FACULDADE DE LETRAS - FALE CEI - CURSO DE ESPECIALIZAÇÃO EM INGLÊS - ENSINO FIRST SEMESTER - 2010 WORKGROUP: ALEXANDRE FORTES CAMILA LOBATO CAMILA MAGALHÃES.

FACULDADE DE LETRAS - FALECEI - CURSO DE ESPECIALIZAÇÃO EM INGLÊS - ENSINO

FIRST SEMESTER - 2010

WORKGROUP: ALEXANDRE FORTES

CAMILA LOBATOCAMILA MAGALHÃES

ERICKA CAMILA

SUBJECT:CALL PROFESSOR: DR. REINILDES DIAS

ONLINE COMMUNICATION IN LANGUAGELEARNING AND TEACHING

LAMY, M.N.; HAMPEL, R. Online communication in language learning and teaching. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

1- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND


1.1 - THE EMERGENCE OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has long been of interest to teachers, learners and researches. Mason and Kaye discussed its role in different educational contexts in their classic book Mindweave. In it, they drew attention to the intermingling and cross-fertilization of ideas that CMC afforded.

To language professionals CMC could potentially answer two needs at once. It could be the means through which teaching occurred, and it could be the end of conversational classes. Instead of it, learners could engage with the communicative aspect of their study by exchanging language online.


Various acronyms have been used to cover the process of learning and teaching languages through the mediation of computers.

CALL - Computer-assisted Language Learning CMC - Computer-mediated communication

CMCL - Computer-mediated communication in the context of language learning


Focus:

1.1 - THE EMERGENCE OF COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING

CALL

“A form of computer-based learning which carries two important features: bidirectional learning and individualized learning. It is not a method. CALL materials are tools for learning. The focus of CALL is learning, and not teaching. CALL materials are used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. It is a student-centered accelerated learning material, which promotes self-paced accelerated learning.”

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-assisted_language_learning


CMC and CMCL

“Defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through the use of two or more networked computers. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated formats (e.g., instant messages, e-mails, chat rooms), it has also been applied to other forms of text-based interaction such as text messaging. Research on CMC focuses largely on the social effects of different computer-supported communication technologies. Many recent studies involve Internet-based social networking supported by social software.”

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-mediated_communication


CMCL - aimed at giving focus to Language Learning.

A VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF CALL


Behaviouristic CALL - The computer is a provider of drills to learners who

(usually) responds on an individual basis.

Targeted Skills: reading and writingCommunicative CALL - CALL is able to use the technology for more

interactivelearning and greater student choice and control.

Targeted Skills: reading, writing, speaking and listeningIntegrative CALL - CALL is able to take all the previous advantages

aforementioned plus all the advance of multimedia products and the democratization of the Internet use with its complete variety of media.

Targeted Skills: several skills can be deployed at once


1.2 - THE ROAD TRAVELLED: A BROAD VIEW

Warschauer (1995) published the fist CMCL practitioner book. According to him, the hopes of early adopters of CMCL included giving learners the opportunity to:

•Communicate with native speakers;

•Communicate either one-to-one or, more innovatively,

one-to

many and many-to-many;

•Plan their communication;

Revisit their work, owing to the permanent traces made

available to them through the technologies.

1.3 - WHAT THE META-LITERATURE REVEALS ABOUT PRACTICE AND RESEARCH


Each of the meta-studies in the table on the right provides a different angle on the CMCL landscape.

Table 1 - Meta-studies of CALL and CMCL since 1991


1.4 - PRACTITIONER STUDIES AS A REFLECTION OS PRACTICES OF USE

Table 2 - Practice: Liu et al.’s corpus

Liu et al.’s corpus to CMCL-specific material after been narrowed down was considered to have a overwhelmingly text-chat-based usage instead of a practiced-based nature as explicitly declared.


1.4 - PRACTITIONER STUDIES AS A REFLECTION OS PRACTICES OF USE

Table 3 - Hassan et al.’s corpusHassan et al. collected a

wider range of CMCL literature than was discussed in their final report.

1.5 - A NEW CONTENT AREA EMERGES


Kern (2006) - Interculturalism: the locus of intense theory-building activity fielding such hypotheses as:

connectivity does not necessarily promote intercultural communication (Belz 2002b);

there are cultural differences in the interaction styles of different students

cohort (Belz, 2003);studies must look at the impact of cultural differences on teachers inintercultural projects (Belz and Müller Hartmann, 2003);

researches should investigate communicative genre and address the need to

situate competence development in specific communication contexts

(Kramsch and Thorne, 2001; Hanna and de Nooy, 2003; Thorne, 2003);

success depends on interpersonal response (O’Dowd, 2003, 2006);

failure and avoidance of interaction may result when students are faced with

cultural misunderstandings from a pan-pal cohort (Ware, 2003)


Hubbard - criticize researchers for reporting projects involving small numbers of untrained learners doing the task for the first time. He recommends, better control of variables in studies through better isolation of prior experience and finger-grained information on initial and exit proficiency. (2005: 360-2)

Hassan et al. - insists that studies must ‘test the effect of a language learning intervention against another intervention, or standard practice or no intervention.’(2005;20)

Liu et al. - concur, observing that in their corpus ‘the use of well-established measures with clear reliability and validity information was…minimal’ (2002:263)

Bax - ‘we need more careful qualitative – I would argue for ethnographic – analyses, in order to understand CALL better (2003: 2)

Levy - ‘Descriptive work is important in all CALL research, but especially for CMC-based work. Researchers need to be highly sensitive to the new phenomena that arise in mediated CALL learning environments’ (2000: 184)

1.6 - THE QUALITY OF CMCL RESEARCH


1.7 - SUMMARY

“It has prioritised questions on conversation and discourse, learnerparticipation (and patterns of interaction) and collaboration (less

from thepoint of view of task design than of learner attitude, motivation

and latterly,intercultural learning opportunities).

CMCL Research (since 1990)

The oral skill remains of interest, with older research looking for facilitation

of oral competence in chat settings, whilst newer research observes newer

speech in synchronous voice-over-Internet environments.The major new content area is intercultural theory. Along with ‘assessment’,

‘teaching delivery’ continues to be under-represented.”

FACULDADE DE LETRAS - FALE CEI - CURSO DE ESPECIALIZAÇÃO EM INGLÊS - ENSINO FIRST SEMESTER - 2010 WORKGROUP: ALEXANDRE FORTES CAMILA LOBATO CAMILA MAGALHÃES.

Documents

language learning process

online communication

based learning

communication lamy

process of learning

interactive learning

bidirectional learning

individualized learning