Research Paper | The Use of Asynchronous Digital Materials to Ensure Interaction in Language Learning

              1.      Introduction

The internet has been the best investment in the globalized world over the last century.  People have a chance to get connected with each only by a click and we have seen how important it is over the last year. Due to the global pandemic situation, online education has been popular for being accessible any time and has attracted students with its schedule-friendly format options. People have started working and studying online either synchronously or asynchronously. Internet makes it possible to access plenty of information and facilitates many tools for creating any kind of material which helps to renovate the way of creating materials (Pardede, 2012) and online learning environments provide flexibility and offer students personalized learning opportunities (Lorenzo & Ittelson, 2005)

Asynchronous learning can be defined as the method learners get the information and review it at different times, not in person or live on video conference for the class but with pre-recorded videos, reading materials, presentations and so on. In an asynchronous learning environment students are able to actively participate in their own learning, giving them the opportunity to interact with their peers, provide peer feedback, and reflect on the status of their personal learning goals and outcomes (Er et al., 2009; Harris et al., 2009; Simonson et al., 2012). Because of the pandemic, making use of asynchronous teaching is an obligation rather than a preference these days. Therefore, both teachers and learners should adapt to this process by keeping the engagement and interaction. Used effectively, asynchronous teaching has great many advantages.

2.      The advantages of the use of asynchronous materials

Despite the misconceptions that asynchronous learning is less functional than synchronized ones, asynchronous learning has great advantages, one of whose is the flexibility of the course. All the documents are shared as a full package of a class all at once and students are expected to study those materials at their own pace. They can always have access to the course without postponing their priorities in their daily lives. For instance, a parent student can take care of their children and create their own schedule for the course. What they should follow are the deadlines of assignments, discussion forums and quizzes.

Asynchronous courses provide the learner autonomy and the sense of independence for learners. On the contrary of a traditional classroom, students manage their own time by creating their own schedule, which helps them increase productivity and allow them to realize their strength and weaknesses. As they have the needed time for deep processing, they can internalize the topics better. As opposed to the synchronous lessons, asynchronous ones allow more time to read and reply to discussions and contributions, moreover, they provide multiple sources to extend and share discussions and offer more time for practice. Asynchronous technologies support learning and allow more time for student reflection, collaboration, and student-to-student interactions (Bonk & Zhang, 2006; Skylar, 2009; Meloni, 2010).

‘Learning interactions involve mentally processing what is being learned. Moore described the need for both content and social interactions in technology-driven instruction. Content interaction includes the participant getting interacted with the content by doing activities such as reading, watching, listening and writing. For example, common content interactions in asynchronous eLearning are video followed by multiple-choice questions to gauge understanding.’ ¹

 Social interactions, on the other hand, are interactions between people. All the interactions such as discussions in forums, commenting on blogs and chatting and the interaction between the lecturer and learners are included in this category.

3.      The disadvantages of the use of asynchronous materials

In addition to the pros, there are some cons of asynchronous learning. While asynchronous learning appeals to some for the freedom it allows in approaching the material, it also has some weaknesses. Compared to the face-to-face or synchronous lessons, they have some limitations. Those who rely on the schedule of the courses to give them certain time and guidance might have difficulty in managing their time and organizing their study plans. Students cannot have immediate feedback by their peers or their lecturer, they have delayed support and sometimes it is unavailable. Especially, extrovert students who enjoy being and learning in the community may find this learning style ineffective and they might be demotivated as they enjoy being in the community and developing further opinions on a topic by hearing other people’s comments and questions.

Another disadvantage is that students might isolate themselves and even might end up on the course by muting their notifications and turning their screens off. On the contrary, it is unlikely to get isolated in a face-to-face environment as students take place in the classroom and there is an ongoing interaction and connection with their friends and the instructor.

Lastly; students might have connection and technical problems as they do not live in the same conditions, thus they might have serious problems in accessing to materials and courses or they might have difficulty in delivering their assignments.

4.      The use of asynchronous materials in literacy skills

In a traditional classroom environment, to check comprehension or to make reading and writing activities more interactive, students have discussions and share their opinions. Interaction can be provided not only in real world but also in virtual world with a bunch of tools. Learners can reflect their ideas through digital tools before and after the tasks.

Forums are great opportunities to create such interactive environments as students can create their own writings and others can read and comment on it. The instructor leads to a main discussion topic and all students reply to it, later, they read others’ replies and respond to them. Thus, the discussion is extended by student engagement.

Blogs also help students have an interactive environment. Each student creates their own blog and post their reflections, opinions and experiences on there. Others can read and respond to those posts; hence they build connections on the internet. Every student shares their blog names in a mutual platform such as Google Classroom so that they can reach out all the blogs to read and comment. Moreover, the instructor can share an article via such platforms as Google Classroom and Edmodo and students are supposed to answer some reflection questions about those articles on their blogs, then read at least two of their friends’ reflections on their blogs and write a comment on them.

Padlet and Linoit are great tools for collaborative learning and student engagement. They allow students to read, record, organize, and share ideas by adding texts, images, and even multimedia to a shared board. They help create digital discussion groups in which students can add their comments, answers as sticky notes and see others’ notes as well. They can also add anonym notes so that each student, even shy ones, has a voice in discussions.

5.      The use of asynchronous materials in listening skill

Listening can be applied easily and interactively on virtual platforms. As it is a receptive skill, it can be practiced and evaluated easily. Videos on Youtube, pre-recorded podcasts are great resources to improve listening skills. Learners can listen to the podcasts and watch the videos asynchronously, whenever they wish, and they have a chance to repeat it as much as they can yet in real life context, they do not have a chance to listen an audio more than twice in the classroom.

There is also another tool which can be used for listening skills that is called Edpuzzle. It is a website that allows instructors to add multiple choice or open-ended questions in the middle of the videos. Therefore, students need to listen to the speech carefully to answer those questions, which enables content interaction in this context. Learners can go back and listen to the part repeatedly to answer those questions. The lecturer can share pre, while and post listening reflection questions on Google classroom or Edmodo and so on and students can respond to those questions in their blogs.

6.      The use of asynchronous materials in speaking skill

Speaking is accepted as the most difficult skill to get by most of the students especially in virtual world, which is totally a misconception. There are great opportunities for learners to be active and interactive asynchronously. Seesaw is an application where lecturers create a classroom group. They can share tasks, discussions, activities and documents through it and students can respond to those activities by writing, drawing or even by recording. They are also allowed to share videos on the feed. Lecturers can share some tasks to create videos or audios and students can share their work on Seesaw. They can also share those videos on Youtube, in both platforms they can have comments on their videos by their friends and other people (if they prefer youtube) Students can also create podcasts and share them on their blogs or in groups. Thus, they every student has equal time to speak and share their ideas and they have the opportunity to re-record and edit their videos, which helps them gain more confidence in speaking.

7.      Conclusion

The use asynchronous materials in the four skills of language which are listening, speaking, reading and writing has been investigated with their advantages and disadvantages in this paper. It has been concluded that it is possible to gain and improve those skills in virtual world with the help of digital tools. Not only because of the pandemic situation but also because of the needs of the globalized world, there will always be needed to have digital literacy skills. Therefore, teachers should be flexible and should adapt to the changes in the world.

 

REFERENCES

Lorenzo, G., & Ittelson, J. (2005) An overview of e-portfolios. EDUCASE Learning Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.case.edu/artsci/cosi/cspl/documents/eportfolio-Educausedocument.pdf

Pardede, P. (2012). Blended Learning for ELT. Journal of English Teaching, v2 n3 p165-178.

Moore, M. (1989). Editorial: Three types of interaction, American Journal of Distance Education, 3:2, 1-7.

Er, E., Özden, M., & Arifoglu, A. (2009). A blended e-learning environment: A model proposition for integration of asynchronous and synchronous e-learning. International Journal Of Learning, 16(2), pp. 449-460.

Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types: Curriculum-based technology integration reframed. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(4), pp. 393-416.  Retrieved from http://learnonline.canberra.edu.au/file.php/5963/TPACK_UC/pdf/harris_mishra_koehler_jrte.pdf

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education. (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Bonk, C., & Zhang, K. (2006). Introducing the R2D2 model: Online learning for the diverse learners of this world. Distance Education, 27(2), pp. 249-264. doi:10.1080/01587910600789670

Skylar, A. (2009). A Comparison of asynchronous online text-based lectures and synchronous interactive web conferencing lectures. Issues In Teacher Education, 18(2), pp. 69-84. Retrieved from http://proxy1.ncu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ858506&site=eds-live

Meloni, J. (2010, January 11). Tools for synchronous and asynchronous classroom discussion [online blog]. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/tools-for-synchronousasynchronous-classroom-discussion/22902

¹ https://elearningindustry.com/right-learning-modalities-asynchronous-and-synchronous-interactions