Today we always find that teachers are excited about the rising opportunities for students’ learning by the advent of CALL, however, there are also some problems, worries, and challenges that teachers have to encounter in class. Compared with the impact of traditional class, students who have experienced CALL activities seem more easily to learn autonomously by using the technology resources. Some students may read the screen with an online dictionary window open aligned with text window; some students prefer to check the writing grammar through the available corpus; and some students even build their own corpus of texts that conclude what words can be used in introduction of academic writing, what tense can be more suitable for the critical analysis and, classic collocation of conclusion sentences. Students can do better when they get more access to material across the web site. But teachers also begin to worry about if this open approach ends up teaching students to plagiarize through quoting, paraphrasing, and claiming creative combination of what others used. I find this article written by Dr. Christine Sabieh:
After reading,
guys, do you think that if the plagiarism is a common problem facing ELT? Is
there any good way to ensure plagiarism awareness? How can teacher keep balance
of teaching learning strategies by technology and keeping the “close imitation”
out of students’ mind and work?
I think that English language teacher should teach the basic steps needed to create an APA research paper to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is described as the “attempt to pass off the ideas or the language of someone else as your own but if you cite the information giving the original author the credit, it’s not considered plagiarism.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Miss Luna, when it comes to research, "close imitation" and making your paper about the research and not your opinion can be difficult. However, as the article outlines, with teacher guidance and defined objectives, students can be successful in writing using technology as a tool and not a short cut. Moreover, learning APA format aids in the writing process ~ to prevent plagiarism. May I add, APA can be challenging in itself due to the variations. Often times students do not realize they are plagiarizing due to their lack of understanding of the APA format ~ thus, the "close imitation" of the research. Excellent post. Cat
ReplyDeleteI just wonder if APA format is the only accepted standard in the academic field, I have no idea about others. But the variations may need some modification to make it simpler and more accessible .
DeleteThis is a good question Min. Different fields do have different formats for research notation required and they are usually all rather complex like APA. Here's a nice guide of some major citation styles and the fields associated with them: http://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/styleguide
DeleteIn recent years, APA has changed a lot to account for the wide range in electronic resources (e.g. they now include reference formats for podcasts!) Sometimes the proliferation of technology really does serve to make things more complex.
I think it is important to address plagiarism, whether or not you require students to adhere to APA format. Not all of your ESL students will necessarily have had experience with writing papers. I think it is a good idea to be very clear about expectations, and not assume that students inherently think what we call plagiarism is wrong. I had a teacher friend who assigned a project in an American culture class in Ukraine where the students had to write a short paper about an American band. Most of her students came to class with pages printed directly from websites, without even attempting to present the work as their own. I think this is a good example of why it is important not to assume that something unsaid is understood, and be very explicit in your instructions about what is acceptable in terms of academic honesty.
ReplyDeleteVery well put. It is indeed that teacher cannot assume all of students know the seriousness of plagiarism. I also agree with you that the explicit instruction is very necessary to help students know the importance of academic honesty.
DeletePlagarism is am important issue to address, especially if you have students from other cultures and backgrounds. It is essential for teachers to set the rules fo rthe classroom so everyone knows what to expect.
ReplyDeleteI would like to reiterate what others said about the APA format sometimes being difficult to follow. About a year ago I was given a book by UTSA that shows the APA format. It looked like it had a lot of fine examples. One day while I was helping my wife do APA format for her paper we encountered a lot of difficulty trying to cite an internet site. The book seemed to not have any clear examples of the type we were trying to cite.
ReplyDeleteI liked the article's point that students should be given very clear guidelines about their paper. If you just tell them to write 3 pages on a broad topic, they tend to copy and paste as much as possible from websites. Sometimes making a shorter writing assignment helps them to write their own ideas.
I think it is important for the teacher to mention the rules especially for students from different backgrounds because cultures are usually not the same !!
ReplyDeleteI think that plagiarism is something very hard to deal with. For most of my undergraduate papers I did MLA format, its different than APA. I really wish that there was a good and free website out there where students could copy and paste the information from the source so to make the bibliography automatically. I know this website http://www.easybib.com/ does it free for MLA, but not for APA. Why not make both free? That way the students don’t have to break their heads or waste valuable time.
ReplyDeleteThere is. It's called Zotero and it was put together by researchers who wanted to make citation easier and cheaper for students and researchers. You can download it from here: http://www.zotero.org/.
DeleteHowever, as with anything that is free, it sometimes is buggy or incompatible with browsers or with updates in style guides. It does include APA.
That looks very complete. I will definitely try this. Thank you so much Dr Sauro.
DeleteI reckon that Plagiarism is relevant hard for students to avoid, especially for those students from other countries who are not familiar with APA or MLA. I find some ELL students didn`t mean to plagiarize on purpose, they just write down what they thought unconsciously without noticing that they have already plagiarized. Therefore, I think the reason why they plagiarize is that they didn`t know the American rules or norms in writing. I agree with that using APA to prevent students from plagiarizing. Students are able to copy anything from any websites in different regions and paste as their own views if there is no rule to regulate the writing. Students can quote and paraphrase giving the credit for the authors if they realize they are plagiarizing.
ReplyDeleteI think if the students need to use some information from internet, the teacher should teaching student how to use APA citation about student' pepers. Some ELLs come from different county,maybe these students didn't know what is APA style. At that time, the teacher need to prepare some books or website showing students how to use these tools to help themselves.
ReplyDeleteThere are many reasons behind plagiarism such as lack of creativity, lack of time, cheating or even cultural and generational changes reasons. Some teachers might think that using technology in classroom is just like giving answers to students on a silver plate because students can easily copy or bought their assignments and essays off the internet!! However, teachers have to teach students how to quote and cite sources and articles properly.
ReplyDeleteI found this site that helps students to check what has been plagiarized so they can check it before submitting their paper to the teacher! www.turnitin.com
As an undergraduate student I had to enroll in a class call "College Success". We spent a lot of time going over plagarsim, what is is, how to avoid it, etc. I thought the class was a waste of time, but looking back, the information I learnedhas saved me a lot of headaches and has made me a better writer. I personally think if the teacher expects research papers, they must give a workshop, or a review what plagarism is, MLA vs. APA, etc. Often times FL students might have no clue what they believe they are turning in as their own work, is actually someone elses.
ReplyDeleteI think it's almost impossible for students to not be influenced by something, especially if the way they learn is the way that you described; with many windows open at a time with all kinds of different information. I'm not sure how big a problem plagiarism can be for ELT but I'm sure that it comes up. I have never had it happen to me in any of the classes that I have taught but I think that it would be very easy to figure it out. I'm sure that just by using google we can see of the material is a copy, also I think that every person has their own writing style. If a student suddenly can use near perfect English, there is a good chance that they didn't do the work themselves. I would like to think that maybe part of our job as educators is to show students how to use the technology for their own good and not just to cut corners.
ReplyDelete