Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. . . the significance of microtechnology to English-a 1983 NATE Conference Report.

Brent Robinson Head of English, The Westgate School, and Secretary to the English Development Group, Southern Microelectronics Information Centre.

Tomorrow’s World was the theme of the 1983 NATE Conference held at the University of Surrey last Easter and it was evident that Commission 11 -Microcomputers and English- was going to be central to that theme. What was not evident until the Commission came together, however, was that for a number of English teachers that future world was already in the process of becoming a reality. A brief introduction from each delegate indicated that most were speaking with some knowledge and experience of a microcomputer in their teaching and over the next three days it became clear that a number had gone further and were actively involved in development and research in the field. The exact nature of such work was diverse and it gave an interesting insight into some of the potential applications of microtechnology in English teaching.

At one level, Colin Harrison from Nottingham University showed how children’s enthusiasm for the medium with all its connotations of novelty and entertainment could be harnessed to motivate and stimulate pupils. Even an arcade-type electronic game like Pacman could stimulate some lively creative writing. One child had even written a comprehensive manual on how to improve player performance in the game. Another popular game, the ubiquitous Hangman. had more obvious relevance to English but Colin Harrison’s own version (soon to be published under the title Wil t ) showed too how a microcomputer can open up new possibilities in a subject. If the user could not fill a character space in the word, a simple ‘help’ command summoned a graphic display showing the probability of occurrence in that position of each letter of the alphabet. Given this, it was difficult to see how most users could fail to learn something about letter distribution and patterning in English spelling.

Jan Bright, Languages manager from the Computers in the Curriculum Project at Chelsea College, demonstrated more games of the ‘Call My Bluff and ‘Crossword’ type while Bob Moy showed some programs demonstrating how easily text could be manipulated by a computer. One extreme example was a total cloze type exercise in which all the words were deleted, leaving only dashes and punctuation as clues for the replacement of text. Tray was an extension of the Hangman idea in which a complete text was built up

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from scratch, all occurrences of any keyed in letter or word being inserted in the text.

These programs were all able to demonstrate that a computer can handle the mechanics of English in a very efficient way. They also showed that such key language work can be fun. Some software deliberately employed a gaming strategy but even without this there was a certain facility, novelty and potential privacy involved in the work which could make the medium highly desirable in certain school situations. In particular, a microcomputer could be relevant as a teaching aid for the unmotivated pupil or the one who has failed in a conventionally literate medium. At the same time, of course, teachers need to be aware of potential dangers. To begin with, the computer is a different medium and possibly involves new or different literacy skills. Even where those skills would seem to be similar to those we would normally associate with conventional literacy, there need not be any necessary transfer of skill back from computer experience. Thirdly, and very significantly, the novelty and attraction of the medium could prove to be one of its shortcomings. Computer software can embody all that is worst in English teaching today. The emphasis on drill and practice immediately springs to mind. This is not to say that there is no place for this kind of teaching strategy in English. Much language development, particularly in its initial or remedial stages, is concerned with demonstration and subsequent practice. This a computer can be programmed to perform remarkably well. The machine can be infinitely patient in its repetition of an exercise, constant in each and every recurring demonstration, meticulous in its monitoring of pupil performance, precise in its diagnosis of errors, and embracing in the compass of alternative strategies or levels of difficulty to which it can resort in an instant. And though it is good, it is also simple to program. As a result, however, much of the software commercially available (and that undertaken by teacher-programmers themselves) is of a drill and practice variety. This is particularly true of American software. There, this type of software found a ready home among teaching strategies based on Behaviourist schools of thought. In Britain, on the other hand, teachers in the main prefer a more cognitive approach and one which, in language development, utilises language in context. If we are not careful, it would be very easy to allow computers to undo much of the good that the Bullock Report did in sweeping away prescriptive mechanical language exercises. It would be all too easy to revert once again to the grammar primers which are now fast disappearing. The exercises these books contained were easy to administer and mark. They are no less so on a computer. In the past, there was perhaps a limit to the extent to which children would tolerate boring, repetitive, arid teaching strategies. Today, however, these are precisely what makes a computer program such fun. Simple closed question exercises in which users compete to get the highest score are played by pupils without reservation. And the more well defined and prescriptive the exercise is, the easier it is to build in and enhance gaming and drill features. With less able pupils in particular, it is too easy to see them mesmerised by a crude

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computer multiple choice comprehension exercise and not ask too many questions of its value simply because those children are, at long last, occupied in something to do with the subject.

At the NATE Conference, it was good, therefore, to see that this type of software was given its rightful and justified place but that it was balanced by other software. Richard Knott, English Adviser for Berkshire, introduced a software development project in his county. The aim is to produce one or more simulation packages for school use. There are already a number of these around and some were on display at the conference. The Berkshire packages are to be designed specifically for English to foster group discussion, reading and writing skills. Each pack will contain workcards and facsimile documents to complement the simulation enacted by each group when the progam is run.

Another type of software which can be used in just such a way is the adventure game. In this users have to explore an imaginary world on some quest. In doing so, the computer is told exactly what to do by keying in instructions (Go north; get gun; open chest). The locations and results of these actions are reported back on screen. As well as being an invaluable aid to group discussion and decision making, such programs can facilitate both logical and divergent thinking. In operation, pupils often feel the need to make notes and diagrams- a valuable end in itself as well as a basis for later reports and other transactional writing. In addition, the imaginative involvement of pupils in the narrative often provides the stimulus for sustained creative writing. The results can show a more heightened response than can be achieved with many other stimuli. Daniel Chandler, the Commission leader, has already outlined in print his own belief in such software (Adams, 1982). At Surrey, he presented his own Adventure Generator, which takes the classroom activity a stage further. This program enables pupils to create new imaginary worlds themselves and compose their own adventure programs without programming skills.

In connection with writing, word processing could not be ignored. Edword, a new and cheap word processing package designed specifically for pupils to use on a BBC Model B microcomputer was available for course members to try. The point about word processing is that it separates process from product, liberating thought from its final expression (Papert, 1980). When composing on paper, a pupil’s concern is simultaneously with the selection, editing and printing of words. The mechanics of production interfere with the process of creation. There is also an air of finality about the commitment of pen to paper. Second thoughts are discouraged by the consequent problems of erasure or complete rewriting. Similar considera- tions urge the writer to avoid later spelling and stylistic revisions by concen- trating on initial coding of thoughts rather than on the thoughts themselves. In a classroom, a word processing package will allow pupils to draft and redraft their work, producing a variety of versions for further individual revision or for circulation among peer group and teacher- and still with the final presentation of a relatively effortless product which by its very standard of production is an incentive towards more and better writing activity.

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Michael Clark, Deputy Head of Heaton School, Newcastle, brought a team of teachers to demonstrate a different way in which microtechnology was affecting writing activity in class. The Microwriter is a small hand- held device with integral one line display screen for the keying in, storing and processing of text. The device has only five keys which, in combination, are sufficient to produce all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. The machine can be used as a keyboard to a computer and large display screen, thus obviating the need for conventional keyboard skills. Alternatively, it can be detached and used as a completely portable device with its own internal memory. Microwriter attracted considerable interest in the software demonstration and later, at a well attended open session of Conference, members of other commissions were keen to pursue some general implications of the use of this and other electronic devices in classrooms. It became evident, not for the first time, that the advent of microtechnology was provoking a healthy review of much in our teaching which it is easy to take for granted. A device like Microwriter encouraged teachers to reconsider the physical and psychological processes involved in reading and writing while other software urged teachers to question the strategies and skills such software embodied and to relate them to their own teaching. At a more fundamental level, the very innovation and deployment of microtechnology in the classroom and in society as a whole began, and will continue, to challenge teachers to question and perhaps redefine their own understanding and beliefs in literacy and the other skills associated with English.

This was nowhere more evident than in a session led by Mike Sharples of the Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University. The concept of the electronic book is not new (e.g. Evans, 1979). We already have the microtechnology and now both Sony and Sinclair have produced the required small, flat screens. Mike Sharples drew attention to the likely technical specifications and attributes of such a device and stimulated Commission members to think of the consequences. Some important issues were provoked. What is screen legibility? How important is speed reading or skimming if text is to be presented in real time? What sort of eye movement is required of text which no longer necessarily appears in linear form from left to right or from top to bottom of the screen?, How does electronic access to and retrieval of information fit into our present study and referencing skills? In fiction too, will the adventure program narrative or branching story format, as determined by reader decision and input, alter children’s involvement in narrative and empathy with characters? The branching story is, after all, not such a new idea. John Fowles allows the reader two alternative endings in The French Lieutenant’s Woman and the programmed text device provides the format for a complete range of books - Storytrails - from Cambridge Educational Press. In some ways too, the format can be seen as a natural extension of current writing practice. Back in 1975, Frank Kermode recognised that the author’s need for freedom in the reader was growing more insistent:

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You have to work, to collaborate, not simply to recognise a familiar landscape but help, by the exercise of an interpretive power which is essentially creative, to make i t (Kermode, 1975, p. 15).

Moreover, in giving readers discrete units rather than a coherent whole, the new fiction will be simply moving the point of negotiation between writer and reader further back towards the writer. As Alan Garner says:

An isolated idea presents itself. I t can come from anywhere. Later, and there is no saying how long that is, another idea happens involuntarily and a spark flies. The two ideas stand out clearly, and I know that they will be a book (Meek, 1977, p. 198).

Readers need no longer be faced with that final consummate artefact. Rather, they may discover it for themselves among the many isolated episodes, piecing them together in successive versions of a branching format.

In a branching story, the roles of reader and writer have shifted. It was good to see at the NATE Conference, therefore, that Daniel Chandler had been working with a group of English teachers at Chelsea College to devise software which not only introduced pupils to branching texts but also allowed them to create their own under program control. When this becomes available, it might give pupils a better insight into the writing process and prepare them for a more active role as readers of future fiction.

The implications of microtechnology on this or any other aspect of English are too extensive to consider in detail here. Indeed, it was impossible to do them justice in the three days of the conference. What did emerge from the demonstrations and discussions, however, was that a number of English teachers had already begun to consider tomorrow today. Unfortun- ately, the conference also proved how infrequent were the opportunities for such teachers to meet and share their views, let alone disseminate them. Too often, teachers were working in isolation with the danger of replicating each other’s efforts or even making the same mistakes. Pioneering teachers needed the support of each other and a mutually beneficent dialogue. They needed, too, to form a cohesive unit which could make representations and offer advice or evaluation to software manufacturers and education/micro- technology agencies. For these reasons, it was hoped that a NATE standing committee could be established as an urgent priority.

In the meantime, there was much grass roots activity to be done. More English teachers need to know more of the potential of microcomputers and allied technology. Many useful ideas for original programs were devised by Commission members. Hopefully, a number of these will find their way to publication. Armed with innovative and stimulating software, other teachers should then be prompted not only to use microcomputers more extensively but also to realise and propose new software ideas for further development. They will not need to be programmers. Already there is a growing distinction between teachers authoring the concepts of programs and the actual coding of these concepts by programmers. A number of the

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regional centres set up by the Microelectronics Education Programme have already established English software development groups. Their function is to devise and evaluate software for the subject and they would be pleased to hear from teachers interested in the field. At the Southern Microelectronics Information Centre we would certainly be eager to hear from any teacher with an idea for software, a coded program needing refinement, evaluation or publication or simply an active interest in using computers in English teaching.

But we must not fall into the trap of thinking of the computer as just another teaching machine, even if it is a highly sophisticated one at that. In one form or another, the technology will continue to confront pupils beyond the confines of the English classroom. Some teaching aids we can do without, even if our teaching is the poorer for it. English teachers are not renowned for making quick use of technological advance in their class- rooms. Some even shun it. In this case, however, we are dealing with a tech- nology which supports a medium, a linguistic medium of sociological and economic importance to our pupils in their future lives. If our children are not taught the reading, keyboard (and, later, voice input) software handling and information retrieval skills of the medium, then they may be already at risk in schools where computers are used in other subjects. If they leave school without these skills then their inability to use the medium for their own advantage and enlightenment, in work and at home, could be the source of a new illiteracy-a new social, economic and political dysfunction in our society for which English teachers will have to share the blame.

Select Bibliography

Adams, A. New Directions in English Teaching Falmer Press, 1982. Adams, A. and Jones, E. Teaching Humanities in the Microelectronics Age. Open University Press, 1983. Chandler, D. Exploring English with Microcomputers. Council for Educational Technology, 1983. Daiute, C. Computers and Writing. Addison Wesley, 1982. Evans, C. The Mighty Micro. Victor Gollanz, 1979. Geoffrion, L. D.., 0. P. and Nilsen, J . Computers and Reading Instruction. Addison Wesley, 1983. Higgins, J. Computers and English Language Teaching: British Council Inputs. British Council, 1982. Hills, P. The Future of the Printed Word. Open University Press, 1980. Kermode, F. How W e Read Novels. University of Southampton, 1975. Meek, M. et al. (eds.). The Cool W e b Bodley Head, 1977. Papert, S. Mindstorms: Children, computers and Powerful Ideas. Harvester Press, 1980. Robinson, B. Reading and the Video Screen (Media in Education Research Working, Paper no. 2). University of Southampton, 1983.

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Addresses

Computers in the Curriculum Project, Chelsea College, Hudson Buildings, 552 Kings Road, London SW7 2BX. Microelectronics Education Programme, Cheviot House, Newcastle-upon- Tyne Polytechnic, Coach Lane Campus, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE7 7Xa. Southern Microelectronics Information Centre, Furnace Drive, Furnace Green, Crawley RHlO 6JB.