Most teachers of English are well aware of the fact
that teaching a foreign language needs to be firmly grounded in interactionist notions.
Through the proximal zone of development, negotiation of meaning, FonF,
task-based learning, project-based learning, or pair collaboration that emphasize
the power of human interactions, SLA process can be stimulated. Collaborative
interactions should be encouraged. The context of computer-mediated
communication (CMC), whether in real time (synchronous, SCMC) or deferred time
(asynchronous, ACMC) appear to be very suitable for this purpose. Kern and Warschauer
(2000) have labeled this communication in service of language learning as
network-based language teaching (NBLT), which includes e-mail, discussion
forums or electronic bulletin boards, blogs, wikis, and chatting with or
without sound/video. However, as it is with all other tools of technology, it
is the pedagogical design of the tasks that will make it valuable.
In
this chapter, two different kinds of CMC are mentioned; asynchronous CMC and synchronous
CMC.
A
distinction is made for asynchronous CMC between first and second generation
tools. What makes them different is that unlike the first one that uses HTML, the
second one relies on a new technology (XML). First-generation tools include
e-mail, electronic mailing lists, and discussion forums, also known as threaded
bulletin boards. As for second-generation CMC Tools, blogs and wikis are good examples.
The second kind of CMC is synchronous CMC. Chat rooms
have been used by many teachers for this kind of CMC. The problem is that chat
rooms may be more suitable to improve speaking skills rather than writing. Chat
room discourse consists of language that is much closer to oral discourse than
to written (Sotillo 2000). SCMC has recently been used in pairs and small
groups. ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL’s Instant Messenger (AIM),
PalTalk, and iVisit are good examples. Blackboard, WebCT, or Moodle are some learning
management systems that offer their own internal chat programs within a more
controlled learning environment that foster task-based interaction.
There
are also tools such as Wimba and Breeze that are very efficient but costly. The
Skype client, has many advantages as it is free when chatting from computer to
computer with up to four people.
Intracultural CMC
Interaction
hypothesis underlies the importance of face-to-face classroom negotiations in
SLA. Such negotiations increase input comprehensibility through language
modifications such as simplifications, elaborations, confirmation and
comprehension checks, clarifications requests, or recasts. All these provide
the learners with negative evidence. This type of negotiation has also been
described in the literature as focus on form (FonF).
Intercultural CMC: Telecollaborations
For
sociocultural, theorists, negotiation of meaning is often reduced in the
classroom to nothing more than getting students to manage transactions that are
devoid of real L2 cultural import. The implicit assumption they reject is that
transactional routines are somehow culture free, the same the world over, which
is false. Sociocultural researchers contrast intracultural CMC with
intercultural CMC or intercultural communication for foreign language learning (ICFLL);
(Thorne and Payne 2005a) to “draw attention to the complex nature of humans as
sociocultural actors and technological setting as artifact and as mediators,
rather than determiners of action and interaction” (O’Rourke 2005, 435). These
ideas draw heavily on Byram (1997), who defines intercultural competence as “an
ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria,
perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and
countries”. For intercultural CMC, the Cultura Project is presented as an example.
No comments:
Post a Comment