|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LEARNING a language (L2) other than your mother tongue (L1) is both an intensive and time-consuming activity. After years of extensive experience in training field agents, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) estimates that anywhere from 600 to 1,320 hours of full-time instruction are needed to reach a level of high fluency (Bialystok and Hakuta 34). University students typically spend 150 hours each academic year studying a second language (ten weeks at five hours a week for three quarters). At this rate, students would have to spend their entire four years at college studying a language in order to reach the FSI’s lowest threshold requirements for achieving proficiency.
For those students who begin studying a second language in high school and continue at the university level, the picture doesn’t seem much brighter. Many educators and public figures express dismay that so much language work at the university level appears to be remedial because it repeats material already covered in high school. These advocates against remedial language instruction have failed to grasp the meaning of the FSI’s statistics: L2 learning simply demands a great time commitment, from four to six years to reach high proficiency in a second language. Crucial to L2 development is the extent and nature of the input received (Krashen, Foreign Language Education)—a basic concept that all linguists and second language acquisition (SLA) researchers seem to agree on, even if their theoretical models differ quite radically (Krashen, “Seeking”).
Language professionals, then, are right to wonder what conditions might speed up or at least strongly support L2 learning. Increasing contact with the target language is one uncontroversial solution. Going to the region(s) where the target language is spoken and immersing oneself in the society and culture clearly remains the preferred, but most expensive, method of acquiring linguistic competence in another language. But for those L2 students who are unable or unwilling to take advantage of study abroad, telling them they really should travel is not much help. Here is where technology, if used wisely, can play a major role in enhancing L2 learners’ contact with the target language, especially in the absence of study abroad. Whether technology fulfills this promise depends on how well it is used in the language curriculum and the quality of the materials produced by these technological tools.
A more general question should be posed first, one that asks why elementary and intermediate language courses are of any importance to literature professors who routinely don’t teach language and often pass over culture with a lower-case c as well. Typically, the life of a foreign language department is dominated by individuals who follow these interests. But where will literature programs be if students have not acquired the level of language skills necessary for reading literature? If incorporating technology into the curriculum can stimulate and improve the overall language preparation of those majoring in a language, then literature professors have a direct and vital stake in promoting technology as well. In reality, all undergraduate courses, whether they analyze Cervantes’s novels or the Italian cinema, are language and cultural courses at their most fundamental level, especially if one reflects, once again, on the four to six years the FSI predicts it will take to develop high oral fluency in a second language. This time frame ignores the additional demands of developing advance literacy or higher-order L2 reading and L2 writing skills, which exacerbates further the slow, time-intensive process involved in L2 learning.1 Technology offers an array of tools to help address the intensive nature of the L2 learning process.
Offering literature courses in English, however, is not a real solution to this time-intensive problem. In fact, the death knell of a foreign language literature program begins to sound when all the upper-division courses and their writing assignments are conducted in English. It signals one of two dangerous possibilities: either the students can’t cope with these more sophisticated literary registers because of a reduced emphasis on lower-division language preparation or the administration’s pressure to increase enrollments has overridden all other curricular concerns. Whichever is the case, a downward cycle has begun. In this context, language courses are frequently demeaned as lacking content and any academic (i.e., cognitive) value. Whether assisted by technology or not, the process of learning another language needs to be affirmed on the university level not just for its “skill-getting” and “skill-using” faculties. Learning another language also presents an opportunity for a critical interrogation of the very notion of culture, which is an appropriate upper-division activity in the liberal arts context (see Kramsch; and Kramsch, A’Ness, and Lam).
Technology can help in many ways, yet it’s not the panacea some expected it might be; the language lab of yore was similarly touted to be a panacea—to the eventual disappointment of everyone (Blake, “Role” 209). A few words of caution, then, are in order from the outset when talking about technology and its role in supporting L2 learning. In fact, four myths readily come to mind when the word technology is mentioned in language circles. Many language professionals believe that technology is a uniform concept with a magical accelerating effect on intelligence, much like the monolith of Stanley Kubrick’s classic movie 2001. This first myth would suggest that technology is either all good or all bad (the Luddite scenario): that is, that all technology is the same. The second myth is that technology itself embodies some new and superior methodological approach to language teaching, although all it really offers teachers is a new set of tools. How these tools are used and to what principled ends define the scope of a methodology. The third myth is one we all would like to believe, that today’s technology is sufficient for tomorrow’s challenges and that the technology won’t change in the near future. The final myth—that technology will replace language teachers—is responsible for an irrational and mythical fear suffered in the language profession. Let’s look at all four of these misconceptions in more detail.
Myth 1: Technology Is Monolithic
Have you noticed how people use the word Internet in an almost mystical fashion? “Ah, the Internet,” they say, as if one word says it all. (A few years back, a magical term in our profession was CALL, Computer-Assisted Language Learning.) There isn’t one technology best suited for language study but instead an array of technological tools that can be harnessed to help in the L2 learning process. In addition, these technological tools change very rapidly (see myth 3 below). More specifically, there are three important technological platforms or delivery mechanisms that provide tools to assist language learning, in order of increasing interactivity: the Web, CD-ROM applications, and network-based communication (i.e., e-mail, threaded bulletin boards [BBs], electronic discussion groups, user groups, chat programs, and MOOs).
The Web offers a direct source for a variety of authentic language materials: for example, from my own area of Spanish, a virtual trip to Peru, a guided bicycle trip to Santiago de Compostela, a wine guide for La Rioja, the murals of Orozco. Materials for all world languages abound, along with an increasingly sophisticated array of Web projects (Warschauer, Virtual Connections), Web courses, and Web self-tests. Teachers are beginning to use Web pages, both original and adapted texts, for the students’ primary-source materials, especially in content-based language courses. In this type of language class, students work through the tasks and activities laid out before them and only gradually have recourse to learn the grammar (for a technologically supported, content-based approach, see Barson; Debski). The Web pages exist to provide content stimulation as a means for further inquiry. Given the richness of non-English Web materials, class members can move in new directions at any point or deepen their knowledge of any particular topic. For the experienced teacher who knows how to take advantage of these obvious communicative opportunities, a Web-based, content-driven teaching approach is a dream come true—and the students respond with equal enthusiasm. Something like this type of Web-based course might eventually displace the textbook, copyright problems notwithstanding.
CD-ROMs offer a second powerful technological learning environment that delivers specific applications that take advantage of large digitized sound files, graphics, and video clips. The publishing industry is becoming increasingly involved in producing high-quality CD-ROMs because the marketplace is demanding them (see Jones for a sampling of recent foreign language CD-ROMs). One of the many jobs of today’s language instructors and lab personnel is keeping track of this new generation of language CD-ROMs being produced and knowing how to review them, which entails its own catch-22: language professionals need to know something about interface design and pedagogy before they are able to review software in a meaningful way. Teachers must be trained to recognize well-grounded pedagogy when they see it, hear it, and read it on the screen. Many of today’s CD-ROMs have sophisticated visual interfaces, but care has to be exercised so that the medium doesn’t overshadow the message, to borrow Marshall McLuhan’s phrase.
Finally, computer-mediated communication (CMC) provides a third platform where L2 students can transcend the spatial and temporal confines of the classroom via the Internet. E-mail, or asynchronous (“differed time”) communication, and chat, or synchronous (“real time”) communication, offer students the highest level of interactivity because they permit one-on-one personal exchanges. Research has clearly demonstrated the importance of learning language through personal exchanges that require the learners to negotiate meaning with other learners or native speakers (Pica; Long, “Input” and “Focus”; Gass; Gass and Varonis; Doughty). Research is only just beginning to explore the relations between the act of keyboarding text and oral proficiency (Payne and Whitney), but one might already suspect that keyboarding reinforces oral abilities. This negotiation of meaning appears to be one of the crucial ways in which students gradually liberate themselves from the seemingly interminable phase of interlanguage and gradually achieve more targetlike levels of proficiency.
Students can obviously carry off these negotiation events during regularly scheduled class time or lab sessions, but the benefits of negotiating meaning also obtain for out-of-class synchronous network-based communication as well (Pellettieri; Blake, Fahy, and Walters; Blake “Computer Mediated Communication”). Students can engage in negotiating meaning at any time from home or the lab at their convenience. This use of technology opens the door to an untapped potential for L2 language use. Again, all theorists agree that increasing the amount and quality of students’ L2 input is crucial to SLA success. Networked discussions have an enormous contribution to make to the L2 curriculum, if the language profession will take the time to become familiar with the technology and incorporate it into the foreign language curriculum.
In short, using technology for language learning could imply all three technological environments: the Web, CD-ROMs, and CMC. Each has its strengths and weaknesses; knowing what these are allows language professionals to adapt technology to the curriculum when a good fit exists. Technologically based tools should become standard tricks of the trade for all language teachers.
Myth 2: Technology Constitutes a Methodology
No SLA theory has anything to say directly about language teaching; the field’s goals consist of studying how languages are acquired, not how they are taught. Nevertheless, particular teaching methodologies (e.g., total physical response [TPR], the natural method, the communicative method, focus on form) necessarily attempt to make the connection between theory and practice by identifying the most favorable conditions for L2 learning. In an ideal world, then, a methodology should be informed by what is known about the nature of SLA; claims such as “all L2 learning requires comprehensible input or intake [i.e., comprehended input]” should be put to the test in the language classroom. Technology, per se, has no stake in any particular theoretical model or teaching methodology. The technology is theoretically and methodologically neutral.
But how technology is used is not neutral; it responds to what the practitioners understand or believe to be true about SLA. Some teachers feel that the only curricular role for technology is relieving the teacher of the more burdensome aspects of testing and rote drills so that classroom time can be fully utilized for communication. For example, the Spanish and Italian programs at the University of Illinois (Arvan et al.) employ a Web-based program called Mallard to free-up the maximum amount of classroom time for communicative activities and to justify decreasing the course’s seat-time requirements from five to three hours a week. In practical terms alone, these language programs can teach more students this way with the same number of faculty members or TAs. Naturally, the administration is delighted with the increased student-instructor credit-hour ratio. The teachers are happy not to have to bother with morphologically based drills and tests during precious class time, which practices go against the theoretical bent of the communicative classroom, and the students enjoy increased access for completing the language requirement. This appears to be a win-win situation for all concerned, an appropriate use of technology in the context of these programs’ goals, although the long-term effects on language acquisition still remain undocumented. Other institutions may wish to explore different solutions, depending on their respective expectations and theoretical stances. There is no single formula for the use of technology to teach languages.
Myth 3: Today’s Technology Is All One Needs to Know
Constant change is a pretty frightening phenomenon for most people—faculty members included—but that is the inherent nature of technology: new tools are being created all the time. To cope with the field’s intrinsic ebullience, language programs need long-term institutional support, both at-large from the campus information technology services and locally from the designated language lab personnel or humanities technology-resource person.
It should be patently obvious by now that technology rarely helps anyone save money. In most cases, it tends to engender more expenditures, at least at the beginning. Nevertheless, new technologies, besides offering new channels for learning, allow an institution’s human resources to work in new and more efficient ways to provide greater educational access for students. New advances in technology allow people to do things they could not do before and, therefore, technology represents a catalyst for change.
Accordingly, working with technology requires constant renovation, which can be a very threatening and tiring context for language professionals who are used to teaching to established standards with normalized performance and achieving control over the more literary and prestigious registers of their respective world languages. This vertiginous pace of technological change inhibits the acceptance of change in and of itself. The “let’s wait until the technology stops changing and is more stable” philosophy fosters much resistance to implementing technology into the L2 curriculum (maybe with good reason in some cases). But there is another, more powerful force inhibiting the integration of technology into the foreign language curriculum—enter myth 4.
Myth 4: Technology Will Replace Teachers
Put succinctly, language teachers fear that the use of technology will replace them. Their fears are often confirmed by the attitude of administrators who seek to recoup costs by downsizing the labor-intensive language programs by substituting them with technology, a policy that receives reinforcement from myth 1 and the monochromatic conceptualization of technology’s role. The technology platforms described—the Web, CD-ROMs, and CMC—do not pose a threat to language professionals but rather complement what can be done in the L2 classroom. Will technology expand in the future from this complementary role to replacing the teacher and the classroom venue completely? A rational response to this question might be that technology won’t replace teachers in the future, but that teachers who use technology will probably replace teachers who do not (Clifford 13). Clearly, this trend implies hiring new faculty members with at least a modicum of technological expertise and implementing training programs for existing faculty members so they can come up to speed with new advances. In this context, it is easy to see why many language professionals might eschew the introduction of technology into the L2 curriculum by fiercely adhering to Newton’s second law of motion, which says that bodies at rest tend to stay at rest. The message for new language professionals should be obvious: Learn as much as you can about using technology to assist L2 learning. But many who do so are punished rather than rewarded for their efforts through the actions taken by their institution’s committee on academic promotion. Chairs need to be sensitive to these issues and informed about the guidelines for professional advancement already prepared by the MLA Committee on Computer and Emerging Technologies in Teaching and Research and other organization that deal with languages and technology (see also the joint EUROCALL, CALICO, IALL 1999 statement on CALL research).
It should be clear now that different technologically based tools provide different advantages for learning a second language. For instance, the Web is an ideal tool for allowing students to gain access to authentic L2 materials, and it may be the best alternative to actually going or living abroad. L2 students can virtually travel to French-speaking Africa, to Tokyo, or to the Peruvian Incan ruins of Machu Picchu with just a click of the mouse. Non-English speakers account for over 45% of today’s 157 million Web users (El Reporte Delta) and this figure is growing rapidly.2 E-commerce (www.emarketer.com/ereports/eglobal/welcome.html) reports that although 57% of today’s Web users are English speakers, that percentage will represent non-English speakers by 2002—a reversal of the current situation.
More important, the Web gives all peoples a channel to express their own voice and promote their own self-image. This sense of authenticity and authority (see Kramsch, A’Ness, and Lam) on the Web provides endless topics for cross-cultural analysis and discussions in a content-driven classroom. For example, CubaWeb (www.cubaweb.cu/pueblo/pueblo.html), the official Web site of the Republic of Cuba, creates a representational space otherwise unavailable to the Cuban people (Sullivan and Fernandez). This page opens with several attractive photos of racially different Cuban children and an invocation from Walt Whitman about the Cuban people. The user can then read about Cuban society, demographics, music, education, medical facilities, and much more. This site allows Cubans to speak out in their own defense, despite the massive efforts by the United States government to boycott their economy. Whether you agree with their message or not, CubaWeb still provides Cubans’ side of the story and a forum for their self-promotion—a fundamental right of any society in the world. Being able to get at a foreign country’s own sense of authenticity is exactly what cross-cultural understanding is all about. The global village image not withstanding, the Web provides non-English users with an effective way of counteracting the unwanted standardization implied by conducting international business in English. In other words, language use on the Web opens the way to a series of intriguing issues in cultural studies, which definitely should interest upper-division faculty members (Hawisher and Selfe).
The advantages computers offer for carrying out online or networked discussions have been well documented elsewhere in the literature. Researchers frequently cite the computer’s usefulness as a text-based medium that amplifies students’ attention to linguistic form (Warschauer, “Computer-Mediated Learning”); as a stimulus for increased L2 written production (Kern); as a less stressful environment for L2 practice (Chun); as a more equitable and nonthreatening forum for L2 discussions, especially for women, minorities, and nonassertive personalities (Warschauer “Comparing” and “Computer-Mediated Learning”); and as an expanded access channel with possibilities for creating global learning networks (Cummins, “E-Lective Learning”). Janet Swaffar has succinctly summarized the benefits derived from computer-mediated communication compared with classroom oral exchanges:
Networked exchanges seem to help all individuals in language classes engage more frequently, with greater confidence, and with greater enthusiasm in the communicative process than is characteristic for similar students in oral classrooms. (1)
Ironically, telling students that their responses will also be saved by the computer for research purposes doesn’t seem to diminish their level of participation or their sense that the computer affords them a relatively anonymous, or at least protected, environment for their discussion (Pellettieri).
Let’s return for a moment to the educational advantages of increased access by means of the computer to instructional materials and other learners outside the normal constraints of the classroom. Public institutions, in particular, are faced with pressures from ever-increasing enrollments, perhaps a veritable flood of baby-boomers’ children reaching college age (700,000 more in the next ten years), if current predictions are actually borne out. It is doubtful that all these students, or at least those who want access to higher education, will find seats in a classroom setting as presently configured. Some L2 instruction in the future will have to take place at a distance or through some form of distributed learning. This does not diminish the on-campus and classroom experience; on the contrary, it enhances its value even more, but that privilege might not be available to everyone interested in language study. As our nation slowly breaks out of its English-only dream—or rather nightmare, whose signs have still not abated—all kinds of learners will have an interest in acquiring some type of L2 proficiency, whether to enter the global marketplace or to just get along better within their ethnically diverse local communities. This new demand will be met by an aggressive response from our language profession or by the more profit-minded publishing and Web companies, or by both. Most language professionals rightly feel that they should take the lead in determining the nature of instruction for this new and potentially significant audience. But will the language profession be ready to meet this challenge? Yes, but only if teachers start experimenting now with ways to enhance L2 learning through technology.
In addition to succumbing to the four myths discussed above, many language teachers also reject the use of the computer because it is not interactive enough—a charged term, indeed, in today’s marketing parlance. Most computer programs minimally do something in response to mouse clicks, data entry, or other keyboard actions: they beep, show a picture file, move to another screen, play digital sounds, or the like. These minimal computer reactions often constitute the sole basis for commercial promotion as interactive. How does this sense of the word fare against the more social and interactionist definition used in SLA literature? For the interactionists, L2 learners are motivated to learn new structures by being incited by other speakers to negotiate meaning in the target language. In fact, for many language professionals technology might represent the antithesis of what learning a second language is all about: namely, talking to and interacting with people in the target language.
Nevertheless, the computer’s obvious failings as a person (including the infamous computer Hal in Kubrick’s film 2001) are relatively unimportant in the face of how people work with computers. Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass have shown that people have a strong tendency to interact with computer machines in a fundamentally socially manner, just as they interact in real life (5). These social scientists argue for the existence of a media equation, where media equal real life. For example, if a computer program addresses users in a polite fashion, then the users will respond politely as well, even though they know in purely rational terms that a machine has no feelings. According to Reeves and Nass, programs that capitalize on the media equation usually solicit more favorable reactions from computer users than programs that ignore the media equation. In other words, L2 learners conceive of the computer as their personal helper rather than as some mindless, heartless tool. This inherent tendency to personify our world—from our cars to our pets—persists and gives technology its potential to assist the L2 learning process. People think computers are trying to help them and they respond as they do in any human relationship by making a best-faith effort to cooperate. Good interface design encourages this fiction. It’s not necessary that computers be human, only that they simulate certain human qualities. Above all, people count on computers to follow the basic Gricean principles like everybody else (Pinker 228); people expect that the information supplied to them is relevant, truthful, informative, clear, unambiguous, brief, and orderly. People will expect good input from computers as well, a concept that plays into our natural desire to seek out meaningful interactions—a strong motivating force for learning.
We have come full circle now. Input, especially comprehended input, is one of the basic cornerstones of current SLA theories. Without input, SLA can’t occur; it is a necessary condition but not the only one. Technology, then, if cleverly designed and properly implemented into the curriculum, has a vital role to play in augmenting the opportunities for L2 learners to receive target-language input. Again, the learners’ contact with the target language plays a critical role in the long and tedious SLA process, as most language professionals working in the trenches already know.
An increasingly multicultural world, both in the international and local context, will put intense pressure on our profession to find the most efficient and readily accessible ways to learn another language. Using technology to that end is a challenge we must face squarely, without abandoning sound pedagogical practices. Theory must be combined with practice. But this will not happen without our own colleagues’ willingness to experiment with the newest modes of teaching with technology and our chairs’ leadership in rewarding successful technological innovations in the academic arena.
The language profession’s leadership needs to advocate for a realistic assessment of what technology might do for a particular institution’s language program with all the concomitant academic rewards. Nothing is achieved by promising the language profession a one-size-fits-all solution for its financial and curricular woes, despite the insistent proddings from administrations to find the proverbial quick fix. Computer technology will be a key component to most everything we do in the twenty-first century, the “information age.” The language profession needs to take advantage of technology when its application proves consistent with best teaching practices and SLA theories. By resisting the temptation to be beguiled by the pervasive myths about technology, language professionals will begin to open their minds to new curricular opportunities so as to seize the moment when technology makes good sense.
2In 1999, of the 157 million people who used the Web worldwide, it was estimated that 91 million people (55%) connected to the Web in English and 75 million people (45%) connected to the Web in other languages: 19.0% in Spanish (1998: 13%, from a total of 36 million); 18.4% German (1998: 9%); 18.4% Japanese (1998: 27%); 9.5% French (1998: 9%); 6.2% Chinese (1998: 7%); 5.6% Dutch (1998: 6%); 5.3% Danish, Norwegian, Swedish (1998: 11%); 4.7% Korean (1998: not available); 4.3% Italian (1998: 5%) (El Report Delta).
Barson, John. “The Virtual Classroom Is Born: What Now?” Foreign Language Acquisition Research and the Classroom. Ed. Barbara F. Freed. Lexington: Heath, 1991.
Bialystok, Ellen, and Kenji Hakuta. In Other Words. New York: Basic, 1994.
Blake, Robert. “Computer Mediated Communication: A Window on L2 Spanish Interlanguage.” Language Learning and Technology 41.1 (2000): 120–36.
———. “The Role of Technology in Second Language Learning.” Byrnes 209–36.
Blake, Robert, David Fahy, and Dick Walters. “Implementing Chat Software in the Foreign-Language Curriculum: The Case of RTA.” Interactive Learning: Vignettes from America’s Most Wired Campuses. Ed. David Brown. Bolton: Anker, 1999. 254–57.
Blythe, Carl S. Untangling the Web: Nonce’s Guide to Language and Culture on the Internet. New York: Nonce, 1999.
Byrnes, Heidi, ed. Learning Foreign and Second Languages. New York: MLA, 1998.
Chun, Dorothy. “Using Computer-Assisted Class Discussions to Facilitate the Acquisition of Interactive Competence.” Swaffar, Romano, Markley, and Arens 57–80.
Clifford, Ray. “The Status of Computer-Assisted Language Learning.” CALICO Journal 4.4 (1987): 9–16.
Cummins, Jim. “E-Lective Language Learning: Design of a Computer-Assisted Text-Based ESL/EFL Learning System.” TESOL Journal 7.3 (1998): 18–21.
———. Personal communication. 17 Mar. 1999.
Debski, Robert. “Support of Creativity and Collaboration in the Language Classroom: A New Role for Technology.” Language Learning through Social Computing. Ed. Debski, June Gassin, Mike Smith. ALAA’s Occasional Papers 16. Melbourne: Applied Linguistics Assn. of Australia, 1997. 39–66.
Doughty, Catherine. “Acquiring Competence in a Second Language: Form and Function.” Byrnes 128–56.
EUROCALL, CALICO, IALL. May 1999. “Joint Policy Statement Arising from a Research Seminar on CALL, 30 April to May 1999.” 1 Mar. 2001 <http://www.eurocall.org/research_policy.htm>.
Gass, Susan. Input, Interaction, and the Second Language Learner. Mahwah: Erlbaum, 1997.
Gass, Susan, and Evangeline Varonis. “Input, Interaction, and Second Language Production.” Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16 (1994): 283–302.
Hawisher, Gail E., and Cynthia L. Selfe. Global Literacies and the World-Wide Web. London: Routledge, 2000.
Jones, Chris, ed. Foreign Language CD-ROMs. Spec. issue of CALICO Journal 17.1 (1999): 5–7.
Kern, Richard. “Restructuring Classroom Interaction with Networked Computers: Effects on Quantity and Characteristics of Language Production.” Modern Language Journal 79 (1995): 457–76.
Kramsch, Claire. Context and Culture in Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993.
Kramsch, Claire, Francine A’Ness, and Wan Shun Eva Lam. “Authenticity and Authorship in the Computer-Mediated Acquisition of L2 Literacy.” Language Learning and Technology 4.2 (2000): 78–104.
Krashen, Stephen. Foreign Language Education the Easy Way. Culver City: Language Education Associates, 1997.
———. “Seeking a Role for Grammar: A Review of Some Recent Studies.” Foreign Language Annals 32.2 (1999): 245–57.
Long, Michael. “Focus on Form: A Design Feature in Language Teaching Methodology.” Foreign Language Research in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Ed. Claire Kramsch and Ralph Ginsberg. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1991. 39–52.
———. “Input, Interaction, and Second Language Acquisition.” Native Language and Foreign Language Acquisition. Ed. Harris Winitz. New York: New York Acad. of Science, 1981. 259–78.
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extension of Man. New York: Signet, 1964.
MLA Committee on Computers and Emerging Technologies in Teaching and Research. MLA Guidelines for Evaluating Work with Digital Media in the Modern Languages. 1 Mar. 2001 <http://www.mla.org/reports/ccet/ccet_guidelines.htm>.
Payne, J. Scott, and P. Whitney. “Developing L2 Oral Proficiency through Synchronous CMC: Output, Working Memory, and Interlanguage Development.” CALICO Journal, forthcoming.
Pellettieri, Jill. “Negotiation in Cyberspace: The Role of Chatting in the Development of Grammatical Competence.” Network-Based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice. Ed. Mark Warschauer and Richard Kern. New York: Cambridge UP, 1999. 59–86.
Pica, Teresa. “Research on Negotiation: What Does It Reveal about Second-Language Learning Conditions, Processes, and Outcomes?” Language Learning 44 (1994): 493–527.
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. 1994. New York: Harper, 1995.
Reeves, Byron, and Clifford Nass. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. Stanford: CSLI, 1996.
El Reporte Delta 61. 11 Feb. 1999 http://delta.hypermart.net/ERD061.html?arch.
Sullivan, Laura, and Victor Fernandez. “Cybercuba.com(munist): Electronic Literacy, Resistance, and Postrevolutionary Cuba.” Hawisher and Selfe 217–50.
Swaffar, Janet. “Networking Language Learning: Introduction.” Swaffar, Romano, Markley, and Arens 1–15.
Swaffar, Janet, Susan Romano, Philip Markley, and Katherine Arens, eds. Language Learning Online: Theory and Practice in the ESL and L2 Computer Classroom. Austin: Labyrinth, 1998.
Warschauer, Mark. “Comparing Face to Face and Electronic Discussion in the Second Language Classroom.” CALICO Journal 13.2–3 (1996): 7–26.
———. “Computer-Mediated Collaborative Learning.” Modern Language Journal 81 (1997): 470–81.
———, ed. Virtual Connections: Online Activities and Projects for Networking Language Learners. Manoa: Second Lang. Teaching and Curriculum Center, U of Hawai’i, Manoa, 1995.
CALICO: Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (www.calico.org)
CALL: computer-assisted language learning. Language learning carried out on the Web, by CD-ROM, or with some other computer program
CD-ROM: compact disk read-only memory. A laser-cut disk that stores approximately 650 megabytes of information; programs, text, sound, video, graphics
CMC: computer-mediated communication or chat programs where people communicate with each other in real time
EUROCALL: European Association for Computer Assisted Language Learning (www.eurocall.org)
IALL: International Association of Language Learning Technology (iall.net)
Internet: a vast network of computers offering many types of services, including e-mail and access to the World Wide Web
L1: a speaker’s first or native language
L2: the language a speaker is trying to acquire in addition to the native language
MOO: multiuser domain, object-oriented. An electronic “space” in which many people can interact simultaneously
MUD: multiuser domain. As electronic “spaces” for simultaneous communication, MUDs provide opportunities for role playing.
platform: technical environment, for example, the Internet or CD-ROMs
sound files: analogue recordings that have been digitized for use on the computer or Internet
video clips: video recordings that have been digitized for use on the computer or Internet
Web, World Wide Web, or WWW: a global Internet service connecting hypertext data and resources. With a browser, a user can move quickly from one Web site to another in search of information, graphics, and data.
© 2001 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
|
|---|
|
|
|
