beckermonds est un petit hameau comme vous decrivez au bout de Wharfedale au commencement de Langstrothdale....[etc].
Student 2
Bonjour R.
Je vous remercie mille fois de vos renseignements sur Sam Chadwick qui m’interessent beaucoup. Je suis particulierement heureuse de savoir la location de Beckermonds, que j’ai maintenant trouve sur une carte. Un resultat inattendu de Lexica ![Possibly as a consequence of successful socialisation these two students went on to become the most prolific interactants in the conference.]
EXAMPLE 9
Student
[...] J’ai choisi <chaloupait>. Je dois dire que j’adore le son de ce mot <chaloupait>. Il evoque une danseuse ou meme une tigresse, une etre souple et gracieuse. Finalement il y a personne qui peut me donner une bonne traduction de la phrase <a queue et a attendre>? Je suis completement demontee.
Demain on va a la Norvege ou habite notre fille cadette mais je me remettrai dans mon travail quand je rentrerai le 24 mai.Facilitator
Oui, vous avez raison, votre liste contient des mots qui ne sont pas ceux qui viennent immediatement a l’esprit quand vous faites vos TMAs! Je laisse le soin aux autres de la commenter, pour l’instant. Je vous ecrirai de nouveau vers la fin du mois apres votre retour de Norvege. Bonnes vacances!
EXAMPLE 10
The supportive hands-off approach: a student wanted more information concerning the rationale for Task 1 (selecting words). The facilitator avoided answering this directly, but instead reinforced the student in his self-help strategy.
Student
[...] Je me demande, quelles especes de mots , doit-on choisir? [...] J’etais frappe par deux locutions des profs. <Au gre du vent>, j’avais oublie la signification de ‘gre’ et j’aimais bien le son de ce mot et de cette expression. <Mon dada a moi> m’interessait parce que je n’avais jamais rencontre le mot ‘dada’, donc on avait fait un lien avec les artistes Dadaistes. Ca me plait. Ces mots, ces expressions ne sont pas dans les textes [du corpus de Lexica] mais s’ils en y etaient je les aurais choisis, mais le choix aurait ete apres une consultation du dictionnaire et peut-etre la concordance.. Donc, si vous voulez, et si J. dit qu’il est quelque chose d’a propos, peut-etre la question de choix de mots pour etudier soit encourage un debat?
Facilitator
R.e: sujet du debat.
Merci, R., bonne idee!
D’abord , laissez-moi vous rappeler que c’est a vous de choisir le sujet de vos debats. Celui que vous proposez me semble tres interessant, et je crois que vous trouverez des expressions pareilles dans le dictionnaire de Collins.
Je reviendrai a votre message ce week-end. Pour l’instant je n’ai pas le temps d’en dire plus, excusez-moi.
A bientot,EXAMPLE 11
Vous allez commencer a faire la deuxieme tache. J’attends votre travail avec interet. [... ] Il faut que je lise les autres messages maintenant, alors a la prochaine.
© Université de Franche-Comté, Open University 2001.