ICT4LT
Module 2.3ICT4LT
Module 2.3
This module follows on from Module 1.5, Introduction to the Internet, and aims to show how resources on the World Wide Web can be exploited effectively for language teaching and learning. Sections 1 to 4 are a practical guide to using Web resources on- and offline. Section 5 is a more theroretical discussion of the challenges faced by the teacher and by the learner in new learning environments, especially in distance learning, where students need to be autonomous, independent and self-directed agents of their learning and teachers have to be able to support the learning without the aid of face-to-face interactions.
This Web page is designed to be read from the printed page. Use File / Print in your browser to produce a printed copy. After you have digested the contents of the printed copy, come back to the onscreen version to follow up the hyperlinks.
Ros Walker: Ros Walker is the main author of this module. She was employed as a NOF trainer at CILT, UK, when she wrote the first version (published 2000). She currently works as E-learning Manager for the United Learning Trust. The other authors are:
This module has undergone regular revision since it was first published in 2000.
Online: When you connect to the Internet you are working online. If you want to surf the Web using a browser, i.e. move from one page or one website to another, then you have to be online. If you connect from home via a dial-up modem and a standard telephone line, this means that you are probably paying for your connection by the minute. If you are working at a school or college or via an ADSL (broadband) connection at home, then you have permanent access to the Internet and are online all the time. An ADSL (broadband) connection costs much less than a connection via a dial-up modem and a standard telephone line, and it's much faster too. See the Glossary for an explanation of ADSL and broadband. Note that sometimes people use the term online in the sense of having access to the Internet or email, as in the question "Are you online at home?"
Offline: If you are writing a text with a word-processor or working with materials stored on a CD-ROM or a DVD, then you are working offline. If you save Web pages onto the hard disk of your computer (see next section) and work with the pages that you have saved, you are working offline.
Contents of Section 2
Saving Web pages
Saving selections from Web pages
Rüdesheim, Germany (photo by Graham Davies)
Web pages can be created to be used offline. These are simply documents that are stored in HTML format on a local hard disk or CD-ROM, which means that they can be viewed through a browser. The advantage of presenting information in this way is that pages can be linked and make use of hypertext to lead students through their work. They can also be visually attractive. Once created, pages can be run from an institutional intranet rather then uploaded to the Web, which keeps the information within the institution and not accessible worldwide. See Module 3.3 on creating a website.
...but see Section 2.5, Copyright issues.
See also Davies (1998).
The main disadvantages of using Web pages offline are:
When downloading materials or copying from another website, it is most important that you pay attention to copyright. Above all, don't assume that just because material is publicly available on the Web you can do whatever you like with it. You should always check the terms of use at a website before downloading it in whole or in part. The terms of use can usually be found at the bottom of a Web page or via a link at the bottom of the page. The ICT4LT website is, however, fairly liberal in this respect: see our own Copyright notice, which will link you to a Creative Commons Licence specifying our terms.
Copyright infringement is a growing problem, which we refer to in:
See our General guidelines on copyright, which is a general introduction to copyright, drawing on a variety of sources.
Above all:
Contents of Section 3
Web-based CALL is a major growth area. There are a number of sites that offer a variety of interactive exercises of the type that are already well established in "traditional" CALL. See:
Distance learning courses for language students that make use of the Web are now established in The Open University. See:
See also:
Web-based CALL still has a long way to go in terms catching up with the nature and efficiency of the interactivity that is possible using CD-ROM or DVD technology. Currently, the Web may be considered in some ways as an example of "disruptive technology" or "disruptive innovation" (see Christensen 1997 and Christensen & Raynor 2003), insofar as it underperforms as an interactive medium compared to CD-ROMs and DVDs in terms of speed of access, reliability, flexibility and video quality. See:
But see also Felix (2003a) Language learning online: towards best practice, which contains many examples of good practice in online language teaching and learning.
A hybrid approach combining Web-based materials with CD-ROM-based materials may therefore be desirable: see Section 4, Hybrid systems and blended learning. Web-based CALL is particularly weak in the following areas:
See LeLoup & Ponterio (2003) "Interactive and multimedia techniques in online language lessons: a sampler". It's an interesting overview of Web-based materials, but almost everything illustrated in this article could be implemented better and with more spontaneous interaction in an offline environment, e.g. on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM: see Module 2.2. Furthermore, you need to ensure that you have installed up-to-date plug-ins, that you have broadband access and can access the sites at a quiet time of day as they may become congested at peak times.
Most other types of interaction that are listed in Section 5, Module 3.2 can be implemented online, but there is an unfortunate trend for designers of Web-based CALL to adopt a point-and-click-let's-move-on-quick approach, concentrating on flashy presentations and neglecting features such as discrete error analysis, feedback and branching, all of which are well established in CALL research and development. Have a look at the following sites:
See also Section 7, Module 2.5, headed The arrival of the Internet.
Plug-ins: If you access interactive materials on the Web or on a local intranet, you may need to install a plug-in. A plug-in is an extra piece of software that a Web browser needs to run certain elements of a Web page, e.g. audio or video. Web pages incorporating multimedia files often need Flash Player, Shockwave Player or RealPlayer plug-ins. Plug-ins are usually quick and easy to install, normally free of charge and open up a wealth of new material. Sites that require a plug-in usually provide a link to a site from which the essential plug-in can be downloaded. See Section 6, Module 1.5, headed Do you need plug-ins? These are the sites from which Flash Player, Shockwave and RealPlayer can be downloaded:
Finding materials on the Web and using search engines has already been covered in Section 4, Module 1.5, headed How to find materials on the Web. Any search on the Web requires the user to be online. This is because a search engine requires information stored on other computers in order to send the "results" back to your computer.
See also Section 4, Module 1.5, headed How to find materials on the Web.
Some sites allow users to search for specific information. This allows students to work with certain search criteria to gain information. This can form the basis of a communicative activity or a fully interactive activity. Try some of the following activities:
| You need to travel from Berlin to Munich next Tuesday to arrive for a meeting at 13:00. Which train will get you there in time? http://www.bahn.de |
| A friend has asked you to recommend a place they can stay in France.
Try and find a gite that would be suitable for him/her and recommend some
attractions in the local area. http://www.gites-de-france.fr |
| Decide where you live in the UK. You are going to the cinema this afternoon
with three other friends - one likes romantic films, one likes action
movies, one will have her 8-year old son with her and you need to decide
what you would like to see. Which cinema would be best? Which films will
you all see? What times do the films start and finish? Try the Cinema
Finder at Scoot: http://www.scoot.co.uk/ |
There are several websites on the Internet that provide "instant" translations. Students can type in a text, select the language they want to translate into and then click translate. Why not have a go now:
Machine translators do not, however, produce the most accurate results (see Section 3, Module 3.5). This can, however, be used to the student's advantage. Ask your students why the translation package has made certain mistakes: e.g. Has it perceived a noun as a verb? As the students work with the translation and the original to find the errors they can attempt to generate a better version. This activity can be usefully be done in class or working with a partner.
The quality of audio delivered over the Internet has improved significantly.
Audio is delivered via the Web in two different ways::
You also need to be aware of the fact that audio files are stored in various formats, the main two being WAV or MP3. See Section 2.2.3.3, Module 2.2, headed Sound recording and editing software, for further information on file formats and how to make audio and video recordings.
Here is a sample audio file: German_Cafe.wav
This is a downloadable file recorded in WAV format and is taken from the TELL Consortium German Encounters CD-ROM: http://www.hull.ac.uk/cti/tell. You may find that this file will take several seconds to download and will result in a version of the Windows Media Player (or another media player) popping up on screen in order to play it. See the above reference to plug-ins and see Section 2.2.1, Module 2.2, headed Media players and digital language labs. You can save the above WAV file to your hard disk, either using the procedure indicated above in Section 2.1 or using the Save Media As option in the File menu of the Windows Media Player.
Here are two more sample audio files recorded in MP3 format, both of which are taken from a series of audio files commissioned by Camsoft for the Arc-en-Ciel 2 textbook. MP3 takes up far less space than WAV and is now the most commonly used format for storing audio files on the Web:
Video is delivered via the Web in two different ways:
You also need to be aware of the fact that video files are stored in various formats, the main two being MPG or AVI. See Section 2.2.3.4, Module 2.2, headed Video editing software, for further information. Unlike audio, video delivered over the Internet still leaves a lot to be desired in terms of quality and speed of access. Watching broadcast TV is still a preferable option.
Here is a sample downloadable video file in MPG format: Garden.mpg
It has nothing to do with languages. It's just a short clip of Graham Davies's greyhound, Swifty, carrying his lunch in from the garden.
Downloading large audio and video files, or any other kinds of large files, can be tedious. You need a lot of patience waiting for a 5MB video file to download via a 56K modem, and the best thing to do is to make yourself a cup of coffee or take the dog for a walk while you are waiting. You may, however, find that the download process has been timed out or crashed before it has been completed. A download accelerator is therefore essential. Useful tools for downloading large files are:
Such tools not only speed up the process of downloading, even if you have a fast broadband connection, but they also allow you to schedule specific times for downloading, e.g. at off-peak periods when the Web is less congested. If a download fails for any reason you can resume it and continue downloading from the point at which it failed.
Streaming audio or streaming video rarely plays satisfactorily if you connect to the Internet via a modem and a standard telephone line.
Have a look at the following websites, where yoiu can find regular streaming audio and streaming video broadcasts::
You will need a plug-in to view streaming audio or streaming video. You will find that when you click on an icon that signifies the availability of streaming audio or video material, your browser will link with a plug-in. If the plug-in is not already installed on your computer then you will be able to download it free of charge.
Note: It is possible to save streaming audio or streaming video clips to your hard disk so that they can be used offline, but you may need special software to do it. The reason for this is that sites that offer streaming audio or streaming video normally don't want you to download it for copyright reasons - and they may specify this in their terms of use. There are several software tools available that enable you to capture streaming audio and streaming video media. See:
See these sites for further useful links:
Podcasting is an interesting recent development. A podcast is a broadcast digital audio recording, usually in MP3 format, made available via the Internet in a way that allows the recording to be downloaded automatically for listening at the user's convenience. A vodcast is a broadcast digital video recording, usually in MPG format.
The term podcast takes its name from a combination of iPod (Apple's portable digital media player) and broadcasting, but podcasts and vodcasts do not necessarily require the use of an iPod or similar device. Podcasts and vodcasts can simply be downloaded to a computer and played using a standard media player program.
There is growing band of enthusiastic amateurs currently creating podcasts and vodcasts, but many appear on the websites of professional broadcasting stations, e.g. the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk. When you access a Web page offering podcasts or vodcasts look for the icon bearing the initials RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Essentially, RSS allows you to see when websites have added new content. It can feed you information on the latest podcasts and vodcasts (and also articles in text format) as soon as they are published, hence the term RSS feed. RSS is what makes a podcast or vodcast different from an audio or video recording that has simply been made available via the Web, i.e. you can subscribe or sign up for a series of podcasts or vodcasts. It's rather like the difference between popping into your local newsagent to buy an occasional copy of a magazine or taking out a subscription for a magazine that appears at regular intervals. However, the terms podcast and vodcast are often used loosely to describe digital audio and video recordings in general. A good explanation of RSS is provided at the BBC website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/rss/
Podcasts and vodcasts are available in an increasing range of different languages, providing a wide choice of authentic listening materials. See the Podcast Directory under the heading International Broadcasts: http://www.podcast.net
Bear in mind that downloaded podcasts and vodcasts can be linked with another packages, e.g. the new multimedia version of Fun with Texts, and exploited more intensively. See Section 8, Module 1.4, headed Text manipulation.
Why not get your own students to try their hand at making a podcast? It will provide them with useful practice in planning, writing and speaking. The motivation is that they will be addressing a potentially large public audience who will listen to their work. If you get your students to make their own digital audio recordings, this task needs to be planned and organised in just the same way as teachers planned and organised such tasks in the old days of reel-to-reel recordings. The new technology has just made the process easier and more flexible - but only once you have mastered the process of making and editing a digital audio recording, using a tool such as Audacity or AudioSurgeon, and learning how to post the results on the Web in the form of a podcast. Above all, it's the delivery medium that makes podcasts different. Don't forget that recordings live or die according to (a) the quality of their content, (b) what you do with them. See:
Simply making digital recordings available to language students may not be effective per se. Remember what happened when satellite TV first became available. Teachers were initially overwhelmed by the technology. "Wow! What a great resource!" they thought. But students, left to their own devices, did not get a lot out of watching satellite TV. They tended to let the broadcasts just wash over their heads. The answer was to encourage students to view broadcasts in a more active way, for example by introducing generic worksheets into the satellite TV viewing room. A worksheet for news broadcasts might contain a few simple tasks to be completed by the students and filed in a personal portfolio that their teachers could review from time to time. e.g.
This strategy could work well for podcasts and vodcasts too.
Further references
See also Section 9, Module 1.5, headed Potential problems with using the Web.
Hybrid systems usually comprise a collection of materials made available on CD-ROM or on an institutional intranet, with links to the Web and regular contact with tutors by email, telephone or videoconferencing. Such a system was piloted by Matthew Fox, Southampton Institute, in his French course that was developed for business users in the mid-1990s, the Language Learning Network (Fox 1998). All the core materials that the students needed for the course were supplied on CD-ROM. This enabled them to do exercises involving the playback of audio recordings offline, so that they did not have to experience the long delays that would have occurred if they had accessed the recordings via the Web - at the time access to the Internet was available mainly via slow modems. Contact with tutors was made in a variety of ways: face-to-face, email, telephone and (where available) videoconferencing. See Section 14.1.3, Module 1.5, headed Videoconferencing: a synchronous communications medium.
Playing back audio recordings over the Web is no longer a problem, but the quality of video on the Web still leaves a lot to be desired. Video on CD-ROM or on DVD, however, is now of excellent quality. As indicated above in Section 3.1, "Web-based CALL still has a long way to go before it catches up with what is already possible on CD-ROM". See Module 2.2, Introduction to multimedia CALL. See also the article by Rogerson-Revell (2005) on developing a hybrid system.
Even now, with the arrival of broadband, learning environments involving distance and face-to-face contact modes and the use of multiple-media - often referred to as blended learning - are commonplace. Felix (2001) is enthusiastic about the usefulness of the Web in language learning and teaching, but she is also realistic and also mentions its shortcomings compared to other delivery media, e.g. the problems associated with bandwidth and plug-ins, and the lack of universal standards for accessing the Web:
“While improvements have not been uniform, they have been achieved largely by way of better technologies that have led, among other things, to better presentation. This is notable in the case of graphics and sound, even if the Web still cannot match the reliable quality offered by CD-ROM. […] Technological advance, however, is not always an unmixed blessing; while we are still waiting for the long promised broadband services to become widely available, sites using the latest developments in graphics can take a wearying time to download over a 56K modem. There are other problems online, too – some plug-ins do not work in every context, and some sites are available only to Internet Explorer or Netscape, while others cater for Windows but not Macintosh. The Web’s ideal of universal standards is not always achieved.” (Felix 2001:189)
This is why the designer of online language learning materials is advised to adopt
“[…] hybrid approaches designed to avoid potential technical problems, such as downloading activities from the Web on to a self-contained intranet, integrating CD-ROMs and the Web, or running audio conferencing or videoconferencing with Web activities.” (Felix 2001:190)
In the abstract to his EUROCALL 20003 keynote paper Dieter Wolff stated:
"My conclusion will be that in order to be efficient Web-based courses should be blended or hybrid: apart from virtual modules they should also include face-to-face interaction. Our data seem to indicate that the degree of face-to-face interaction necessary to make a Web-based course efficient can be seen as related to the specific content and also to the learning aims of the course." (Wolff 2003)
Unfortunately, the new generation of language teachers, i.e. those who have entered the world of CALL in the post-Web period (post-1993), often perceive the Web as the only ICT resource . This has led to a blinkered attitude towards ICT and an acceptance of poor-quality CALL materials that would have been unacceptable as long ago as the mid-1980s. CD-ROMs and DVDs still offer a rich resource of CALL material - see Module 2.2, Introduction to multimedia CALL - and there is no reason why traditional media, e.g. printed materials, audiocassettes and videocassettes, and radio and TV broadcasts should not continue to play an important role in language teaching and learning. Graham Davies writes (unpublished email communication, 2005):
"I am a strong advocate of CALL - and have been since I first got involved with computers in 1976. Since the advent of the Web in 1993 I have been a keen Web user. I always turn to the Web when seeking general information, booking flights, buying books and DVDs, etc. Last year (2004), in anticipation of a visit to Poland to attend a planning meeting for EUROCALL 2005, I decided I would put my money where my mouth is and attempt to acquire a basic knowledge of Polish using ICT. I used to teach German and French and I have had a go at learning basic Russian, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Chinese and Hungarian - mainly for "survival" purposes and mainly in more traditional ways. My preferred way of learning a language - apart from going abroad, being immersed in the language and sampling the local food and wine - is to follow a video course, backed up by a coursebook containing a reference grammar, a vocab list and exercises, e.g. along the lines of the BBC Buongiorno Italia series - from which I learned a lot and which I was able to use on frequent camping holidays in Italy in the 1980s. I also welcome supplementary ICT materials, on- or offline. Sadly, the BBC has shut down the unit that produced broadcast TV courses like Buongiorno Italia and is now concentrating on Web-based courses, which are not nearly as interesting or comprehensive as their former broadcast TV courses. As a learner and a teacher, I usually find the Web a good reference source. But when I tried to find a Polish course on the Web I found nothing that was suitable. Most Web-based learning materials for Polish didn't offer high-quality audio, none offered video and none offered the possibility of recording oneself and hearing the recordings played back, which is absolutely essential when learning Polish pronunciation, particularly those horrendous-looking consonant clusters as in "przepraszam" ("sorry", "excuse me"). So I went back to older technology and bought the EuroTalk series of CD-ROMs (Talk Now, World Talk and Vocab Builder) - all of which offer a "virtual language lab" activity. But I found these lacking in grammar explanations and dialogues, so I went back again to older technology and bought Routledge's Colloquial Polish book, which offers lots of situational dialogues and covers the grammar very well. Finally, I needed something that I could put in my pocket for survival in common situations while travelling, e.g. for taxi journeys, ordering drinks in bars and meals in restaurants, so I bought Berlitz's Polish phrase book. So I did use ICT, but only as a part of the learning materials, and I used nothing at all online."
This section considers the implications of the teacher-student relationship and interaction in an online Web-based learning environment. It presents the arguments for new, more flexible models for teaching - which are particularly applicable to online Web-based teaching/learning environments - and argues the case for a more equal relationship between teacher and student. Section 5 has been written by:
Contents of Section 5
Interaction may be one of the buzz-words among teachers, learning researchers and educational technologists today, but not in vain. The socio-constructivist views on thinking and learning argue that most knowledge is an interpretation of personal experiences and is social in nature. In other words, knowledge is jointly constructed in interaction (cf. Resnick, Levine & Teasley 1991; Salomon 1993). Lave & Wenger (1991), among others, have put forward the idea of cognitive apprenticeship (see also Collins, Brown & Newman 1989). According to this view, learning is a process of participation in communities of practice, at first legitimately peripheral, working its way to more central positions. Learning occurs in interaction through cognitive apprenticeship in real contexts, in authentic learning tasks.
This learning theoretical framework sets forth teaching/learning interaction, i.e. the meaning-making and knowledge-construction process as a focal point for developing new educational solutions and redefining the role of teachers and students. What we need are ways to support interaction in such a way that it enhances the learning of the group. However, teaching and learning interaction (be it from the point of view of expert mentoring, process tutoring or technical facilitation) is never straightforward transmission of knowledge. Instead, it is a complex process of negotiation of meaning, in which listening as much as active participation plays a central role.
This section discusses interaction and the teacher's role in Web-based learning environments. We take a critical look at models which solely focus on the teacher's interactional moves, i.e. the strategic approaches. In our conclusion we suggest a new metaphor for teaching in Web-based environments. This approach, "the teacher as an ethnographer", involves developing working practices which advance active listening skills and a research perspective among participants into the activities around the study process. As teaching and learning interaction on the Web lack many of the immediate means of meaning-making available in face-to-face communication, this sets special challenges for the teacher to meet in Web study projects.
The traditional classroom interaction pattern puts the student in the position of an object of assessment: the teacher initiates, the student responds, and the teacher closes the sequence by either accepting or rejecting the student's turn (Sinclair & Coulthard 1975). The teacher examines the performance of the student almost in every turn, but is not him/herself who is subjected to assessment with reference to the acceptability of his/her actions in the context of learning tasks. This pattern is problematic for many reasons. If most interaction is initiated by the teacher then there does not seem to be much space for negotiation of meaning and collaborative knowledge construction. In ordinary conversations all interlocutors initiate and close conversations and this is the way shared understanding, shared knowledge and shared goals are built. What is missing in traditional classroom discourse is active listening, and in a sense, genuine participation in learning interactions. Such a pattern does not give the teacher much possibility for analysing and utilising the skills and resources the students already have unless students have a chance of initiating topics. We suggest that the patterns of ordinary conversation should be taken as models for learning and teaching interactions as well.
It seems that teacher discourse style affects the kind of discourse created in learning situations. Ahern et al. (1992:307) point out, for example, that the conversational approach by the teacher in computer-mediated discussion increases peer-peer interaction and the quality of responses. This seems to be the case even though the institutional context of study sets certain requirements upon the teacher to fulfil (e.g. responsibility for the process, encouraging all the students in the study, contributing to the communicative atmosphere so that the participation threshold is low enough). In other words, the whole context of the learning/communicative environment should be considered from the point of view of what kind of interaction it allows and encourages.
Silverman’s (1997) observations in his treatment of the discourses of counselling seem relevant here. He suggests that focusing on particular strategies in interaction may lead to the counsellor ignoring the communicative resources of the other interlocutor. We claim that his situation is transferable to the learning context as well. Still, this does not mean neglect of focused teaching but proposes that the practices, framework, goals, etc. of what is being done should consciously be renegotiated together between those who are involved in the learning environment.
Current learning theoretical advancements, together with the emergence of new learning environments, thus suggest a need for changes in teaching: We need new flexible models for teaching practice. The role of a teacher, as well as that of the learner, is no longer stable, but the requirements change from day to day in the spirit of lifelong learning. Following the idea of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger 1991), we cannot truly talk about learners and teachers, but, instead, of diverse identities which produce a continuum at the other end of which we have the "newcomers", in the middle the "journeyfolk" and at the other "old-timers". A teacher may be an expert of his/her specific area, but the students also have different kinds of expertise. This principle becomes obvious in computer-supported learning projects, in which students often are the masters of the medium instead of the teacher.
Several approaches to developing the teacher's role to meet these demands have been suggested. A reflective practitioner (Schön 1983, 1987) is a teacher who critically examines his/her teaching practice and develops it further. Teachers could also be seen as co-learners. This metaphor suggests that instead of delivering content to the students from an expert point of view, a teacher should engage in collaborative research projects with the students. This approach would involve the teacher assisting the students in the process, but also learning from it as an equal participator. As authenticity and originality of the learning process are essential for successful learning projects, and good learning outcomes, the students should also be engaged in planning the learning tasks, processes and environments. In a sense, a new working metaphor for a teacher could be a co-designer: an expert of learning and content area who designs learning tasks and processes together with the students. When the students are involved in planning the process and contents of learning projects their motivation towards and engagement with them increases.
New learning environments, or the learning applications of ICT, are demanding for teachers and students, especially in distance learning. Students need to be autonomous, independent and self-directed agents of their learning. Teachers have to be able to support the learning, without the aid of face-to-face interactions, in most cases through written communication. In reality, Web-based learning projects rarely rely on Web-based instruction only. These projects are usually also supported by small-group meetings, lectures and other more traditional forms of contact teaching. The need for straightforward distance education rises almost solely in remote areas, or in the case of educating isolated and distributed expert groups.
At the same time, pedagogical applications of ICT allow collaborative or team teaching, which is one of the most powerful benefits of networked learning environments. On Internet-based courses, for instance, it is possible to bring in several different kinds of experts and novices together to share issues for study (cf. Saarenkunnas et al. 2000). Indeed, the theories of distributed cognition (Salomon 1993, Hutchins 1991) and socially shared cognition (Resnick et al. 1991), emphasise that the power of a group in building new knowledge and solving problems is more than the sum of its individual members. Students are entitled to this opportunity of shared expertise, which is now easily available via networked environments, in projects where several teachers and their students collaborate.
In a sense, the demands for redefining our roles in Web-based environments is no different from the demands we meet in traditional classroom teaching. However, new Web-based environments and ICT provide us opportunities to reshape instruction by forcing us to redesign teaching practices. Involvement and commitment to a collaboratively built process is a key issue here. A teacher has no way of knowing whether a student is attending the course, let alone learning, if you cannot make them to interact and express themselves. A silent student in a classroom may give the teacher feedback by extra-linguistic means, a silent student in a Web-based environment does not have this possibility.
With the evolution of the pedagogical applications of ICT, different kinds of tutoring approaches have been developed and discussed. Even though many of these approaches are highly structured, they offer a fairly simple model to start with. Through these classifications of tutoring moves, teachers/tutors may increase their awareness of their own interactional repertoires and expand them. Bonk and King’s (1998) twelve forms of learning assistance below illustrate a strategic approach into mentoring.
This list serves as a good point of departure, through which different aspects of the role of mentor and teaching/learning interaction can be explored. It shows, for example, that direct instruction and questioning - unlike in the traditional classroom pattern - are not the only possible moves. However, developing successful mentoring practices cannot solely be based on a strategic approach.
First of all, since interaction is a process in which meanings are negotiated, we cannot be sure that the feedback we give will be interpreted according to our intentions. For example a move, which is aimed at serving as social acknowledgement could as well be taken as a criticism. Kuure, Saarenkunnas and Taalas (1999) point out, that from the teacher's perspective it is impossible to find out what kind of thought processes individual mentoring moves evoke in a student. Their analysis of mentoring in the COW (Conferencing On the Web) environment shows that, for example direct mentoring questions were seldom answered by the students in their postings. This does not necessarily mean, that the questions the mentors pose do not support learning and evoke thoughts. However, because the students rarely seem to respond, we have no way of knowing how they interpret the teacher feedback.
Intentional teaching moves are not the only clues according to which participants in a Web-based environment interpret the teacher's and students' roles. There is also a complexity of social and interactional relationships negotiated in pedagogic situations which teachers and students are rarely aware of what shapes the practices of learning (cf. Sarangi 1998:90 & 106). On the other hand, there are the institutionalised statuses of teachers and students with their expected and predictable behaviour patterns, and on the other, the variety of roles and tasks, negotiated by speakers and hearers in natural conversation. This means that different students may have very different perceptions of what appropriate learning behaviour is: what kind of interactional roles are acceptable.
The concept of co-researcher has already become established in the university context to describe an ideal teacher-student relationship. This involves a desire towards equality: teachers are ready to hand (at least some of) their power over to the students. This is seen as a prerequisite and opportunity for the students (and teachers) in making their learning tasks ‘authentic’, real-world-like and meaningful.
In the course of such a development, some dissatisfaction with the situation has also grown among teachers speculating whether students really are ready to take over any power or responsibility for their own learning. Learning contracts are made in the attempt to raise the level of commitment of both teachers and students in the study processes (i.e. to ensure the ‘quality’ of learning), which indicates that it is all participants in the learning community that have responsibility for its success. In relation to the strategic approach, which emphasises the teacher’s role as the facilitator of the learning process, the co-researcher approach described above puts the whole learning community into focus.
Borrowing from the terminology of qualitative research, we would like to further define the co-researcher perspective as an ethnographic process as the latter in perhaps more thoroughly conveys the ideals connected with new learning theories. Ethnographers rely on qualitative study, which involves a variety of data, methods, researchers and practitioners in the pursuit of achieving a deeper understanding of the phenomenon in focus. One single source of information or student feedback shows merely one perspective into the issue of quality of learning/teaching. Ethnography requires time and communication between the participants and it examines the target of study in its wide context, challenging what seems obvious and everyday. Such an ethnographic perspective minimises the danger of incorrect conclusions such as uncritical claims about causal relationships between teacher actions and student reactions. We would like to stress that listening is at least as important a communicative skill for the teacher as speaking.
The nature of ethnographic study is often "doing research with people", not "on" them. Creating an ethnographic atmosphere in a learning community is a challenge for a teacher as the traditional pattern of classroom interaction and interaction around the ‘institutions’ of education places the participants in an unequal power situation even though this is not desired. It cannot be denied that the institutional status of teachers does assign them more power, and there is no need to get rid of all of it either. Instead, it is necessary for us to admit the existence of such constraints (e.g. the right of the teacher to pass or fail students on a course) that underlie the learning situations and how they are interpreted by teachers and students.
The following three extracts from an international Web-based course in the field of teacher education (Spring 1999) illustrate the kind of teacher activity, which aims at equality and co-partnership in learning among teachers and students.
Student: School is in turbulent change because of [...]
Teacher: This seems a topical question in Finland at the moment - our
school laws have just changed and [...] So it is exciting times here - will
these new laws prompt good practice or will they be exploited for saving purposes?
Commentary: The comment by the teacher identifies the student's point as important. Such "evaluation" of the student's contribution as relevant or not relevant is a typical feature of traditional classroom discourse. However, in this case, the teacher continues by bringing in different alternatives for development in terms of the problem, and, finally, leaves the issue open.
Teacher: I was thinking that actually it should not so much be a question of how you plan your computer activities and lessons but also how you see the whole learning process and what your ideas about the goals of teaching/learning. It is enlightening sometimes to stop and ask yourself: "What ARE your goals now, really?" Only secondary is how these goals are achieved. I've felt this kind of questioning of what you are doing helps you to SEE these goals (which are often something else than you might say at first) and then it is easier to choose the way(s) to reach them and make it clear to the students as well.
Commentary: Here the teacher softens her comment through hedging. This means that instead of a direct opinion or point of view, which from a person of higher institutional hierarchy (e.g. teacher vs. student) might hamper free exchange of ideas, the teacher makes the point "vaguer" or softer (e.g. I was thinking, actually). The example also illustrates the teacher's role as an "ethnographer" in showing the importance of questions leading below the surface of phenomena. The consideration also serves as an example of the work of the teacher as a reflective practitioner.
Teacher: I was tutoring two student teachers last spring. [...] I was astonished at the question technique they were using [...]. It was really great to see how the students got the children involved in the discussion and skilfully led the course of action by questions when needed and encouraged the students to talk. Those situations have puzzled me ever since and I have thought that I should try to develop that technique more consciously myself. [...]
Commentary: Here the teacher positions herself as a co-learner by indicating that teacher expertise does not mean that the teacher should have all the answers, but is dynamic in nature. She implies this by presenting a classroom situation in which she had felt to be a novice in relation to the student teachers. The comment also suggests that problems in the field are often complex and require a long time to consider. Being a teacher involves constant learning from others.
This learning task is a real long-term "research project":
If you surf the Web, use email or floppy disks sent to you by other people, you need to be protected against virus invasions. A virus is a nasty program devised by a clever programmer, usually with malicious intent. Viruses can be highly contagious, finding their way on to your computer's hard drive without your being aware of it and causing considerable damage to the software and data stored on it. Viruses can be contracted from files attached to email messages, e.g. Microsoft Word files, or from floppy disk. Be very wary of opening an email attachment of unknown origin, as this is the commonest way of spreading viruses. See Graham Davies's Cautionary Tale, which includes references to viruses, spam, adware and spyware.
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Bangs P. (2001) EUROCALL 2001 paper entitled "Will the Web catch enough flies? Where Web-based learning cannot yet reach".
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Godwin-Jones R. (2001) Language Interactive: language learning and the Web. This website is a good introduction for teachers wishing to make use the Web: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/cgi/1.html
Godwin-Jones R. (2001) Language Interactive: a trailguide to creating dynamic Web pages. This website contains useful information for language teachers wishing to create Web-based materials: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/cgi/interact.html
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Windeatt S., Hardisty D. & Eastment D. (2000) The Internet, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Don't be misled by the very general sounding title. This is aimed at learners of English as Foreign Language. There is a good deal of useful material and activities which could be adapted for MFL too.) Website: http://www.oup.com/elt/teacher/rbt/
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