Electronic Environments (posted 1 / 23 /96)
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This document discusses the characteristics and possible value of various types of electronic environments for teaching and learning languages, addressing mainly Japanese at this point. Surely much, if not all of the contents here have been treated more exhaustively and critically elsewhere. I post it primarily as a service to JPN 632. It deals not only with such environments but also with more conventional ones.

I. General Considerations
A. Conventional Classes
In conventional classrooms, the opportunity for individual interactions is typically limited:
  • The instructor has the floor and all discourse occurs in a linear time sequence.
  • Students have the floor only when requesting it and the instructor complies with the request.
  • The amount of information generated in one class hour is very limited (unless the instructor lectures for the entire period, and then much of the info may be lost).
    B. Realtime Electronic Discussions
    Realtime electronic discussions, such as Daedalus Interchange, computer conferencing systems, allow greater opportunity for interaction.
  • Everyone has the floor. They are able to share all of their (written) utterances with everyone else, subject only to the constraints of computer processing time.
  • Discussion is in realtime, as in conventional classrooms, but some anonymity is provided.
  • The amount of information that emerges is rather great compared to the conventional class, and results from interactions between individuals and the topics of interest.
    C. Video Conferencing (by Computer)
    Video conferencing by computer, e.g. using CUSeeMe, allows individual participants to "meet" with their otherwise unseen keypals. Could be important as an affective aspect of communication.
    D. Audio Conferencing
    Audio conferencing provides some affective information missing from interaction by text, but not as much as vidoeconferencing.
    E. Asynchronous Communication (communication not in real time, e.g. e-mail, voice mail) This includes discussion lists (which include alias lists as well as listserv lists).
  • Closure to a topic of discussion occurs when members choose not to continue discussing it.
  • The amount of information provided is a function of how long the topic continues to elicit further responses.
  • If the list is open, there is a potential increase in the amount, variety of perspectives, (including cultural differences) and range of quality of the information.

    II. Language Learning
    It is fairly easy to see how electronic environments can facilitate learning of academic content. But what if the focus of learning is on language itself rather than content? Can electronic environments help the teacher and learner of a language?
    A. Conventional Classes
    In the conventional class, group and pair work can occupy a significant and productive amount of time. The instructor, however, cannot easily multitask and cannot be party to every utterance of the students. At least to the extent that the class is involved in communicative activities, it performs a valuable function. The class is less useful as a locus for discussions of grammar and other points in comparison with electronic alternatives.
    B. Realtime Electronic Discussions
    The general affective value of video and audio conferencing is the same for both language and non-language classes. Realtime electronic conferencing and keyboarding in general have two apparent advantages:
  • Students can plan what they say
  • They can use reference works to help comprehend what they see/ hear. These are strategic/ tactical advantages for communication, although one must be wary of claiming that they will contribute to oral/listening communication without testing such a hypothesis.
    C. Asynchronous FL Communication
    Asynchronous communication via discussion lists provides even greater strategic advantages. Asynchronous communication in an FL,SL for language practice obviously helps improve ones ability to communicate via keyboarding asynchronously (do I sense a tautology here?). Whether it also helps the learner in realtime communication, especially face to face (f2f) communication remains to be seen. It certainly is an attractive modality of communication.

    III. Implications
    A. Information
    The implications of this new environment are rather far-ranging. As I have pointed out, the learner is confronted with a greater opportunity to interact with both peers in a class and with keypals and with the instructor and other people interested in the learners problems and insights. Learners are exposed to a much greater amount of information than in the conventional course that has no electronic connections. Naturally, one must learn to judge the quality of this information, which should be possible through judicious probing and other interactions as well as sober evaluation of the information obtained. At present, judging the quality of information is a weak area in electronic learning and consulting. There is little quality control over the information flying through the ether. This weakness has been realized, however, and must be grappled with if electronic documents are to have any stature in the scholarly community.
    B. Curriculum Structure
    Electronic environments also can impact the structure of a curriculum: there is little argument about the value of face to face interaction in language learning. Conventional curricula, however, contain many more elements than oral communicative tasks. There are grammar and vocabulary learning, reading and writing, and listening comprehension, as well as acquiring practical knowledge of the culture of the foreign or second language. A conventional classroom attempts to deal with most of the curriculum content, relying on students' use of language laboratories, textbooks and reference aids and homework to cover this content. The student must do this with very little opportunity for interaction either via face to face interaction with the instructor or via the electronic keyboard.
    C. For the instructor
    Instructors may be forced to become computer literate very soon, not only because universities will use the computer far more than they have in the past, but for two other reasons:
  • Students will expect to use electronic environments increasingly as K-12 schools begin to develop them.
  • At the risk of using a cliche, the conventional classroom is now like the horse-drawn carriage at the end of the 19th century, when motor cars began to become the only sensible means of transportation. On a smaller scale closer to home, the word processor has recently overtaken the typewriter for most written work. One rarely thinks of using a typewriter for anything except filling in forms. One can easily imagine that anyone who does not become involved in electronic learning will be left behind in the dust -- a situation that is undesirable for the would-be college teacher (although one could always become a Zen or Taoist monk).
    Instructors may find themselves spending more time at the computer: preparing and uploading documents to their course pages on the Web, interacting with students in discussion lists and newsgroups , providing electronic feedback on writing assignments, engaging in collaborative explorations of topics with their students and in collaborative projects. Time in the conventional classroom will more strongly focus on communicative tasks and exercises and far less on drills or explanations. The information obtained by the instructor is SAVABLE: it can be used to improve the presentation of information about, for example, grammar and composition. Unclear explanations can be edited based on student feedback that is not written on paper, but in electronic files that can be consulted when revising. Typical errors can be analyzed and distributed to students for their information.
    The structure of the class schedule will also change as the modalities of communication are tested and evaluated. It may not make sense to spend five hours a week in the classroom, although certainly the same amount of time, if not more, per week will be spent on teaching and learning the subject matter. Some types of language class, for example writing, will be done mainly if not totally in an electronic environment.
    D. For the learner
    The electronic environment will make students responsible for learning in a way that was difficult to achieve in the conventional class. The role of the instructor changes (in many cases, although the extent to which this may be true with languages remains to be seen) from a provider of content about a subject to a guide to help students find the information they need and to evaluate its quality. (a rather trivial -- but interesting-- example is evaluating the prospects and limits of machine translation). Students must learn most everything on their own, and will come to view theinstructor as a resource -- they will learn to manage their own learning. If it is true that knowledge is now an industry and a commodity, education will become market-driven, by the perceived need for knowledge and information.
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    IV. Web Pages
    Web pages contribute to the paperless class, even moreso than sharing information over a discussion list or via a gophersite.
  • The advantage over a discussion list comes from the document always being there for reading, copying, downloading and possibly manipulating.
  • The advantage over a gophersite is that gopher documents contain no hypertext links -- none of the rich variety of forms and content on a web page.
    From the web page, depending on the type of web browser one is using, it is possible as a student to retrieve software for learning languages either shareware or commercial products by clicking a mouse and waiting for the software to appear on the computer's desktop. The "World Geography" program was retrieved from Tsukuba University via Purdue University in less than five minutes. Online Japanese dictionaries, such as that found at Omron in Japan allow a person anywhere in the world to consult it.
    For the teacher, the Web makes it possible to post documents of relevance to a course, and to link it to other documents anywhere in the world. The e-mail function allows a user to read a hypertext document and then engage in a discussion via a discussion list or newsgroup of the document. The instructor can monitor the discussion and react to it if necessary or desirable.
    Soon the web page will be the standard electronic environment within which to engage in electronic discussions, electronic mail, as well as for exploration of the world's resources on any subject matter, sharing (and marketing) of software, and the like.


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