Online language learning 2.0: New tools, new paradigms

Online language learning 2.0: New tools, new paradigms 胡 丹 尼 Dennie Hoopingarner Center for Language Education And Research, Michigan State University hooping4@msu.edu 摘 要 : Web 2.0 給 語 言 老 師 帶 來 許 多 嶄 新 工 具, 但 也 呈 現 了 不 少 挑 戰 新 科 技 雖 然 讓 語 言 老 師 能 突 破 舊 有 教 學 的 限 制, 達 到 以 往 所 不 可 能 達 成 的 效 果, 新 科 技 也 讓 我 們 必 須 重 新 審 視 老 師 學 生 和 科 技 三 方 的 角 色 現 今 有 一 個 新 的 學 習 理 論, 前 所 未 有 的 將 語 言 教 學 拉 近 語 言 學 理 論, 同 時 Web 2.0 工 具 也 鼓 勵 我 們 用 更 合 乎 語 言 教 學 的 方 法 來 使 用 科 技 密 西 根 州 立 大 學 的 Center for Language Education And Research (CLEAR) 所 發 展 出 的 一 系 列 工 具 就 是 利 用 Web 2.0 的 優 勢 來 加 強 新 的 語 言 教 學 與 學 習 方 式 Web 2.0 has given language teachers new tools, but also new challenges. While the new technology allows language teachers to do things that were previously impossible, it also requires us to re-think the roles of learners, teachers, and technology. A new theory of learning brings language teaching closer to linguistic theory than it was before, and at the same time, Web 2.0 tools encourage us to use technology in ways that are more aligned with language teaching. The Center for Language Education And Research (CLEAR) at Michigan State University has developed a set of tools that take advantage of Web 2.0 technology to enhance language learning in new ways. 1. From behaviorism to constructivism Web 2.0 technology is encouraging a new way of thinking about language teaching and learning. If this new paradigm becomes widespread, it will move language teaching closer to mainstream educational theory, and help to define a role for technology in the language classroom that is grounded in theory and supported by research and best practices. In the history of computer-assisted language learning, there have been two major paradigms. These paradigms largely followed the mainstream theories in psychology and education. Under the first paradigm, which was associated with behaviorist psychology, as described by Warschauer (1996), Bax (2003) and others, the computer takes control of the learning activities. The key characteristic of this paradigm is that the learner responds to prompts from the computer, and the computer evaluates the learner s responses. Typical activities that fall under this paradigm include multiple-choice questions and listen-and-repeat audio drills. In some aspects, this paradigm is the easiest to use when creating computer-assisted language learning materials. The paradigm is easy to grasp, it closely follows a teacher-fronted classroom, and teaching is visible and measurable (although

learning is not). This approach to computer-based learning has been widely criticized and discredited (Higgins and Johns, 1984, Higgins, 1988, Ornstein-Galicia et al., 1971, Underwood, 1984), yet it persists to this day (Levy and Stockwell, 2006). The second paradigm emerged soon after the language teaching field experienced its own paradigm shift of communicative language teaching. The emphasis of the communicative approach is on real-world communication in environments and situations that language learners might actually experience. At about the same time, the desktop computer emerged on the market. Computers became much more affordable, and more prevalent in schools. Perhaps because the learner was directly controlling the computer, instead of logging into a large mainframe from a terminal, combined with the growing power of the computer to do more than display text, users began to see the computer as a tool that could be used for various functions. The paradigm shift of computer as a tutor to the computer as a tool (Levy, 1997) shifted the kinds of activities that learners engaged in, focusing on manipulation and reconstruction of chunks of language (Hardisty and Windeatt, 1989, Phillips, 1985), as well as audio and video based materials. The Internet, specifically Web 2.0, presents new opportunities for language teaching and learning. One opportunity is for access to realia to an extent unprecedented in language teaching. For decades in the US, the only sources of information and cultural artifacts related to the target language have been the textbook and the teacher. During trips abroad, language teachers carefully collected artifacts that they could use in their classrooms. Items such as photographs, clothing, magazines, television programs, currency, menus, toys, etc would be placed on display for the students, almost as if they were museum pieces. With the advent of the World Wide Web, with its increasing volume of information, all of this realia is available to everyone at any time or place. This rich new source of data presented a new challenge: how to make use of it in a pedagogically useful way? One new technique that emerged early on is the webquest (Dodge, 1997), which requires students to locate, analyze, and synthesize online information. In addition to resources, the Internet provides the ability to do things with computers that were previously impractical or impossible. One area of enhanced functionality is telecommunications. Beginning with email, the Internet began to erase the barrier to international communication. Now, the functionality of online communication now surpasses conventional telephone service. Programs such as Skype make it easy to conduct conference calls with video to anyone in the world for free. The pedagogical implications of this technology are clear. No longer are teachers the only source of interaction in the target language. Language learners can communicate directly with native speakers of the target language. Another area of enhanced functionality is the ability to collaborate and create online. Tools such as wikis make it easy to create web pages from within a web browser. Providers of data services, such as Google Maps and YouTube, have opened their web services to everyone, giving users permission to use their resources as building blocks to create mashups, applications that combine data from many sources in one central application. Instead of relying on the teacher, language learners can now create their own realia from online resources. A new paradigm for language learning is emerging; one that empowers

learners and implies a shift in how we teach. The common thread of the new environment that computers and now the Internet have created is that the role of the teacher has changed. The teacher does not have to be the arbiter of learning, the sole source of information, or the only interlocutor for language learners. Now that the Internet can link learners to information and other people, the teacher does not have to create learning environments. Instead, the teacher can use these new environments and focus on guiding students learning. 2. Pedagogical implications of the new paradigm Under the emerging new paradigm, learning is seen not as a passive activity that requires learners to accept pre-packaged information, but as an active process by which learners create their own understanding. This approach to learning meshes well with the mainstream theory of learning is known as constructivism (Fox, 2001, Jonassen, 1991). This theory is particularly relevant for language teaching as it is much closer to theories of language and language acquisition. This approach is called "constructivism" after Piaget's (1954) account of child development and learning. Piaget posited that learning occurs as a result of interaction between the learner's previous knowledge, sensory motor system, and external environment. Different disciplines have adopted the term to refer to learning in specific domains, which has caused some confusion about the definition of constructivism. Fox's (2001: 24) summary of the claims of constructivism can be reduced to a central claim about learning. Constructivism sees learning as an active process, whereby knowledge is constructed by the learner, rather than passively absorbed. In other words, learners create their own understanding through actively integrating new information with their existing body of knowledge. The result of constructivist learning is what Jonassen et al (1993) refer to as "internally coherent and more richly interconnected knowledge systems" (p. 231). Constructivism as a theory of learning distinguishes between information and knowledge (Perkins 1986, Jonassen 1991). Information is an artifact that is distinct from any individual learner. Information is quantifiable and recordable. Textbooks and reference grammars, for example, contain information. Knowledge, on the other hand, is part of an individual's cognitive system. Knowledge is the result of the integration of information with a learner's existing representation of the world. The advantage of knowledge over information is that knowledge is part of an integrated system, and as such, can be drawn upon more easily to solve cognitive problems or to enrich understanding. The constructivist task of learning is to create one s own understanding of subject matter. We can draw an interesting parallel between the distinction between external information and internal knowledge, and Chomsky's (1986) distinction between E-language and I-language. According to Chomsky, E-language is an external artifact, while I-language is the underlying structure of the language. Speakers of a language rely on their internal grammar, their I-language, to produce language, E-language. For Chomsky, I-language is the focus of linguistic inquiry, since only I-language is a true system. E-language, in contrast, does not accurately reflect the actual linguistic system, the grammar, that produced the utterance. To study E-language is to collect linguistic artifacts, in effect, a list of utterances.

According to Chomsky, the task of learning a language involves building a system that generates language, not memorizing a collection of utterances or modeling behavior. When drawing a distinction between information and knowledge, a constructivist would say that knowledge is much more than a list of memorized facts. Similarly, a generative linguist would say that knowledge of language, or linguistic competence, is much more than a list of facts about language. To know a language is much more than knowing a set of facts about the language. In this sense, we can say that both the process and the end state of language acquisition are constructivist in nature. Recent experiences with using constructivist approaches to develop courseware have yielded very encouraging results. In a study on mathematics instruction in which one group of students were taught through traditional instruction and another group learned the domain through programming software to teach the domain, Harel (1991) found that students who simultaneously learned the content, and designed software to teach that content showed significantly more learning than students who learned the same content through traditional instruction. In a reflective study of the design and development of an expert system for instruction, Jonassen and Wang (1993) noted that those who benefited intellectually from the system were the developers, not the end users of the system. Kafai et al (1997), in a study of software design for teaching astronomy, noted that children who designed the software learned more than the end users of the software. These studies have an interesting implication. It seems that creating courseware potentially has a greater learning effect than using courseware. Even when students do not have domain knowledge, as in the study by Harel, they can learn content while designing courseware to teach that content. This conclusion, that designing courseware can effect learning, may initially be counterintuitive. This is tantamount to claiming that students can teach while learning, and learn through teaching, and in fact that they learn better by teaching than they can by learning. From a constructivist perspective, however, this idea fits the theory of learning very well. In fact, it is not hard to imagine how designing and developing courseware can contribute to learning. The process of designing courseware requires a thorough understanding of the subject matter. The content must be presented in a systematic, organized, and coherent manner. The courseware must anticipate and be able to handle the likely misunderstandings and mistakes that learners may develop, and be able to provide meaningful and helpful feedback to the learners. Designing courseware, in other words, requires a deep and active understanding of the subject matter. The process of organizing the content in preparation for including in courseware requires designers to develop a mental representation of the content that is internally coherent in the mind of the developer. It is just this internalization of the content matter that is the goal of learning, according to Jonassen et al (1993) and Perkins (1986). This implication is especially germane to language learning. As noted above, a reasonable definition of language acquisition is the construction of a mental grammar in the second language. A grammar is a systematic knowledge of language that can be used productively, not a memorized collection of rules and facts. This

system develops within the mind of the learner, or as Pinker (1994) claims, the mind creates a grammar. Exactly how a second language is acquired is still very much a live question, but there is broad agreement that it involves active, not passive, mental activity, such as interaction and hypothesis testing (Gass 1997) and productive output (Swain 1985). Engaging in the task of courseware development for language learning can provide learners the opportunity to internalize the structures and content of the second language. 3. Web 2.0 as a constructivist environment: Rich Internet Applications for language learning A grant from the United States Department of Education is sponsoring the development and dissemination of "Rich Internet Applications for Language Learning." Housed at the Center for Language Education And Research at Michigan State University, this initiative was designed to create new tools for language teachers to promote language teaching and learning. The design principles of these tools take advantage of the rich media capabilities of the Internet, and promote constructivist learning. The tools are available to all language teachers at no cost. The tools are "cloud computing" applications. Users' data is stored on a central server. The programs run entirely within a web browser, and are available from anywhere in the world where there is an Internet connection. They incorporate rich media, allowing teachers to include audio and video recording and playback functions into learning activities. The tools are also available to both teachers and learners. Not only can teachers create learning activities for their students to use, but learners can also create multimedia language materials that demonstrate their ability to use the language. The experience of teachers who are using these tools is overwhelmingly positive. The tools allow teachers to overcome traditional shortcomings in classroom language teaching, particularly the lack of speaking practice that students can get in a typical language class. Since students are also encouraged to use the tools for creating materials, they can demonstrate their language proficiency in many different ways. They can create multimedia web pages that include their audio and video recordings, and even their handwriting. A special screen recorder allows students to show their ability to write Chinese characters, by recording their strokes with a writing tablet, and playing them back on-demand. Their writing samples can be put online, showing not only the product of their writing, but also the process. The inherent instructional design of CLEAR s Rich Internet Applications promotes active learning and constructivist learning activities. Nevertheless, it should be emphasized that the tools neither teach, nor do they prevent inappropriate or ineffective use. Even though technology has become more powerful, and the role of the teacher has shifted, the need for a teacher to mediate learning has never been eliminated. Indeed, the teacher s role has become more critical than ever. The tools are now in the hands of the learners. Teachers must be familiar with the technology, so that they can guide students in creating materials and evaluate the materials based on the pedagogy, not just on the technology. But the most important role of the teacher in this new paradigm has not changed: that of effecting learning. The teacher is no longer in the role of giving knowledge to

learners, but the teacher is still responsible for guiding learners and ensuring that learning takes place. In some sense, it may be accurate to say that there has been no change in the goals of language teaching, in that the target outcome of language learning is still language proficiency. The change is not in the product, but in the process.

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