The CALL classroom as a window to systemic literacy
Judy Noguchi（Mukogawa Women’s University）
The CALL classroom is an ideal environment topersonal development, simply to keep up with anhelp students develop their systemic literacy byever advancing and complex global society.

accessing an ever expanding world of openly
availablematerials

andwebsites

continuallybeingupdated.

AthatThe relationship between these concepts andare

English study lies in the fact that language is anuniversity

important key to gaining access to “systemiceducation should not aim for the completeliteracy.” A university education should not bemastery of a discipline because disciplinary

to “program” students with establishedknowledge quickly becomes obsolete. Rather itknowledge, which will most probably become

should make students aware of the great currents

obsolete in three to five years in rapidlyof human thought which can offer guidance inadvancing science and technology fields. Instead,their encounters with the unknown.

a university education should make students

Until

recently, using a CALL classroom could haveaware of the great currents of human thought andentailed the use of expensive software andknowledge development so that when they

dedicated e-learning materials and tools. Today,

encounter something for which there seems to be

there is a cornucopia of excellent language-study

no answer, they will know what resources theymaterials freely available for those who know how

can call upon to search for or formulate an answer.

to use them. Described in this paper are specific

In an increasingly globally connected world,

examples of how Web materials have been

having sufficient command of English is becoming

incorporated into an English for specific purposes

more and more important to make this type of(ESP) class to help science majors develop their

university education a reality.

systemic literacy..

With these concepts in mind, let us turn towhat can be done in the classroom to help

Introduction

students acquire the skills they need to further“The focus is not so much on what we learn but on

develop their language abilities.

how we learn.” (Brown, 2008: vii)
A case study in promoting systemic literacy
This is what Brown states in the foreword toHow can an English class aim at the development

Opening Up Education (Iiyoshi and Kumar, 2008),of systemic literacy? The answer is by having

a volume of 30 essays by 38 scholars involved inthe students learn “how” rather than trying topromoting open education opportunities, such asteach them “what.” Two activities used in a

the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

class of English for science will be introduced:

Open-CourseWare project. He discusses the(1) website listening and recitation and (2) Google

need to cope with not only traditional literacy but

Spreadsheets for grammar and sentence writing

also a new “systemic literacy” which can bepractice. The class is offered to science majors

interpreted to mean the understanding of the

who are in their senior undergraduate year andprocesses and consequences of complex social

first-year graduate school students. Most of thesystems (Brown, 2008: xi). University students

students are master’s degree students and thetoday need to go beyond the “what” of learning toclass usually has about eight students, making

the “how” of learning for a lifelong experience ofpossible ample listening and speaking

17opportunities.

journals as weekly podcasts.

Students use theTo encourage the students to learn how toscripts for listening practice as well as simplified

learn about giving oral presentations, a series ofgenre analysis to identify the “moves” andlistening and recitation activities are done using

expressions used by scientists to describe theirthree types of listening websites. The first type,research to those outside their field of discipline.

websites for learning English, is represented by

A “move” is a section of text that expresses theRandall’s Cyber Listening Lab, which offers aintention of the writer or speaker. For example,

range of listening events from easy to difficultin the example below, the first move is one whichwith one to several speakers. Students are

introduces a researcher and the research done.

asked to choose a dialogue that they can practiceExpressing moves in suitable order and usingwith a partner and present to the class. Working

appropriate

expressions

with a partner eases the anxiety of standing up in

professional

communications.

front a class and presenting in English. The

explanation

dialogues come with scripts that the students canimportant to obtain funding for further research,used to mark off pauses and stressed words to aid

to convince the reviewers of professional journals

their recitation practice. The next step isthat the research merits publication and canindividual recitation from a news site, e.g.,enable the researcher to take advantage ofBreaking News English, VOA Special English orcollaboration opportunities with other scientists,

CNN Student News. Students are again told toresearchers and even corporate and industrial

do the prosody marking and also to check theinterests.

ofone’sis

importantresearchforEffectiveisextremely

Here is an example from the 30th April 2009

pronunciation of problematic words. This can bedone using dictionaries, including online

Nature podcast (http://www.nature.com/nature/dictionaries available at the OneLook Dictionary

podcast/v458/n7242/nature-2009-04-30.html)

Search site, where some of the dictionaries offerwith the genre move analysis and highlighting ofaudio presentation of search word. When theexpressions that indicate the move:students present their recitations, the otherstudents evaluate them for pronunciation,
prosody and pace (the speed should be neither too
slow nor too fast) while listening for key words
and concepts. The evaluations may not be as
accurate as a trained instructor’s but being given
the responsibility of peer evaluation makes thestudents pay attention and become aware of what
they need to do to be heard and understood.
By the time the students have done tworecitations in front of the class, they have usually
lost their apprehension of talking before an
audience and are ready to attempt a morechallenging task.

The next assignment is tochoose a podcast from the Natureor Science

website to listen to, analyze and recite from.
These sites, operated by top-ranking scientificjournals in the UK and the USA, respectively,
present the latest research from their namesake

18Script with hint expressions highlighted

MoveKerri Smith: Many genetic studies over the past few years have Introducing researcher and study
tried to find out what genes contribute to autism. ...Now a large
international team has conducted the biggest ever study into thegenetics of autism. To see what they turned up I called Hakon
Hakonarson of the Children's Hospital at Philadelphia.

Hakon Hakonarson: There had been several candidates put Describing researchforward but ...
Kerri Smith: And I suppose in order to make it more clear that's Confirming details
where this pair of papers come in, so in one of them you've lookedat what you were just mentioning that common variants to see if
you could find any of those ...
Hakon Hakonarson: That's correct.

Responding to question

Kerri Smith: So can you talk us through how they add to the Asking about procedures
picture then? What's different about these studies that previousstudies haven't been able to do hand picked up?
Hakon Hakonarson: So the major difference is perhaps Pointing our novelty of procedurethat ...This has never been done before for any of the variants
that had been reported in the literature.
The announcer Kerri Smith continues asking

how to describe one’s research by using examples

about procedures, results, applications of thefrom the scientific community that they someday

work and further work that can be done. Eachhope to join.

30-minute podcast features several sections ofIn parallel with this global type of listening

about 4 to 5 minutes. A student chooses a 1- toand speaking activity, attention is also paid to

2-minute section of interest from an archive ofword choice, grammar and sentence structure.

weekly podcasts with transcripts dating fromThe Google Docs & Spreadsheets

April 2006. They do both the prosody marking(http://www.google.com/google-d-s/hpp/hpp_co_jp.

and a simple genre analysis. This genre analysishtml), which enable simultaneous sharing of adata is pooled so that all students can utilize thedocument or spreadsheet, are used for an

database to plan a podcast to describe their own

interactive exercise in which students compose

research. The students are asked to follow thesentences using words from the class textbook.

move pattern of introduction of researcher andThe lessons focus on the pronunciation of words

research to the questions about details andand expressions used in science and technology

projection about applications and further work.

(e.g. numbers and units, element and compound

They are told to try to use examples from the hint

names, laboratory equipment, descriptions ofexpressions to guide the listener through thefigures and table). Before coming to class, theexplanation. This is thus an exercise in learning

students are expected to listen to the CD for the19Student sentences

Editing suggestions

How many picograms of DNA does the sample
include?
The Large Hadron Collider is intended to collide

The Large Hadron Collider is designed toopposing particle beams of lead nuclei at an energy collide opposing particle beams of lead nuclei atof 574 TeV per nucles.

an energy of 574 TeV per nucleus.

The speed of light is three hundred mega meter per The speed of light is 300 mega meters persecond.

second.

Our blood contains 3 micro grams of silver per

Our blood contains 3 micrograms of silver per

liter.

liter.

Silicon is a semiconductor.
Much electlicty is required to make aluminium.

Much electricity is required to make aluminium

One angstrom is one hundred picometer.

One angstrom is 100 picometers.

Pt is contained in the anticancer agent.
lesson before coming to class and think ofanother student’s work were mentioned. To

sentences to express what they would like to say.

resolve such issues, the class this year was

As can be seen from the examples below, theplanned to engage all students while commenting

editing includes spelling, article usage and theon individual work. Some realized theappropriate use of singular and plural.

importance of explaining their research to others

Doing this sentence writing exercise withwhile one did not. This year more time was

everyone participating hands-on makes it

spent on explaining why scientists andpossible to have everyone offer suggestions forresearchers need to be able to explain the reasons

improvement. The real-time aspect also makes

for their research and its place in society.

students aware of what to be careful about whenwriting their own sentences. The sentences

Conclusion

gradually became more complex and covered

The overall aim of the class is not to simply havemore content as the semester progressed. Again,

students learn the words, expressions andthis exercise incorporated the learning of how togrammar of science and technology but to learn

edit and polish one’s work as well as working with

about what is available to aid their learning andpeers to aid the development of systemic literacy..

how they can take advantage of these websites.

The final grade for the class is based on class

Another very important aspect of the class is toattendance, individual recitations, participation

learn how to actively participate in sharedin peer evaluation and the final conference-stylelearning experiences with their peers. This

presentation with PowerPoint® slides. The

approach should lay the basis for a good grasp ofrecitations and sentence construction exercises all

systemic literacy which is essential for anyone

contribute to this final project.

who wishes to be an active participant in theThe class this year is still ongoing andknowledge society of today.

student comments are not yet available. Lastyear’s anonymously answered questionnaires

Referencesindicated that the students found the work

Brown, J.S. (2008) Foreword: Creating a culture

challenging but useful. Trouble with computerof learning. In Iiyoshi, T. and Kumar, M.S.V.

usage and losing interest when the focus was on

Opening20

up

education:The

collective

advancement of education through open
technology, open content, and open knowledge.
The MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusettsand London, EnglandWebsites
Breaking News English(http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/)
CNN Student News(http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/).
Nature(http://www.nature.com/nature/podcast/archivetranscripts.html)
OneLook Dictionary Search site(http://www.onelook.com/)
Randall’s Cyber Listening Lab(http://www.esl-lab.com/)
Science(http://www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl)
VOA Special English(http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/programs.cfm)

システミック・リテラシー育成に向けての CALL 授
業
現代社会では、IT 技術の発達により情報は一瞬にして世界を駆け巡る。特に科学技術の分野では、大学で学んだ知識が、たちまち陳腐化してしまうような状況となっている。こうした高度情報化社会における大学教育では、単に知識を伝達するだけではなく、学生が社会に出てのちに未知の情報に遭遇しても自力で解答を見つけることのできる能力、すなわち、知の体系を読み取る能力（システミック・リテラシー）も育成しなければならない。CALL 授業においてウェブ素材を活用すれば、このシステミック・リテラシーを育成する授業が英語教育でも可能となる。
本稿では、大学学部生および大学院生を対象とした
理系 ESP の CALL 授業例をとりあげ、ポッドキャストや英語学習サイトなど、インターネット上のウ
ェブ素材をどのように利用すれば、システミック・リテラシー育成に役立つのかについて、その具体的授業方法を紹介する。

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