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Barbara Morris Learning Support Prize for Aliy Fowler
Since 2002, the University of Kent has awarded an annual Prize to a member
of staff who can claim excellence in a particular area of learning support.
The prize winner receives an award of £1500 pounds and the winning project
is disseminated as an example of good practice to colleagues within the
University.
This year's Learning Support Prize has been awarded to Aliy Fowler for a CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) application, which has been in use on two Spanish modules in SECL for the last few years. Unlike the vast majority of CALL systems that use dated methodology (multiple choice, single-word entry, gap-fill exercises etc.) this application permits whole-sentence input, which is a far more authentic test of language skills, and gives immediate meaningful feedback on all user-errors.
Extensive trials of the system at Kent have shown it to be a highly effective learning tool. Students infinitely prefer it to the traditional paper-based forms of assessment and measurable improvements in their accuracy and thinking times have been shown. Staff are very pleased with the system too because the effectiveness of the automatic feedback mechanism means that annual marking time for grammar exercises has been cut from around 440 hours to just 4 hours!
Aliy intends to use the prize money to develop the system for use with other European languages and to promote its use in local schools.