Initiating Change Using Wiki for EAP Writing in Technology-poor Nigeria

Peter A. Aborisade, Nigeria

Peter Aborisade lectures English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Nigeria. In 2007 he received the Commonwealth Academic Fellowship and visited the University of Sussex, UK as Senior Research Fellow where he took up the challenge of integrating technology into the language teaching curriculum.
E-mail: baborisade2002@yahoo.com; paaborisade@futa.edu.ng

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Abstract
Introduction
Context
Theoretical perspective
Strategies for a new teaching-learning experience
Bases of the teaching-learning strategies
New learning environments
Team building and enquiry
Investigating impact
Outcomes
Conclusion
References

Abstract

Although there is growing interest in Nigeria today in adopting technology within Higher Education (HE), this is not backed up by the requisite investment to make it work. Besides, it is less clear to authorities in these institutions what technologies are appropriate and how to implement the project. Presently, there is no known policy, neither is there a framework for technology integration in tertiary education. There is only one reported and known instance of an international organisation offering support in this process. For others, individual academics with a need are left to provide leadership. At the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), the impetus for technology support was the large class situation in English as a Second Language (ESL) programme with attendant lack of facilities and resources. This paper describes the processes of initiating change by a small team of digital-neophyte teachers; it reports the impact of introducing the Web 2.0 Wiki, blended with traditional face-to-face classes, in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) writing module. Emphasis is on introducing change in a tradition-steeped, very poorly resourced context and how teachers may, through professional development efforts, enhance their skills and student interaction, engagement and learning experience.

Introduction

A feature of the teaching-learning education system in Nigeria is the rote, teacher fronted approach - ‘oracle on the stage’. This takes place in very poorly resourced contexts with large numbers of students crammed into ill-fitting classrooms or undersized lecture theatres; and the numbers continue to rise due to rising populations [Nigeria’s annual rate is 2.025% (2008)] and increasing access to higher education, though the rate of increase of access remains small compared to youth population (only 3% of secondary school graduates is absorbed in tertiary education annually). Obviously, a disconnect exists between increases in population growth and access, and provision of facilities, especially in tertiary education. Even for the enrolled population, language teaching in the large classes remains a Herculean task. LoCastro (1989), among others, suggests that when a language class exceeds 15 in number problems arise, such as those of pedagogy, management and of the affective type.

Language teaching in large classes therefore has always been seen to be problematic, and language teachers have the unenviable roles of engendering interaction to enable learners practice the target language and develop proficiency. This paper reports processes of change initiated by teachers concerned about the challenges in their practice by integrating technology using the Wiki with aims to: introduce students to university level learning processes, encourage attendance and engagement with course materials, reflect on their learning processes, make use of ICT in academic work and provide meaningful activities that foster autonomy, interaction, collaboration and enhancement of learning experience.

The research aimed, primarily, to inform practice and proposes one way of dealing with large classes and integration of technology for difficult teaching-learning contexts. Focus at each stage was to enhance student learning experience and proficiency.

Context

The research reported here focuses on a blended learning writing module using the innovative collaborative Wiki and the traditional classroom practice. The contextualised report aims to provide a framework of initiating change in a traditional environment whose strategies may be replicated or reusable in similar and other contexts.

The Nigerian tertiary education system remains traditional in approach and methodologies. University teaching-learning environments remain largely poorly resourced in all respects. Classrooms are in short supply; lecturers and teachers are few in number resulting also in time-tabling difficulties. At the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), the General Studies Unit runs support programmes for students of science and technology; English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is one such compulsory programme for all freshmen, numbering about 2000+. By 2005/2006 session a teacher development initiative started among the EAP teachers with a project of gradual integration of technology into the EAP writing curriculum. The project was intended, as well, to enhance teachers’ knowledge and skills in technology use and integration in their learning curve. In 2008 we decided to take the decisive step of blending the Wiki with the traditional face-to-face classroom practice.

Theoretical perspective

The underpinning theoretical base is socio-cultural constructivist, which emphasises learning and knowledge construction as social, situated, distributed and mediated, and focused on the centrality of language (Vygotsky, 1986; Beatty, 2003; Dudeney and Hockly, 2007). In the words of McDermott:

Language and culture are no longer scripts to be acquired, as much as they are conversations in which people can participate. The question of who is learning what and how much is essentially a question of what conversations they are part of, and this question is a subset of the more powerful question of what conversations are around to be had in a given culture. (McDermott, 1993, p. 295)

The aims of our blended learning module, therefore, included providing opportunities for interactions (teacher-students, student-student, student-expert) in the target language and collaborative space for student-student support; exposing students to learning to learn skills; affording them with loads of materials to consult and choose from as appropriate in their own time and at their own pace, while the teacher provides support and feedback in class and online. This, however, is the third phase in the developmental stage of the EAP module code-named GNS 102.

Earlier and from inception the course was taught in the traditional manner following the grammar translation and structuralist approach (1982 – 1990). In the second phase (1991 – 2007) the course was restructured along the lines of the tenets of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), a humanist approach that focuses on the learner, their motivations and styles (learner-centred). In this phase emphasis was more on ‘who’ (human) rather that ‘what’ (object); on ‘how’ (process) and less on ‘what’ (product). Enunciations of this approach by Dudley-Evans (1984), Robinson (1978), Herbolich (1979), Bloor and St. John (1988) and Hyland and Hyland (1992) provided the principles that informed our practice. In the latter stage (2004 – 2007) of this phase gradual integration of technology was embarked on in the form of using Internet resources for the writing project, and team work approach was also being experimented.

Dissatisfied with the non-sociable, non-interactive and ineffective conduct of the face-to-face (F2F) large class Nigerian situation, the lecturers decided to innovate and initiate change adopting the new learning technologies, even at a time they were lacking in anything more than basic computer and Internet skills. For the lecturers as well as the students, the innovation was indeed a learning experience; even then a few of the students had better grasp of those basics. To take advantage of what technology enabled us to do in process and outcome the blended approach that combined the F2F and Web 2.0 Wiki was adopted. The University of Sussex Moodle learning experience and UK Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies’ e-Learning symposium in 2008 had exposed a member of the team to the use of the Wiki while the works of Beatty (2003) and Dudeney and Hockly (2007) provided literature guide. The teaching team took themselves through a series of in-house professional development (PD) seminars that lasted the period of the module’s planning and execution. While teachers’ and students’ enthusiasm was a driver the fear of failure became the driving force.

Essentially therefore, the third phase (2008 - ) of the GNS 102 module development combined the CLT and socio-cultural approaches adopting also the enquiry-based learning techniques, and embedding the Web 2.0 Wiki (futagns.pbwiki.com) to generate new and enhanced learning experiences for our students.

Strategies for a new teaching-learning experience

Strategies offered by the traditional F2F approach were limited and had become ineffective in meeting the demands of the new pedagogies of CLT (learner-centred, task/activity based), Process-product (PBL/EBL, skills based), Socio-cultural (collaborative, interactional, mediated, scaffolding). New learning technologies offered a way out and in our case the Web 2.0 Wiki, but requiring: knowledge of ICT pedagogy, ICT skills of use and integration, and infrastructure, finance and/or technical support. We therefore decided on Blended Learning that enabled us keep the F2F facilities/pedagogy (our comfort zone) while we gained more time and experience in our learning curve of ICT-supported teaching-learning; and decided on the Wiki (open source platform requiring small amount of financial outlay) to take advantage of its unique capabilities that afford collaborative work for L2 socio-cultural pedagogy. At this point no institutional support was sought as none might come, except of course for the limited ICT infrastructure that was available in the university, for students’ access.

The combined approaches opened new vistas for both teachers and students. Right from the teachers’ professional development stage to the end-of-course evaluation, the processes detailed in Table 1 sought to employ strategies that could accomplish the following: regard learners as humans with needs, wants and providing a humanising learning environment that enabled them express their individual learning styles, background knowledge, skills, creativity and experiences; create challenges, interest and motivation through enquiry of a problem/situation, searching for meaning; create through small group/team work additional learning spaces outside of scheduled classroom meeting hours, off- and on-line; provide through online links and experts enhanced engagement with more and diverse materials; provide avenues for greater and deeper interaction in L2 between teachers-students, students-students and students-experts; enable students take own decisions on a number of issues by teachers ceding space and authority, allowing students to leverage on one another’s strong points/scaffolding each other; and enable students exercise autonomy over content (choice of topic and focus, choice of location for investigations and experts to consult/interview, materials to use, who to team up with in groups, where and when groups meet) and their processes (who does what and when, how research is carried out, what and how to share, media to use in enquiry and write-up); expose students to learning to learn skills and opportunities online, enabling them to reflect on their learning processes in comments posted on forums as they progressed.

Table 1: Framework for Implementation

Bases of the teaching-learning strategies

Although we did not make reference to and were not explicitly aware of them at the time, the bases for our strategies agree with and are aligned to some of the ten Learning Principles and Collaborative Action of the joint report by the American Association of Higher Education, the American College Personnel Association, and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (APA, 2005). These principles are a distillation of extant knowledge about learning in the approaches already enunciated above. We make specific reference to six of the principles as underpinning the processes of our module and the affordances of a technology supported learning experience: 1. Learning is fundamentally about ‘making and maintaining connections’ mentally and experientially; 2. Learning is an ‘active search for meaning’ by the learner constructing rather than passively receiving it; 3. Learning is done by ‘individuals’ intrinsically ‘tied to others as social beings, interacting as competitors or collaborators’, acting as scaffolds for one another; 4. Learning is strongly ‘affected by the educational climate’ in which it takes place, settings and surroundings, influences of others, and values accorded it; 5. Learning requires ‘frequent feedback’ to be sustained, ‘practice’ to be nourished, and ‘opportunities to use’ what has been learned; 6. Learning involves the ‘ability of individuals to monitor their own learning’, to understand their learning processes and develop strategies for learning.

The module was blended with technology support to get learners engage more with materials, interact with other learners and teachers in the L2 in the following ways:

• Engage more with materials and collaborate out of class in small groups on a project work
• To support and stimulate learning using media that students use for social activities
• Encourage students to make effective use of ICT in academic work
• Provide meaningful activities that foster autonomy and collaboration

Affordances of the new teaching-learning strategies can be grouped into two: 1. Creating new learning environments; 2. Enhancing and deepening interactions and collaboration through processes of team building and enquiry.

New learning environments

Learning technologies offered some means of vitiating the challenges around large classes. In our case at FUTA, the Web 2.0 Wiki authoring tool offered such an opportunity to create some innovative learning spaces in our English as a Second Language (ESL) module with a focus on academic writing. The new learning spaces that complement rather than replace the traditional physical classrooms come with the introduction of team building and team work outside the classroom and fixed lecture hours. The autonomy engendered allowed students to fix their own venues and times for meetings which take place at least once a week and reports of assigned activities are given weekly. New learning environments now include spaces in the Student Union buildings, parks, free lecture rooms, experts’ offices, and of course cybercafés including the University’s Computer Resource Centre. Activities that go on at each stage are as indicated in Table 1.

Team building and enquiry

There are two levels of activities in the module: in-class language activities and group project work. Classroom activities dovetail and feed into those of group work; language and structure of writing are transferable skills employed in problem solving and term paper writing. Out of class, students exercise greater autonomy in the use of language and adopting appropriate routes to solve the problems associated with their project work.

Team building is itself a cumbersome process because students are fresh in the system and many are reluctant to take leadership positions, a first step in the process.

• To build the teams we seek to find volunteers who have self-confidence to take on team leader positions. Usually only few students would indicate preparedness
• Students nominate others they believe are responsible among them to make up the required numbers. The role of group leader is determined in class to ensure acceptability, but assignment of other roles is left for students to determine in their groups.
• We then ask other students to sign up to whichever of the groups they wanted; a group should be no more than five (5).
• A period of ‘probation’ is allowed for the team to bond after which the lists are finalised and read out in open class.
• Every member of the group takes up a role: researcher, interviewer, browser, reporter, etc.
• The teams decide meeting times and venues; they also agree ground rules to guide their interactions.

Project work with the final aim of writing a term paper sets the students on a path of enquiry. The teaching team engaged students in looking at topical issues around them in the country and asked them to research such issues, everyone investigates only one issue but from different perspectives, they take their positions and provide their solutions to the problem. They were free to take whatever point of view the group agreed. Teams meet to brainstorm on choice of focus area and the locale, and raise questions that guide their investigation. They interact, seek and share information and carry out activities and tasks set in class by the teacher. In tandem with the practical building of teams and sorting out of project activities are language activities that go on in the classroom and outside in the small group meetings. Reading materials give students practice in analysing and synthesising issues, and use of appropriate language forms.

Investigating impact

The project was not set up as a major research investigation, rather it was intended as an assessment to inform practice and a measure to convince authorities of the possibility of introducing technology to support teaching and learning without heavy financial investment at the initial stage. Only a section of the students were surveyed (students of the School of Agriculture and Agricultural Technology numbering about five hundred and ten tutored by the investigator). The questionnaire was adapted from the University of Manchester CEEBL website as an end-of-course survey. Responding to the questionnaire was voluntary and was sent to students online using their email addresses during vacation.

Many did not receive the mail because once they had moved to their small towns and villages they had no access to the Internet. Of the number of two hundred and thirty five (235) respondents only one hundred and sixty (160) answered all questions that could be validly analysed. Two sections were analysed for this report. The first section contained thirty two questions to investigate students’ understanding, difficulties, group work experiences, taking leadership positions, enquiry, course methods, etc. The other section sought to confirm in a more definitive way students’ confidence in the use of computer and Internet in learning, and taking leadership roles, issues also earlier enquired about in the earlier section.

Outcomes

Much of the discussion here focuses on the impact of change on student learning experiences, although the effect of change using Web 2.0 reaches much deeper, affecting the views of administration, roles of teachers and perceptions of other faculty within the university system as these would impact on provision of facilities and policies and uptake of technology-supported teaching-learning eventually. This is worth investigating in due course, but evidence available in this study indicates that remarkable change in students’ learning experience was achieved on this module. It may however be too early to claim success because ability for sustainability might take time to guarantee. Nevertheless, some of the outcomes in this exercise include those discussed below, although some of the evidences may be regarded as anecdotal where not supported by statistical data. Tables 2 and 3 give the results of the analysis of the questionnaire, and they are discussed below. The three major areas covered by the questions are grouped as Learning Processes, Team Work and Leadership Role.

Table 2: Improvement rates on course supported by technology - Wiki

Great improvement in learning experience

The main purpose of embarking on the project was to enhance students’ learning experience in a course most had learned to despise, one, because studying English following the grammar method had always been regarded as boring; two, many being science oriented students had a hard time getting the credit grade required for admission into university. A course in English in a university of technology is the last thing they wanted! When the course is then presented in the rote learning mode with loads of rules to memorise and apply, it becomes a nightmare.

Their responses to the end-of-course evaluation on this module indicated, therefore, a real improvement in their total learning experience. Table 2 indicates that while all respondents reported high improvement in learning processes a few felt they needed more time to learn to work in groups while a few more had difficulty taking leadership roles among their peers.

Table 3: Paired Sample Tests – Internet supported course; Leadership role; Knowledge of using the Internet

Team work was fostered

Valuable time was devoted to building group work teams. Since 2005 we had studied our students’ preferred working styles and learned to make them work with their preferred colleagues while we set gender-mix limits. It took time to get this process right, from two to four weeks, but once it was done right bonding took less time to achieve. Except in a few cases groups get to work well together; team competitive spirit was engendered and individuals seemed to benefit from group work. Complaints about non-performing group members were handled in class. Students’ comments indicate preference for group work if they have freedom to choose who they work with. Evidence from Table 2 suggests that our approach to group formation and participation worked, and as we seek to improve on the modalities to make everyone bond and contribute to group work getting individuals to take leadership roles is as important. Table 3 further corroborates the findings in Table 2. Based on responses to 3 pairs of questions seeking to find out about students’ confidence level before and after measured on a scale of 1 to 10 and based on null hypotheses on the following three areas: taking a course supported by a Wiki, taking on a leadership role, and using the Internet to run a course, responses were analysed using Paired Sample Test. By the Mean values of test statistic of 14.712, 16.009 and 15.240 the hypotheses of no significant differences in students’ initial and after course experiences/confidence are rejected. From both sections of the course evaluation, there is evidence that the course supported by technology – Wiki – had a positive impact on the learning experiences of our students. The novelty of this mode of learning, perhaps played a role in the high positive values returned, but what is obvious is that students liked what they had especially when contrasted with the traditional approach to learning on all other courses.

Interaction and Collaboration enhanced Autonomy

Once group work got underway interaction and collaboration were ensured because activities leading progressively toward writing the term paper could not be achieved on individual effort alone. Choosing topic focus and raising questions had to be agreed in groups; discussions on location and experts to consult, preparation of interview questions and the interviews had to be conducted in L2; bibliography and materials had to be presented and defended in open class by different members of the group. Discussions in class became virile and peer assessment was encouraged. Students, even when they did not want to, found themselves involved in discussions on all these issues. Online, they needed to comment not only on the Wiki Frontpage but also on others’ group pages. It was difficult initially to get these going, but soon the process took on a life of its own. Indeed teachers had to intervene on a number of occasions when comments veered off into mainly social issues and using the Nigerian pidgin.

ICT skills improved

The necessity to comment on group pages and occasionally on the Frontpage, to word process and attach documents, to edit materials on own group pages, to find information online and via links to other web pages, ensured that students worked on their ICT skills. It is difficult to claim all students achieved great improvements in this area, since large numbers meant concentrating on group work, but from the logs and submissions online it is evident that most students took advantage to improve on their ICT skills.

Teachers adapting to new roles

For most programmes in FUTA, and this is true of most HE institutions in Nigeria, teacher roles remain the traditional “oracle on the stage” where teachers transmit ‘knowledge’ and students absorb ‘wisdom’; teachers hold the control and authority flows down; students’ voices are mute and they are themselves faceless. Assessments are a test of how much of the teacher’s wisdom students have absorbed and can give back.

In the ICT-supported ethos it is a whole paradigm shift for us as teachers. Students initially looked on starry-eyed at the new taboo-breaking approaches. First, teachers are learning to stand back and cede authority to students to determine the course of the programme. The ICT component made this easy as some of the students had better skills in certain areas than teachers and are indeed brought in to teach teachers: our regular line is “what a teacher can do a student can do better”.

Teachers’ roles have since begun to change from knowledge givers to facilitators of knowledge construction; from directors of learning processes to mediators; from assessors of acquired knowledge to moderators of the learning processes. In our particular context the work load has increased, not in the class but in planning, facilitating, moderating students’ learning activities and giving feedback. Initiating discussions, moderating participation and commenting on group work online; these are particularly demanding of teachers’ efforts. But the outcomes seem to be worth the efforts, as students’ comments suggest.

Reflective comments

Mapping the progress of students’ adaptation to the new learning environment and approach can be done using the Wiki Frontpage comments. Examples of what we regard as reflection on their learning curve can be gleaned from such comments in three phases: (1) Start of Wiki term, (2) mid-term, and (3) end of term. These comments are taken straight from the Frontpage un-edited:

Start-term

• the site is fast but unable to locate the page to put in my group and tittle.
• firm and solid so easy to go through if your smart am getting through perfectly so u just calm down and follow the laid down rules.

Mid-term

• the site is informative and educative........ this is great.....ideas rules the world..
• I was able to log in today and the site has been very interesting. Its interactive nature is wonderful. I've never seen an interactive site like this. Thumbs to the managment crew

End-term

• A very demanding course, interesting and educative, though. This session's quite different. Got virtually all 100L students working real hard on the term paper. Its also an insight into writing reports and projects.
• Quite time-demanding but educative. Got all hands on deck. Kudos 2 the GNS 102 dept. for putting such a course in place. It exposes us to more of information sourcing rather than dubbing and booklifting.
• your efforts are really appreciated towards making this course an interesting one. It has helped in diverse ways; sourcing for information, exchanging ideas, surfing the Internet for vital information and working on time
• Thanks to futa and GNS lecturals for making us realise that we can think and how creative we are, … i mean train us 4 the future

Conclusion

Change processes are tortuous and windy, especially when embarked on by neophytes and in resource-poor environments. But some level of satisfaction comes with change beneficiaries’ approbation. Motivation to continue on the path of technology support also comes from providers’ appreciation for the process. Although great interest has now been generated, a great deal of challenges still exists, such as in the area of ICT infrastructure, lack of learning technologists, e-learning pedagogy and dealing with assessment issues.

The primary outcome of this research work is to demonstrate what contributions technology support has made to our language teaching and learning despite our limitations. This study has done little more than point the way in which we must proceed, but in doing so it has provided an instantiation of those principles associated with creating humanising contexts and experiences to engender motivation, interest, engagement, autonomy and collaboration in language learning, even in technology-poor environments.

References

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Hyland Ken and Hyland Fiona (1992) Go for Gold: Integrating Process and Product in ESP. English for Specific Purposes, Vol. 11, 225 – 242.

LoCastro, V. (2001). Teaching English to large classes. TESOL Quarterly. Vol. 35, 3 493 -496.

McDermott, R. (1993). The acquisition of a child by a learning disability. In S. Chiklin, & J. Lave, Understanding practice: Perspectives on activity and context (pp. 269-305). New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 295

Robinson, P. (1978) ‘Projects’ in Pre-sessional Courses for Overseas Students. (Proceedings of 1977 SELMOUS Conference) ETIC Occasional Paper, London: The British Council.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978) Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

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