Your ideas on how language ressources should develop integrating web 2.0 activities
This discussion aims to go back to the basics of this part of the "language resources and web 2.0" research network and adresses the conception and development of language resources. Let's focus here not on the use but on the potenial of development of web 2.0 resources for language learning : Regine Helmer, CEO of Palabea said that this new tool was still in the very beginning and that nobody could oversee how it could develop. We have seen in the research that there are some rare initiative from language method developers to integrate web 2.0 in their methods. that a whole new activity based on mutual, informal learning is developing on the web.
How should we develop these ressources ? Would professionals (publishers, educational media, elearning professionals) be able to conciliate open and free participative tools and CGU with commercialising constructed and didactically overthought language methods ? Has anyone a concept or an idea on how language resource makers could develop meaningfull, pedagogically efficient tools for the classroom ? Or is this subject already a contradiction in itself and is web 2.0 just a tool for "multilingual socialising" ?
Comments
interesting posts... I agree with Fred when he is talking about "potentialities of SM". And I agree with Lidwien when she writes : "They would be a complementary tool for "real life" language learning and aims especially the "interaction" skills outlined in the European frame for language learning".
I have just published a "dossier d'actualité" (VST - INRP) about language learning, the European frame for language learning and SM (http://www.inrp.fr/vst/LettreV...). I mentioned our LS6 project and the report coordinated by Lidwien.
I do think that what is the most important is the task we are asking the students to do. If it is a social task, using SM can be very useful for language learning (I'm talking about formal learning). Let me just quote what I wrote (in French, sorry .)) in the short summary of my work :
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« Les TIC, plus spécifiquement les outils web 2.0 et les outils de communication médiatisée par ordinateur (CMO), bousculent les approches traditionnelles de l'enseignement et favorisent la co-construction de savoirs situés et de trajectoires d'apprentissage centrées sur les apprenants. Le rôle de l'enseignant évolue pour devenir davantage celui d'un tuteur, indispensable au processus d'acquisition des savoirs : il guide les apprenants et leur permet de construire du sens et d'adopter une posture réflexive.
Il semble que si les TIC ne sont pas en soi un atout, elles prennent toute leur importance avec l'approche par tâches qui permet à l'apprenant de ne pas être cantonné dans des apprentissages de bas niveaux. La langue est utilisée à des fins pragmatiques. »
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An interesting use case of web 2.0 I came across a while ago is using Twitter to see how language is used "out there". Students use the Twitter search to see how vocabulary they learn is used by native speakers in everyday communications, very effective way for chunk learning.
Thank you Fred for your thoughts. Of course I agree with you. One of the conclusions of our study on existing tools is that socialising tools are difficult to implement into a pedagogical context, because their object is "fake". But wasn't that the same problem with the media in the eighties : when we said that we should put into the classroom authentic documents with "real life" language that is not pedagogically conceived and that teachers should use them for their potential of bringing "real communication" into the language class?
In that same way, I think that it should be possible to outline a didactically overthought "scenario" within a web 2.0 environment that could be used as an "authentic" learning and teaching tool with a particular communication-learning progression and particular learning objectives. They would be a complementary tool for "real life" language learning and aims especially the "interaction" skills outlined in the European frame for language learning. Or to enhance the "literacy" - become a social actor in another has anyone ideas or experience with this ?
Thanks Lidien for your questions... I am going to try to take a critical stance in what follows.
I am really interested in the last part of what you were asking: "is web 2.0 just a tool for "multilingual socialising" ?"
I think that I would agree. I have the impression that many people are trying to suggest the use of or "impose" web 2.0 on language teachers/students but do they ask themselves why should they do it? They usually present colleagues with a list of applications which look groovy but which do not seem to go very far as far as learning is concerned. As you said, web 2.0 is a socialising place (I am not so sure about "multilingual" though) which is very popular in "private"... but why should people be forced to use them if they don't work for learning languages formally or if they seem to be used artificially? I see social networking more like a living room - or could I even say a "disco room" - where people meet, have fun, may not be so serious... I see its importance for the "private", the "tribal" but not necessarily for the "professional" and "educational". Of course there are many people who use social networking for business or education for their practical sides - but for language learning and teaching I am not convinced yet. In a way I see a link between what's happening with SM in LLT and interculturality or culture in LLT, it looks like something sexy and appealing, it is something that people can integrate - not too seriously or at the end of their lessons to "play" - but I am not sure if what comes out of it is 1) useful and transformative 2) essential.
In any case I believe that many people use SN privately and do learn languages and improve their skills but they probably use basic and common ways of doing it - I mean just like study abroad or letter-writing - probably nothing very fancy. That's probably the main problem with SM and LLT, maybe we expect too much, a very different way of learning and practising languages - but it doesn't seem to be happening or maybe it will never happen.
One final point, at least in Europe, where people face contradictory discourses of "compulsory" multilingualism but on the other hand huge cuts in the provision of language teaching, are people that motivated to learn languages? Do they understand why they should learn languages? Do they actually think that SM may have something to do with language learning? I am sure that some of them do not even think about it. A lot of people use SM to reproduce their "physical" sociality and SM do not equate systematic opening or "quest for" Otherness.
In sum, maybe before asking the question: how could they be used for improving LLT, why not ask ourselves: 1. how could we motivate people to become more interested in the "Other" and foreign languages? 2. how could we make people aware of the potentiality (but not miracle) of SM for LLT? 3. Could learners themselves (and not teachers) come up with ideas in how they could use SM to reach for this "Other" and learn languages or improve their skills?
Just some thoughts, hope they make sense
Fred
I really think Web 2.0 give our young students the possibility of expand not only the knowledge but also give them real life skills. I consider there are plenty of opportunities for youngsters to develop Language through Web 2.0 because is the best way they understand their environment. The point is how teachers are making use of it!!