68 Instructor Profile: After graduating with an undergraduate degree in English from Simon Fraser University, Jennifer Chow enrolled in the university’s Professional Development Program, where she earned her B.C. Ministry of Education certificate to teach in the province’s K-12 system. Beginning as a Grade 1 teacher, Jennifer soon progressed to teaching high school where, in addition to teaching English and Social Studies, she helped newly immigrated students improve their English skills. The experience was so positive that she decided to make English as Another Language (EAL) teaching a full-time job. In 2007 she began her second career as an EAL instructor for adult learners at Vancouver Community College (VCC). Today, Jennifer teaches in the provinciallyfunded Pathways EAL program at VCC’s Broadway Campus. Context: When Jennifer first started teaching at VCC, cassette tapes had just been introduced as a way to record student in-class speaking practice. That meant carrying a bag of cassettes home each evening to assess each student’s progress. There had to be a better way! So, Jennifer – who had no previous experience in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) – searched out and experimented with then-emerging applications that students could use to record speaking assignments, and she could use to provide feedback. The idea carried over to writing assignments. To replace the timeconsuming process of providing written comments, Jennifer experimented with screen casting technology that enabled her to record verbal comments on what a student had written. That way, students could hear her talk about what they did well and how to correct mistakes. The technology enhanced both teaching and learning. In Jennifer’s Own Words When students are learning to write, any mistakes they make are recorded on paper. That makes it easy for an instructor to see the mistakes and point them out to the student. Things are different with speaking. If you are doing self-paced work and don’t have a way to capture speech, it’s gone as soon as it’s spoken. So, students aren’t aware of what they need to work on. For example, students sometimes think they’re fluent because they speak quickly – when it might be difficult to understand what they are saying because they aren’t using any intonation. You need to capture what is said in order to point out areas for improvement. Portable recorders and cassette tapes were a break-through when they appeared. Digital recorders were even better. But both limited the ways in which feedback could be provided. I had no way to insert my comments into a student’s audio file, so the recording and my feedback weren’t linked directly. I really felt the need for something better. Eventually, it arrived – online audio recording software such as Vocaroo, Audio Recorder, Audacity, Voicecoach, and others. When I assigned an in-class exercise or homework, students could use the software to record and upload it to a file for my review. Later, during COVID, we adopted Moodle as a learning platform and Zoom as our conferencing software. Zoom not only enabled me and other instructors to deliver online classes but could be used by learners to record speaking assignments. That enabled us to observe how students were forming words with their mouths and lips. CC-BY-NC-SA 2025 New Language Solutions Avenue Instructor Standards for Technology-Enhanced Language Learning, version 1.2
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