Avoiding the Target Language with the Help of Google: Managing Language Choices in Gathering Information for EFL Project Work NIGEL MUSK Link€ o ping University Link€ o ping, Sweden The integration of translation tools into the Google search engine has led to a huge increase in the visibility and accessibility of such tools, with potentially far-reaching implications for the English language classroom Although these translation tools are the focus of this study, using them is in fact only one way in which English language learners can exercise their language preferences, especially when working more autonomously By acting upon these preferences and opting to read in their first language, learners effectively adopt an avoidance strategy—that of avoiding the target language This qualitative study highlights several ways in which pupils can and exercise their language choices in their computer-assisted project work using (Swedish) Google More specifically, after mapping out the trajectories of pupils’ Internet searches and their gathering of resources, conversation analysis is used to zoom in on key moves that are jointly negotiated at the interface with Google, where different language options are made available and even flagged By making incremental choices that avoid English (or favour Swedish), the visibility of English can diminish radically, if not altogether The negative implications of avoidance are discussed as well as the practicalities of solutions using Google itself doi: 10.1002/tesq.102 T his article has arisen as part of a larger study investigating the information literacy of pupils when gathering information for project work in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom It emerged early on in different data sets from a variety of school settings in Sweden that there was great variation in pupils’ language choices at various stages of the project work, as regards not only their talk, but also their demonstrated language preferences in their searches and reading practices Among other things, this observation has precipitated a closer examination of language choices in search activities at 110 TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 48, No 1, March 2014 © 2013 TESOL International Association the interface with the Swedish version of the Internet search engine Google (www.google.se),1 and more specifically an examination of how some pupils orient towards the emergent features of Swedish Google which directly affect the language of their information sources so that they (can) avoid English This is not to say that this is a path that all or even most pupils have opted for in the data, but making use of the language options and translation tools afforded by Google warrants further attention because of the potential implications for the foreign language classroom At this point it should be mentioned that because the equivalent language options are available for other languages too (with the computer’s default option normally being the country’s official language/languages), the implications of this study are of relevance in almost all settings apart from English-dominant countries (where Google’s national default search engine does not offer many of the language features) One implication is that teachers may erroneously take it for granted that in the foreign language classroom, pupils will be using the target language for speaking, reading, and writing, rather than developing avoidance strategies In summary, this article sets out to examine the language choices pupils can and make when using Google, and particularly how avoidance of the target language is aided by (Swedish) Google and how translation options are jointly negotiated over time The implications of actual processes in the real world as opposed to those idealised in project-based learning are then discussed in the final section together with suggestions for dealing with avoidance OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH Avoidance In the second language acquisition (SLA) literature, avoidance is typically recast as a (negative) communication strategy Traditionally, communication strategies have been taken to mean “L2 [second language] problem-management efforts, dealing with language production problems that occur at the planning stage” (D€ ornyei & Scott, 1997, p 177) However, there are a number of reasons why this sizable body of research is marginal to the interests of this study First, as is evident from the above quotation, the focus has been on language production, primarily oral production Second, the numerous taxonomies not always include the term avoidance (cf D€ ornyei & Scott, With few exceptions Google.se proved to be the sole search engine used in all our Swedish data sets AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 111 1997, pp 196–197), and even Tarone’s (1978) early but frequently cited study does not group language switching as an avoidance strategy, but rather as a subcategory of conscious language transfer.2 Even though language switching is included in most taxonomies (e.g., Bialystok, 1983; D€ ornyei & Scott, 1995; Færch & Kasper, 1983; Poulisse, Bongaerts, & Kellerman, 1990; Willems, 1987),3 cited examples of language switching invariably involve one-word switches using the speaker’s first language Third, few empirical studies on language strategies take seriously the fact that communication strategies in general and avoidance in particular arise as situated activities in social interaction (but see Markee, 2011) Instead, this study focuses on reading (not a language production skill), which through a series of jointly negotiated language switches can be transformed into an activity performed solely in the learners’ first language Apart from the term avoidance and the involvement of a language switch, the problem-orientedness of communication strategies (D€ ornyei & Scott, 1997, p 182; Færch & Kasper, 1983, p 31; or “problematicity,” Bialystok, 1990, p 3) is relevant to this study That is, communication problems, especially those arising from deficient language resources, trigger learners to make use of strategies in order to solve them Thus, problems to with reading proficiency may also result in avoidance strategies Furthermore, drawing on a conversation analytic framework, I concur with Markee’s (2011) respecification of avoidance as “a locally contingent practice that is collaboratively co-constructed by participants in real time as a topic of interaction during the course of naturally occurring institutional talk” (p 603) Project Work and Project-Based Learning Project-based learning (PBL) is generally attributed in some way or another to Dewey’s problem-based approach to learning (Beckett, 2006, pp 3, 5) It was adopted in the field of English language teaching from the mid-1970s, not least because it “espoused principles of learner-centred teaching, learner autonomy, the negotiated syllabus, collaborative learning, and learning through tasks” (Hedge, 1993, p 276) Although project-based approaches may differ even within a foreign language learning context, many accounts of project-based learning enumerate the following features as central: a sequence of activities over time, including “the gathering, processing, and report2 Furthermore, Tarone (1978) classes transfer as a positive strategy Note, however, that language switching is often given other names, such as code-switching and transfer 112 TESOL QUARTERLY ing of information from target language resources” (Stoller, 2006, p 24); the use of authentic materials; the integration of language skills; learner collaboration; learner autonomy; and a process and product orientation (e.g., Debski, 2000a; Eyring, 1997; Hedge, 1993; Stoller, 2006) Although much of the literature seems to examine PBL as an alternative approach to language learning, it is most likely used as a complementary approach in the guise of occasional project work (van Lier, 2006, p xii), as in the case of this study Some of the studies of project-based learning focus on what has been given the acronym PrOCALL (project-oriented computer-assisted language learning); that is, PBL which makes use of computer technology, including the Internet (e.g., Debski, 2000b; Jeon-Ellis, Debski, & Wigglesworth, 2005) One major difference in PrOCALL is what van Lier (2002) terms triadic interaction: When two students are working together at the computer they are mainly working side by side (rather than face to face) with a joint focus on the computer screen, which serves as “a third interlocutor of sorts” (p 147) The few PrOCALL studies that focus on specific language skills focus mainly on spoken skills (Ewing, 2000; Jeon-Ellis et al., 2005) or written skills (e.g., Kessler, Bikowski, & Boggs, 2012) However, the skill most under scrutiny here is reading, and although all aspects of the above list of features central to PBL are of relevance to this study, the focus is mainly on what occurs in the searching and gathering of the materials stage of project work Mostly it is assumed that the reading will be done through the target language, partly through specific reference to authenticity, but rarely is it made as explicit as in the aforementioned quotation by Stoller (2006) At the same time, these features can be seen as idealised ones, either by framing them as recommendations (e.g., Stoller, 2006) or occasionally even referring to them as an idealisation (Debski, 2000a, p 311) This study adopts a shift in focus from the intended aims and underpinnings of PBL to what actually happens in the classroom; in other words, focusing on what Breen (1989, p 188) terms the task-in-process rather than the task-as-workplan (see also Seedhouse, 2004, p 93) Indeed, Seedhouse (2004, p 251) posits that the major contribution which a conversation analytic methodology can make in the field of second language acquisition research is to demonstrate the benefits of this shift in focus Conversation Analysis Over the past decade or so, there has been an upsurge in the number of interactional studies of the second language classroom, examining both teacher–pupil interactions as well as interactions between AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 113 peers Much of this work has been linked to the processes of second language learning, sometimes termed conversation analysis for second language acquisition (CA for SLA; e.g., Hellermann, 2008; Markee, 2008; Markee & Kasper, 2004; Mori & Hasegawa, 2009; Pekarek Doehler, 2010; Seedhouse, 2004) However, there is still relatively little “strong socio-interactionist” research (Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2004, p 502) which investigates empirically the use of computers in the foreign language classroom, and even less involving computer-assisted _ 2009; Musk, 2011) One cornerstone of project work (but see Cekait e, a strong socio-interactionist approach is that social action “involves the learner as a co-constructor of joint activities, where linguistic and other competencies are put to work within a constant process of adjustment vis-a-vis other social agents and in the emerging context” (Mondada & Pekarek Doehler, 2004, p 502) To understand the co-construction of activities, it behooves the analyst to adopt a participant (emic) perspective, by drawing on how participants themselves signal their understanding of each other’s actions This perspective, in turn, requires attention to the unfolding details of interactional trajectories aided by transcriptions (see the Data and Method section) As to the interactional data, “naturally occurring” data is preferred in CA studies (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p 12); that is, recordings of social interactions which would have taken place anyway without the researcher’s intervention Data and Method The data for this study comprise project work collected from the English class of one Swedish secondary school Four pairs of pupils, six girls and two boys, in year (about 16 years old) were video-recorded while they were carrying out Internet searches for information sources To facilitate the recording process and to enable us to record one pair at a time, the pairs took it in turn to carry out their searches in a provisional computer room, with a table, chairs, and a laptop There was, however, no printer available in this room Therefore, rather than being able to print out relevant sources directly, students were told to copy and paste their sources into a Microsoft Word document and save this for later use These provisional circumstances in themselves have no doubt impinged on students’ practices of gathering sources, but this aspect has probably not significantly affected what constitutes the main focus of this study, namely the language choices they made as regards what sources to save and the language in which to save them The video recordings were carried out by two student teachers at Link€ oping University, Linn Olsen and Sara G€ othman, in the autumn 114 TESOL QUARTERLY Fakta om Jack the Ripper—Jack Uppskäraren Facts about Jack the Ripper—Jack Uppskäraren en seriemördare som skakade England i slutet av 1880-talet Sök fakta om: • morden • polisfưrhưren • tidningsartiklar • teorier om vem han var • något annat ni själva finner intressant a serial killer who shook England at the end of the 1880’s Search for facts about: • the murders • the police interrogations • news articles • theories about who he was • anything else you find interesting FIGURE Task instructions in the Swedish original and in translation of 2010 Two video cameras were used for this: one from behind focusing on the screen, and one from the side capturing what the pupils were doing These recordings were then synchronised in the computer software ELAN (Max Planck Institute, n.d.) to facilitate a fine-grained moment-by-moment analysis of what was going on simultaneously The project work was about the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper The instructions were in Swedish, and they can be found in Figure with a translation in English.4 Although this study focuses only on the search and information-gathering stage of the project, pupils then went on to write a manuscript as a basis for an oral presentation in front of the class approximately weeks after the start of the project Only two of the pairs agreed to have their oral presentations recorded, but otherwise all eight pupils signed forms of consent fulfilling the main ethical principles laid down by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsr adet, 2002).5 Although conversation analysis is the main method of analysis when it comes to examining the details of the pupils’ search and information-gathering trajectories, it also became necessary to create more of a bird’s-eye view of the entire process to uncover global patterns of language choices and possible language avoidance In order to visualise these patterns more clearly, I have adapted (and simplified) a flow diagram originally constructed by Sara G€ othman (2012) A brief example and a key to this flow diagram is found in Figure The four columns correspond to different steps in the search and informationgathering process The first column, “Google search word,” indicates the search word(s) typed into the Google search box The second column, “Google suggestions,” relates to the interactive features of the After the first two pairs were recorded (in focus here), the student teachers decided to translate the instructions into English for the second two pairs This probably had an effect on some of the search strings, particularly for the second two pairs The first two pairs searched almost exclusively for “jack the ripper” (with the addition of tidningsartiklar [newpaper articles] in one single case) These include information to participants, their consent to take part, confidentiality in respect of their identities, and restricting the use of the data to research purposes only AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 115 Google search word Google suggesƟons jack the ripper Selected website Saved to Word A onbladet A onbladet Metropolitan Police Service översä ? ‘translate?’ Metropolitan Police Service Metropolitan Police Service KEY “jack the ripper” översä ? ‘translate?’ Metropolitan Police Service Search word (“…”) or website in English “jack uppskäraren” ‘Jack the Ripper’ Search word (“…”) or website in Swedish with an English transla on in single quota on marks in grey Transla on op on in Google or Word (from English to Swedish) Metropolitan Police Service English website translated into Swedish Erasure of saved text in Word FIGURE Example and key of the flow diagrams of the search and source-gathering stage of the process search engine, whereby Google offers options such as translation facilities or alternative search words (based on the ones already used) The third column, “Selected website,” shows which websites are actively selected from Google’s list of search hits The last column, “Saved to Word,” shows when text (often including images) is copied and pasted into a Word document and saved The arrows indicate the sequential flow of the process over time, as the numbered lines in the figure The colour coding indicates whether Swedish or English was used and whether translation options were adopted After identifying significant language choices from the flow diagrams, transcriptions were made of these interactional sequences according to general CA practice (cf Jefferson, 2004) However, apart from transcribing talk (indicated by the talking head icon ) and adding important features of gesture and gaze in double parentheses, the transcriptions used here are augmented by additional lines to show the use of the computer (using the computer icon ) The icons come at the beginning of each line At significant moments, screen shots are also integrated into the transcription The benefit of these additional features is to portray the multimodal nature of the interaction more accurately On the downside, these multiple lines frequently represent actions that are taking place simultaneously, which is difficult to show accurately in a traditional CA transcription To compensate, the lines 116 TESOL QUARTERLY are numbered according to speech and timed pauses, so that talk (or pauses) and simultaneous actions are given the same line numbers A full key to transcription conventions can be found in the Appendix ANALYSIS The analysis comprises three main sections: (1) the language-related options available in Google, (2) the search trajectories of the two pairs who activated the translation options, and (3) a detailed examination of their use of translation tools Google’s Language-Related Options The data reveal six main ways in which users can make language choices, only two of which use machine translation.6 The following list compares and explains the choices made by all four respective pairs Language of typed-in search word(s) The very first action of typing a search string into Google may involve a language choice The language of the search string then largely dictates the language of the hits Proper nouns, such as “Jack the Ripper,” on the other hand, usually generate a mixture of English and Swedish hits Table compares the language choices of the four pairs Even at this stage it is evident that the first two pairs (in focus here) avoided using English, which had a direct effect on the language of the hits Proper nouns yielded hits in either English or Swedish, but Swedish words automatically limited hits to Swedish-language sources Limit the search to Swedish webpages There is an option in Google designed to limit the searches to either “Pages written in Swedish” or “Pages from Sweden.” These are located in the left-hand column as illustrated in Figure (numbered and 2, respectively) The TABLE Language of Typed-In Search Words English Swedish Proper noun Maria and Johanna Nadja and Ronja Elin and Deborah Charlie and Max — 1 — 2 There is another option in Google, Google Translate (constantly available via a link at the top of Google’s web page), but in this data set it was neither noticed nor used AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 117 FIGURE Swedish Google’s list of search hits for “jack the ripper.” effect of selecting this option is to limit the language to Swedish only (even in the case of “Pages from Sweden,” the vast majority of these are in Swedish) Neither of these options were used, but a search tip that appeared prominently at the top of the list of hits, saying S€ o k endast efter svenska resultat [Search only for Swedish results] was noticed on two occasions: once by Nadja and Ronja (cf line in Figure 7) and once by Charlie and Max This is illustrated by Figure 4.7 Nevertheless, the appearance of this tip did not lead to any uptake Selecting English and/or Swedish hits The third option, selecting which Google hits to follow up on, was relevant to all four pairs, insofar as each selection also involved choosing a language even if language 118 This is evident from their talk and the movement of the cursor, respectively TESOL QUARTERLY FIGURE Swedish Google’s option of limiting search hits to Swedish ones TABLE Selecting English and/or Swedish Hits English Swedish Translated Maria and Johanna Nadja and Ronja Elin and Deborah Charlie and Max (1) 4 (2) 13 11 — 16 — was not always the main selection criterion The language selections are collated in Table 2, where I have also added which selected hits were translated into Swedish (to be dealt with in greater detail later) Besides the first two pairs selecting and entering far fewer webpages from Google’s list of hits, what is notable here is that the only webpages they selected in English were then translated into Swedish, which is why their selection of English webpages is in parentheses in Table Google’s suggestions for alternative search words This is when Google suggests alternative search words/strings, which can be found at the bottom of each page of hits under the heading S€ o kningar relaterade till [Searches related to] [+ original search string] (e.g., Searches related to jack the ripper).8 These suggestions not necessarily involve a new language choice However, some of the alternatives may be in Swedish, such as S€ o kningar relaterade till seriem€ ordare [serial killers], as illustrated by number in Figure Consequently, clicking on a search string including Swedish automatically limits search hits to Swedish-language websites As Table shows, all of Google’s suggested search strings adopted by the four pairs were in fact Swedish ones, which immediately There is another way in which Google offers search terms: when the user is typing in a search string, alternatives often appear in a list However, the only uptake of this feature is to select the completed search string (e.g., after typing jack the, Google suggests jack the ripper, at which point Nadja regularly selected the full search string offered) AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 119 FIGURE Swedish Google’s Translate English Hits option TABLE Uptake of Google’s Translate English Hits Option Translate hits Maria and Johanna Nadja and Ronja Elin and Deborah Charlie and Max — — — Search Trajectories Now that we have examined the main language options afforded by Google, let us focus on the search trajectories of the two pairs who actively made use of Google’s translation options Even though their trajectories were not identical, they shared many features These trajectories are illustrated by the flow diagrams in Figures and Even a cursory examination of the colour coding in both figures reveals that English (indicated by the black/red boxes) is abandoned as a reading medium as soon as they select their first website in English (the “Metropolitan Police Service” in both cases).10 Apart from these two pairs making extensive use of the translation options, what also becomes immediately apparent from the flow diagrams is the comparatively large proportion of machine-translated websites (indicated by black/red-rimmed grey/yellow boxes) that they deemed to be useful sources, insofar as they were copied and pasted into Word and then saved Indeed, in Maria and Johanna’s case (Figure 6) only one website originally in Swedish was saved as opposed to the two translated into Swedish For Nadja and Ronja, two were saved in the 10 The only exception (Figure 7, line 8) is commented on later AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 121 Google search word Google suggesƟons Selected website Saved to Word A onbladet A onbladet “jack the ripper” Metropolitan Police Service översä ? ‘translate?’ Metropolitan Police Service jack uppskäraren ‘Jack the Ripper’ Jannen Blogg jack the rippers offer ‘vic ms’ Expressen “jack the rippers dningsar klar” ‘news ar cles’ Metropolitan Police Service DastMagazine översa a resultat ‘translated hits’ London Times London Times 10 August London Times 11 September London Times 10 August FIGURE An overview of Maria and Johanna’s search trajectory original Swedish version and two were translated into Swedish In neither case was anything saved in English This contrasts starkly with the other two video-recorded pairs, who selected English and Swedish websites, did not machine translate anything, and saved text in both English and Swedish (according to the language of the original website).11 Zooming In on Significant Choices Let us now turn our attention to how these pairs’ language choices were negotiated and managed at strategic points in the overall trajectories This focus involves going beyond the broad brush strokes of the 11 122 Elin and Deborah saved text from three English sources and one Swedish source (which they used twice) Charlie and Max saved text from four English sources but only one Swedish source, and part of the Swedish text was even erased when they found the equivalent information in English TESOL QUARTERLY Google search word Google suggesƟons Selected website Saved to Word “na onalencyklopedin” Na onalencyklopedin “jack the ripper” Na onalencyklopedin Jack the Ripper “jack the ripper” Metropolitan Police Service översä ? ‘translate?’ Metropolitan Police Service “jack the ripper” jack uppskäraren ‘Jack the Ripper’ seriemördare ‘serial killers’ “jack the ripper” A onbladet Här är Jack the Ripper ‘Here is Jack the Ripper’ A onbladet Här är Jack the Ripper ‘Here is Jack the Ripper’ Sök endast e er svenska resultat ‘search only for Swedish hits’ översä ? ‘translate?’ The Case of Jack the Ripper Casebook: Jack the Ripper översä ? ‘translate?’ Casebook: Jack the Ripper Casebook: Jack the Ripper 10 översä ? ‘translate?’ Metropolitan Police Service Metropolitan Police Service Metropolitan Police Service 11 FIGURE An overview of Nadja and Ronja’s search trajectory flow diagrams, but using them to identify possible turning points that impacted the whole activity In order to fine-tune the analysis, multimodal transcripts are used to track the sequential development of the triadic interactions (van Lier, 2002, p 147) Comparisons are made between pairs and options in each case Translate this page The first and major turning point is where both pairs adopted a translation option for the first time This move was demonstrably accountable (Garfinkel, 1967, p 1), in that participants verbalised their actions to negotiate their preferences AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 123 In the case of Johanna and Maria (Excerpt 1), after establishing which point to focus on from the instructions (line 4), they go on to select a suitable website from the list of Google hits Maria—who is in control of the mouse and keyboard—first rejects the Wikipedia entries (line 6), and then moves the cursor down the page to the entry for Metropolitan Police Service–History–Jack the Ripper, at which point both Maria and Johanna say “there” almost simultaneously (lines 8–9) Maria then selects this website, and when it appears they briefly look at it for just under seconds before Johanna suggests in line 12 that they use Google Translate Clearly this short time span is not enough time to read in any detail what is found on the page, though enough time to decide that it is worth reading in translation The way in which Johanna delivers her question with a chuckling voice in the word “translate” together with the hedging discourse particle typ [like] suggests that this is a potentially sanctionable move At the same time, the linguistic format of Johanna’s question, “can’t we use… ?” indicates a preferred affirmative response from Maria Indeed, Maria tries to oblige by looking for the option, which is evidenced by her question to Johanna as to whether she can find the option here (line 14) Johanna’s instruction about how to find the translation hyperlink as well as the way it is formulated, “it usually always says” (line 17), reveals that this is a function that Johanna is already familiar with Conversely, it emerges here that Maria is unacquainted with this function insofar as she indirectly requests Johanna’s help to access it Johanna’s verbal instructions are accompanied by her pointing to the arrow in the toolbar to return to the previous page When the Google search page € reappears, Johanna then points to the hyperlink Overs€ a tt den h€ a r sidan [Translate this page] for the entry they previously selected and Maria clicks on it (lines 19–20) When the machine-translated version appears (line 20), Johanna and Maria look at the screen and read in silence for about 16 seconds with one small scrolling movement that maximises the amount of running text visible on the screen, before Johanna makes a positive verbal assessment about the usefulness of this website (line 21) This action is to be contrasted with less than seconds spent looking at the English version of the same website, prior to Johanna initiating a whole series of moves to switch to Swedish Hence, Google facilitates the avoidance of English or the preference for Swedish, opposite sides of the same coin At the same time, Maria learns how to activate one of the Google translate options Excerpt Can’t we take like Google Translate? (Maria and Johanna 1, 03:48-04:33) Participants: Johanna (J) and Maria (M) 124 TESOL QUARTERLY There was a similar, but not identical, course of action in Nadja and Ronja’s search trajectory when they first entered a website in English However, because neither of the girls knew of the Translate this page AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 125 option in Google at this stage, they ended up using the translation function in Word instead (see line of Figure 7) A little later (line of Figure 7) they discovered how to use the Translate this page function in Google Their discovery is shown in Excerpt 2, where they are explicitly searching for something else that they find interesting (according to the instructions) In line Nadja has gone to the second page of hits for the search term jack the ripper, and using the cursor she indicates that she has found an entry worth looking at by first pausing and then moving it across the entry rather than down the page Her inbreath also signals that she is about to speak before she moves the cursor across to click on the link to Translate this page Although her turn is delivered quickly, it includes hedging (typ [like] plus the repetition of “translate”); nevertheless, after previously translating in Word there is no further need to negotiate translating this page Indeed, Nadja does not wait for a response from Ronja before clicking on the translation hyperlink Almost a minute is now spent checking the contents of this particular page and assessing whether there is anything new (lines 3–12) Nadja’s assessment that the contents are similar to what they have read before comes in relation to different parts of the text in lines 4, 7, 8, 10, and 12, with minimal verbal or bodily response from Ronja (apart from a response in line to a more general assessment), despite Nadja’s repetitions including the particle visst (with a meaning somewhere between “certainly” and “surely”), which normally calls for an affirmative response However, what Nadja is increasingly fishing for has more to with where they have read similar information previously, as her moves in lines 12–13 demonstrate when she leaves this website and returns to the Google search list Nadja then enters the third entry, Casebook: Jack the Ripper, which is in fact a new website In her haste, she fails to click on Translate this page first, at which she expresses her irritation at the page [ugh] with emphasis, increased appearing in English in line 16 (A:: volume, and rising intonation) While Nadja swiftly repairs her “mistake” without reading the English version, she comments quietly on the action that she is performing (lines 16–18) When the Swedish version appears, she then proceeds to find similarities with this website and the one they just viewed (line 20) Once Nadja (the dominant party in this excerpt) has chanced upon how to translate the English webpages easily into Swedish, and thereby avoid having to read English, the pair devote quite some time to reading and assessing the usefulness of the websites they select This assessment is an important part of the task at hand, because they need to save useful sources, but the language for this part of the task has now become 100% Swedish In fact, the Translate this page function now becomes the default action for the rest of their searches, so much so 126 TESOL QUARTERLY that it is used to help replace the original machine-translated text in Word Translator (which undid the formatting of tables, paragraphing, etc.; see lines 10–11 of Figure 7) Excerpt Translate the page straightaway first (Nadja and Ronja 2, 01:01-03:06) Participants: Nadja (N) and Ronja (R) AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 127 Translate list of hits Whereas Nadja and Ronja turn Google’s Translate this page function into their default action for entering websites in English, Maria and Johanna stumble upon a new translation function, which, as it turns out, more effectively avoids English altogether Even entering an original English website by accident is no longer possible (see line 16 of Excerpt 2) As a result of clicking on See translated English results for jack the ripper newspaper articles, as Maria and Johanna do, any hits they subsequently select are automatically translated into Swedish without having to click on Translate this page Let us now examine some features of Excerpt in greater detail Maria and Johanna are looking for another news article about Jack the Ripper, but after selecting Dast Magazine and deeming this to not be worth saving (see line of Figure 6), they fail to find anything else of interest in the first page of Google hits However, when they scroll down to the bottom, Johanna exclaims “There!” and points to the option of translating the English results No further negotiation is needed; Maria follows Johanna’s suggestion, clicks on the hyperlink (after checking with Maria), and the translated list of hits appears (line 8) Johanna’s initial hesitation apparently about limiting the search to English sources in line is aborted when she sees the translated entry for London Times, a potential source of news articles, which she proceeds to both say aloud and point at Once again, Maria follows Johanna’s suggestion and enters the site, which has automatically been translated This proves to be a useful source, and they select one of the news articles via this webpage and save it In the process, they spend quite some time reading the machine-translated texts and engaging with the contents in their talk Excerpt See translated English results (Maria and Johanna 2/2 Canon, 00:00-00:21) Participants: Johanna (J) and Maria (M) 128 TESOL QUARTERLY DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS A close examination of the video-recorded data reveals that all four pairs carrying out the same task made language choices at the interface with the Google search engine These choices emerged as soon as pupils entered their first search word as well as when they selected which website to enter from a list of search hits Google also offered alternative search terms on the basis of those already typed in These are three ways in which all the pairs exercised their language choices However, whereas two pairs treated their sources fairly similarly irrespective of whether they happened to be in English or Swedish (i.e., they read the websites and then saved relevant chunks of text in the original language), the other two pairs made use of the translation options embedded in Swedish Google The uptake of the translation options has been construed here as an avoidance strategy vis-a-vis English, in that the pupils used this option to avoid reading English Being faced with densely packed text in English for the first time, they quickly indicated that there was a problem (a problem orientation), for example, by commenting on the language and/or the need to translate it into Swedish Their problem orientaAVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 129 tion contrasted with the other two pairs, who did not use the translation options available through Google Instead the latter pairs’ equal engagement with websites in English and Swedish seems indicative of greater confidence and reading proficiency in English Moreover, whereas the former pairs displayed a reluctance to read in English, it is noteworthy that the machine-translated Swedish was never treated as problematic; instead the pupils spent a considerable amount of time reading the translations In terms of carrying out the task (finding relevant sources), the translation functions could also be seen as an affordance, insofar as they allowed pupils to exercise a language preference Yet although avoidance and affordance could be seen as opposite sides of the same coin, the effect of using the translation options was that pupils were able to avoid English On close examination of the search trajectories, it emerges that the translation options were regularly verbalised and jointly negotiated, frequently accompanied by either pointing physically at the screen or using the cursor to aid the accomplishment of the action In fact, this also turned out to be a learning opportunity for three of the four pairs in that they discovered how to use the translation functions for the first time in this session Furthermore, once the first translation option was negotiated, opting for Swedish was not renegotiated, that is, the translated websites became the default option and the students did not return to English (except by accident) Indeed, language choices in favour of Swedish activate further prominently placed choices in Google, which can incrementally result in a total switch to Swedish In fact, this is precisely what happened in the case of Maria and Johanna; by selecting the translate [the list of hits] option, English disappeared completely Neither was switching the search back to English instantly evident, because a ll verktygen [reset it could only be achieved by clicking on Aterst€ tools] (or starting a completely new search) It has not been my intention to criticise the two pairs using translation tools for not following the instructions and for not being committed to carrying out the task Indeed, there is nothing in the instructions about using the target language Moreover, judging this and other data sets, pupils tended to be product oriented; they drew on their previous experience to get the job done quickly and efficiently Naturally, this included their experience of using search engines such as Google as well as their familiarity with the translation tools However, one characteristic of project-based learning is that it should have both a product and process orientation How learners achieve their results should also be subject to evaluation (Stoller, 2006, p 24) Part of this evaluation must also be in relation to another envisaged benefit of PBL, reading and collating authentic materials in the target language 130 TESOL QUARTERLY The importance of target language input hardly needs justifying in this context, but what needs highlighting is that Google affords readily accessible opportunities for learners to exercise their language preferences in order to “get the job done.” It is therefore the process that needs to be discussed with learners, with a view to engaging with rather than avoiding the target language Here one pursuable direction is to return to and broaden the strategies framework in which avoidance was situated at the outset of this study to include language learning strategies After a lull in the 1990s there has been renewed interest in the field of language learning strategies (Chamot, 2005, p 12; cf Oxford, 2003).12 Oxford (2010, p 176) refers to strategy assistance as an umbrella term for appropriate help to the learner to improve self-regulated L2 learning strategies Explicit integrated strategy assistance could include the following steps proposed by Chamot (cited in Oxford, 2010, p 180) to raise learners’ (and teachers’) awareness of their own learning: • encouraging self-reflection [by] questioning students regarding learning • modelling learning strategies • identifying a given student’s strategies and encouraging other students to try it out The latter is with the proviso that not every strategy is suited to every student There are more elaborated models of direct strategy instruction (see Oxford, 2010, pp 184–189), all of which involve an evaluation of the strategies they have been encouraged to try Therefore, in practical terms, one way of addressing both searching and reading strategies while working online could be to brainstorm problems and solutions with pupils after carrying out computer-assisted project work (or part of the way through) This could then lead to a discussion of what to when the language level is too difficult for them, including the possible (selective) use of translation tools The follow-up to this could involve the further stages outlined by Oxford and Chamot, such as providing practice opportunities to try out some new strategies and then evaluate them Yang (2003) also suggests using a portfolio to document and reinforce learners’ strategies Continuing on a practical note, it is possible to limit Google hits to English-language websites, by going into Customize your search settings and selecting English.13 It is also possible to select the reading 12 Even so, reading strategies have attracted less attention among strategies instruction researchers (but see Chamot and Keatley, 2003) 13 Enter a search word (or string) and then go to the bottom of the page of hits Select Advanced search (Avancerad s€ o kning) Go to the bottom of that page and then select Customize your search settings (Anpassa s€ o kinst€ a llningarna) AVOIDING THE TARGET LANGUAGE WITH GOOGLE 131 level of hits in the tools in the left-hand column on the Google webpage The proportion of hits for each level (basic, intermediate, or advanced) subsequently appears at the head of the list of hits By clicking on the desired level, it is then possible to limit the searches to one of the three levels On the downside, selecting basic may also reduce the seriousness and/or relevance of the entries An alternative strategy may be to add basic facts or basic info[rmation] to the search string In fact, in another data set of project work from late 2011, this particular strategy constituted the only example whereby pupils reverted from translating whole websites into Swedish back to reading in English This strategic move indicated that a major part of the problem was the level of language in websites such as Wikipedia However, the main point is that a class discussion is called for, as regards both how to search successfully for materials at the appropriate reading level and the importance of reading source materials in English Another aspect that has been given short shrift here is the language of instructions (not least to offer help in selecting appropriate search words) as well as the established language of communication for the activity This study has been based on naturally occurring English project work in a Swedish secondary school, that is, an example of the task-in-process rather than the task-as-workplan (Breen, 1989, p 188) Furthermore, the main aim here has been to highlight avoidance with the help of Google, but there are of course many other pedagogical aspects of this particular project that also could be raised, discussed, and criticised (regarding both the task-in-process and the task-as-workplan) Finally, although the issues raised here arise from a relatively small set of data, they concern a ubiquitous and frequently used search engine with particular relevance for non-English-dominant countries No doubt, learners are becoming increasingly aware of translation tools, and this is something language teachers cannot ignore More research is needed, however, into how to offer learners appropriate and effective strategy assistance to help them engage with the target language in computer-assisted project work rather than avoid it THE AUTHOR Nigel Musk is currently a senior lecturer in English at the Department of Culture and Communication, Link€ oping University, Sweden His main research interests concern language learning and bilingualism, focusing particularly on situated learning processes and languaging practices using conversation analysis Further details may be found on his website: http://www.liu.se/ikk/medarbetare/nigelmusk 132 TESOL QUARTERLY REFERENCES Beckett, G (2006) Project-based second and foreign language education: Theory, research, and practice In G H Beckett & P C Miller (Eds.), Project-based second and foreign language education: Past, present and future (pp 3–16) Greenwich, CT: Information Age Bialystok, E (1983) Some factors in the selection and implementation of communication strategies In C Færch & G Kasper (Eds.), Strategies in interlanguage communication (pp 100–118) Harlow, England: Longman 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