I think that there are a lot of considerations to be made before choosing to incorporate online chat into a language classroom, and the most important of these seem to be perhaps the same considerations that you would make with any activity: WHY are students doing this, WHAT is the goal of such an activity, and HOW will it be meaningful to them. Because there are a lot of holes in using such activities for certain learning outcomes should not mean that you ignore the importance of these skills, though. I think that students will see the face value of working with such mediums using English, and gain something from it. I also think that it is important to consider that some forms of communication such as texting or online chat can be activities that are included at the end of a session, and treated more like ungraded practice using something that they will surely want to in their lives. I do think it is important to set ground rules as far as you can,though, mainly that exclusively English is to be used. Just as activities can be done in the classroom that are not encountered in the real world, activities exclusively carried out outside of class can be practiced within it. I think part of really knowing a language is knowing the many way its users work with it, and that the variations and features of these increasingly popular forms of communication are part of that.
I have to agree with Heidi on this one. One of my biggest issues with chatting exercises and CALL for that matter is what is the overall objective for students. Most importantly, the task MUST be meaningful and authentic for it to be beneficial to the students. For instance, if students are using a chatting software both students are in the same room, the overall validity of such a task may be jeopardized resulting from tis lack of authenticity. What ESL/EFL instructors have to keep in mind is that the most important features of the lesson should be the objectives and if those goals are more likely achievable through nonCALL activities, such activities should be implemented. On the same note, if such goals are more easily achievable through CALL activities, then CALL is the way to go. As technology is evolving at an tremendous rate, unsurpassed to anything we have seen, certain new software/technology are also becoming obsolete at the very same rate. I am all for the use of technology (including chat clients) in the classroom so long as it is being used as a tool to achieve a larger goal and not because it is the "latest" and "greatest" software ever created...
I agree with both Heidi and Marc. Heidi's point about having a clear purpose and goal for online chatting activities is important, as well as Mark's point about making these tasks meaningful and authentic.
I found Zai & Zhao's reading to be useful, especially in the sense that online chatting helps L2 students to notice lexical errors. One of the benefits to online chatting is its visual salience. For visual learners, this is particularly useful in acquiring the L2. On the other hand, online chatting may not be as beneficial for aural learners. Zai & Chao brought up an interesting finding: during face-to-face interactions, there were more morphosyntactic corrections, or recasts. During face-to-face interaction, there is more negotiation of meaning, which I believe, forces interlocuters to correct sentence structure, and word endings, etc., moreso than vocabulary. Verbal recasts, at times, are not always "noticed" by the interlocuters, whereas written corrections induce more noticing. In short, I think that there is a benefit to online chatting, but I also believe that it should not be the only tool used in the classroom, to promote L2 accuracy in form and meaning.
I am in agreement with everyone's comments so far. Authenticity is extremely important - my only issue with this in regards to online chatting is what topic constitutes an authentic task. I don't know how everyone else uses chatting but for me it's normally limited to "Hey, what's going on?" "Nothing. Working. You?" "Working." "Cool." "See ya." "See ya." So, with that in mind, I might have issues finding an online chatting task that is truly authentic. With skype and telephones, any tasks that might be too difficult to accomplish through online written chatting would probably turn into a phone call. However, I really do like the "noticing" feature of online chatting. The speed of chatting is similar to that of normal real-time speaking so L2 speakers' editing instinct might give way to the need to keep up. So, going back and looking at what was naturally produced would be very beneficial in showing the learners (and the instructor) what their mistakes are. Often, learners already know some of their weak areas but they may be oblivious to others. This activity would shed light on those dark spots as long as the student, the chatting partner or the instructor notices that something is wrong. As for classroom use, I think any task would exit the realm of real online chatting. So, with this admission of a lack in authenticity, any reasonable activity that would engage the students would be acceptable. The purpose, however, wouldn't be for an authentic experience but to hopefully cause some "noticing" on the part of the learners.
Lai and Zao's article shows us that online chat has the potential to benefit students language skills by drawing their attention to (or NOTICING) their own linguistic errors. It seems that most of us can agree that this potential exists but many of us are unsatisfied with the types of activities we have seen thus far and concerns arise over the actual practical applications of online chatting in language classrooms. I would suggest that you can make chatting activities relevant to language students if you consider the potential that online chatting has in developing other job or other skills as well. Although software does become obsolete quickly (as Marc mentions), the World Wide Web is not going to just go away and our careers and daily lives will become more and more dependent on it. Tech support, product support, and other types of business correspondence are all becoming more chat-based to provide customers and employees with immediate, easily-accessible assistance in real time. Students could be given a problem that requires providing detailed descriptions of the problem itself and possible solutions based on different information given to each student (such as fixing a malfunctioning toaster). If students are more interested in academic fields or education, there are still many potential activities instructors can implement. Online tutoring, distance learning, and news/professional correspondence are also beginning to involve more and more text-based online chatting, so describing an event or concept, discussing an issue, or solving some sort of problem are all relevant tasks. These are actual job skills!!! Getting one's true meaning across in these types of interactions can be difficult for even native speakers of a language, so students should be encouraged to focus on language during online encounters, but the primary focus of a chatting activity does not have to be on the language itself.
After reading this Lai / Zhao article (in addition to other CMC articles), one thing that really intrigues me is the potential that chat holds within the ESL / EFL classroom. I fully realize that chat has become a separate entity (separate from speaking & from writing & from grammar) but I feel that it holds the key for improved language learning due to the fact that it is somewhat of a marriage between the 3 aforementioned skills - blending the benefits of what each skill offers (amongst other things like adding in it's own unique traits). It's good to see research like in this article, but I can see the benefits first hand when I chat/text in a foreign language and it's crazy cool to see how it's actually helping with my own personal language learning.
I agree with everyone's thoughts on this blog, but I would especially like to emphasize how important it is to use the technology for the right purposes. I love Ryan's idea on "getting help" via chat as that's an incredibly realistic purpose. Other possible ideas for classroom use could be:
#1 - The lesson is on personal schedules / managing your day. 2 students plots out their schedules for the week (they are not shared) and then the 2 students use chat to try to figure out when they could set time to do a few items like: go to lunch / see a movie / work on a school project... etc...
#2 - Discussion on something like a book the 2 students just read / a movie they just saw.
The above activities would be activities that I could easily see myself talking to a friend about in a chatroom - thereby setting authentic purposes for the technology.
I agree with everyone’s comments and I would like to add to one of Rosetta’s ideas. To make the discussion more meaningful, students could be assigned to read different books/watch different movies, so they could negotiate meaning, exchange new information. Their job would be to chat with their peers about what they read/watched, and as a final activity, they would have to talk about each other’s books/movies in class.
For me, I believe that quality input is required for quality output and I'm not sure if online chat necessarily counts as quality input.
I recently had an interview to work as an online instructor and one of the questions was something like "what kind of responses are appropriate to student writing on discussion boards?" -- really the question was about "on-line tone" and how you relate to students online where posts and e-mails are famously "flat" compared to spoken language.
That question made me think along the lines of these articles -- that there are different social rules and norms in online chat and face-to-face chat. It would be good to introduce students to these differences early.
I agree with Jonathan that students should be introduced early on to the different rules and norms in online and face-to-face chat and with everyone else who questions the meaningfulness and authenticity of using online chat in the classroom or as a learning activity.
What I do like about online chat programs is that in a way they serve to bridge the gap between speaking and writing - students don't need to engage in the formality of actual writing assignments but are afforded more time than in face-to-face speech to compose their thoughts (and, as the article mentioned, notice errors).
The other question that was brought up in class, and that I think needs to be further addressed, is how does the instructor monitor online chatting, and if she does, does that inauthenticate the activity? Online chatting is typically used in informal settings, and the participants are focused on communicating rather than having their conversation evaluated. Knowing that the instructor might require a copy of a chat may hinder a student from speaking freely and authentically. At the same time, students are not focused on the preferred ways to communicate certain things but merely about getting their meaning across, and both he and his partner may not capitalize on opportunities to stretch themselves and learn something new.
Message boards, while perhaps a little intimidating because students know that an entire online community will be reading and responding to them, might serve to eliminate some of these concerns. The problem with message boards, however is that students will not receive instant feedback, and lessons toward negotiating meaning might be lost in the shuffle.
I think the concept of using chat applications for language learning is extremely interesting. The whole debate of authenticity and chat activities reminds me of something a computer teacher in my undergrad said. She talked about how computers, internet, media and advertising are going to have an effect on our language and the way we communicate information. Increasingly, we want information more immediate- get rid of the clutter and give the necessities. This especially reminded me of language used in businesses. During, business writing I was told over and over to cut out the clutter in my emails and letters- be more direct.
So what does this have to do with Chat??
Well I think chat is the same way and I don't think we should try to make it something its not. Rarely have I ever gotten into lengthy debates or philosophical musings on chats. I have always used chats for making plans to get together, touching base to see how someone is doing, or help on a homework problem. And like Ryan mentioned, I have used chat for technical support (in fact, I used it last night with ATT).
So here's my idea:
EITHER Chat could easily be used in a English for Business class. Students could chat between "departments" to figure out a problem related to that business- it would have to be quick and effective so that time isn't wasted and neither is money
OR
Students could be in a stimulated environment where they are chatting with a customer service agent on how to solve a problem with their computer, phone or so on. Students would have to be clear and simple about what the problem is (which can be really hard to do)
THe problem with both of these ideas is monitoring- but since technology is changing so quickly it might not be a problem in a year or so
I agree with all the doubts and questions that have surfaced in this discussion. What I gathered from the readings is that applications such as chats and discussion boards can be effective tools to enable students to "notice" a grammatical component. Now in terms of promoting fluency in the language, I think that the problem too is how to decide what is a meaningful task to give students in a chat environment. For me personally, I cannot divorce writing with the idea that there is grammar and lexical structures behind this. I would promote tasks in which my students are given a lot of structure. I was thinking that if we give students specific prompts such as create questions before you go into and text message someone, students would have a better foundation for looking at what structures they would need in order to send the correct messages to others. Since my students will be High School students, and not distance-learners, I believe that they might not necessarily be using or needing to much messenging meetings versus the real spoken activities. I do agree however, that using messengers would provide a great way for helping eachother. I liked Roy's idea of using messengers to promote tutoring or things like that. If I had the opportunity I would love to someday pair up non-native students with native students. Hopefully set up an online tutoring task.
I agree with most of the statements above. I am going to refer to a few, so I apologize if I don't refer to you by name when borrowing your idea...
In reference to Nathan's comments, I use chat as a way of communicating with people whom I fail to communicate with otherwise. Many of my friends live in other states, so if I see someone online, we have drawn out conversations over chat because we can do that while doing something else online. I might not have the time to actually call that person, and without the immediate feedback, I might be unsure as to what that person would want to know about via email. Moving on to Nathan's comment about "noticing", I agree that one way to benefit from chat is for the class to go back to the chat script and look for mistakes. I do see Lai & Zhao's point about the chatter making immediate corrections. Once you write something, even in your native language sometimes, you realize it doesn't look right, and rewrite it. Chat is so flexible, that you are not holding up the conversation by taking a few minutes, if at all, to respond (that's why chat beeps every time a new message is received). Also, if both chatters are communicating for second language communication purposes, corrective feedback from the other chatter and negotiation of meaning will be more likely over chat. As for Rosetta's suggestions, I think that they are great! Of course it would be great to have the chatters discuss a movie or something! But I agree with Marc in that it would be pointless if the chatters are in the same room and are doing it solely as an assignment, so I am going to change the scenario... My interest is second language learning, specifically German. In my case, chatting sounds like a great way to get exposure to the language with immediate feedback. Chat, as is discussed in a later article, can be used for intercultural interaction. I am now going to take Rosetta's idea and Kramsch & Ware's model and apply them to an intercultural, yet somewhat structured, exchange over chat. We would have two instructors from two different countries (each learning the language of the other) who have decided that their classes interact over chat. These instructors can ask their students to watch two films, both being culturally relevant to both of the cultures respectively. When the students chat, they can be asked to discuss the films. In this scenario, the students are exchanging language with a native speaker of the target language AND they are having a cultural interchange in a structured environment. They are learning how the other culture perceives a film from their culture. Although the activity is inauthentic in that the conversation topic is regulated, what is actually being said will not be. I agree with those who suggest that scripts be printed out for the instructor's evaluation.
I think that there are a lot of considerations to be made before choosing to incorporate online chat into a language classroom, and the most important of these seem to be perhaps the same considerations that you would make with any activity: WHY are students doing this, WHAT is the goal of such an activity, and HOW will it be meaningful to them. Because there are a lot of holes in using such activities for certain learning outcomes should not mean that you ignore the importance of these skills, though. I think that students will see the face value of working with such mediums using English, and gain something from it. I also think that it is important to consider that some forms of communication such as texting or online chat can be activities that are included at the end of a session, and treated more like ungraded practice using something that they will surely want to in their lives. I do think it is important to set ground rules as far as you can,though, mainly that exclusively English is to be used.
ReplyDeleteJust as activities can be done in the classroom that are not encountered in the real world, activities exclusively carried out outside of class can be practiced within it. I think part of really knowing a language is knowing the many way its users work with it, and that the variations and features of these increasingly popular forms of communication are part of that.
I have to agree with Heidi on this one. One of my biggest issues with chatting exercises and CALL for that matter is what is the overall objective for students. Most importantly, the task MUST be meaningful and authentic for it to be beneficial to the students. For instance, if students are using a chatting software both students are in the same room, the overall validity of such a task may be jeopardized resulting from tis lack of authenticity. What ESL/EFL instructors have to keep in mind is that the most important features of the lesson should be the objectives and if those goals are more likely achievable through nonCALL activities, such activities should be implemented. On the same note, if such goals are more easily achievable through CALL activities, then CALL is the way to go. As technology is evolving at an tremendous rate, unsurpassed to anything we have seen, certain new software/technology are also becoming obsolete at the very same rate. I am all for the use of technology (including chat clients) in the classroom so long as it is being used as a tool to achieve a larger goal and not because it is the "latest" and "greatest" software ever created...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Heidi and Marc. Heidi's point about having a clear purpose and goal for online chatting activities is important, as well as Mark's point about making these tasks meaningful and authentic.
ReplyDeleteI found Zai & Zhao's reading to be useful, especially in the sense that online chatting helps L2 students to notice lexical errors. One of the benefits to online chatting is its visual salience. For visual learners, this is particularly useful in acquiring the L2. On the other hand, online chatting may not be as beneficial for aural learners. Zai & Chao brought up an interesting finding: during face-to-face interactions, there were more morphosyntactic corrections, or recasts. During face-to-face interaction, there is more negotiation of meaning, which I believe, forces interlocuters to correct sentence structure, and word endings, etc., moreso than vocabulary. Verbal recasts, at times, are not always "noticed" by the interlocuters, whereas written corrections induce more noticing. In short, I think that there is a benefit to online chatting, but I also believe that it should not be the only tool used in the classroom, to promote L2 accuracy in form and meaning.
I am in agreement with everyone's comments so far. Authenticity is extremely important - my only issue with this in regards to online chatting is what topic constitutes an authentic task. I don't know how everyone else uses chatting but for me it's normally limited to "Hey, what's going on?" "Nothing. Working. You?" "Working." "Cool." "See ya." "See ya." So, with that in mind, I might have issues finding an online chatting task that is truly authentic. With skype and telephones, any tasks that might be too difficult to accomplish through online written chatting would probably turn into a phone call. However, I really do like the "noticing" feature of online chatting. The speed of chatting is similar to that of normal real-time speaking so L2 speakers' editing instinct might give way to the need to keep up. So, going back and looking at what was naturally produced would be very beneficial in showing the learners (and the instructor) what their mistakes are. Often, learners already know some of their weak areas but they may be oblivious to others. This activity would shed light on those dark spots as long as the student, the chatting partner or the instructor notices that something is wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs for classroom use, I think any task would exit the realm of real online chatting. So, with this admission of a lack in authenticity, any reasonable activity that would engage the students would be acceptable. The purpose, however, wouldn't be for an authentic experience but to hopefully cause some "noticing" on the part of the learners.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLai and Zao's article shows us that online chat has the potential to benefit students language skills by drawing their attention to (or NOTICING) their own linguistic errors. It seems that most of us can agree that this potential exists but many of us are unsatisfied with the types of activities we have seen thus far and concerns arise over the actual practical applications of online chatting in language classrooms. I would suggest that you can make chatting activities relevant to language students if you consider the potential that online chatting has in developing other job or other skills as well. Although software does become obsolete quickly (as Marc mentions), the World Wide Web is not going to just go away and our careers and daily lives will become more and more dependent on it. Tech support, product support, and other types of business correspondence are all becoming more chat-based to provide customers and employees with immediate, easily-accessible assistance in real time. Students could be given a problem that requires providing detailed descriptions of the problem itself and possible solutions based on different information given to each student (such as fixing a malfunctioning toaster). If students are more interested in academic fields or education, there are still many potential activities instructors can implement. Online tutoring, distance learning, and news/professional correspondence are also beginning to involve more and more text-based online chatting, so describing an event or concept, discussing an issue, or solving some sort of problem are all relevant tasks. These are actual job skills!!! Getting one's true meaning across in these types of interactions can be difficult for even native speakers of a language, so students should be encouraged to focus on language during online encounters, but the primary focus of a chatting activity does not have to be on the language itself.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this Lai / Zhao article (in addition to other CMC articles), one thing that really intrigues me is the potential that chat holds within the ESL / EFL classroom. I fully realize that chat has become a separate entity (separate from speaking & from writing & from grammar) but I feel that it holds the key for improved language learning due to the fact that it is somewhat of a marriage between the 3 aforementioned skills - blending the benefits of what each skill offers (amongst other things like adding in it's own unique traits). It's good to see research like in this article, but I can see the benefits first hand when I chat/text in a foreign language and it's crazy cool to see how it's actually helping with my own personal language learning.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone's thoughts on this blog, but I would especially like to emphasize how important it is to use the technology for the right purposes. I love Ryan's idea on "getting help" via chat as that's an incredibly realistic purpose. Other possible ideas for classroom use could be:
#1 - The lesson is on personal schedules / managing your day. 2 students plots out their schedules for the week (they are not shared) and then the 2 students use chat to try to figure out when they could set time to do a few items like: go to lunch / see a movie / work on a school project... etc...
#2 - Discussion on something like a book the 2 students just read / a movie they just saw.
The above activities would be activities that I could easily see myself talking to a friend about in a chatroom - thereby setting authentic purposes for the technology.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone’s comments and I would like to add to one of Rosetta’s ideas.
ReplyDeleteTo make the discussion more meaningful, students could be assigned to read different books/watch different movies, so they could negotiate meaning, exchange new information. Their job would be to chat with their peers about what they read/watched, and as a final activity, they would have to talk about each other’s books/movies in class.
For me, I believe that quality input is required for quality output and I'm not sure if online chat necessarily counts as quality input.
ReplyDeleteI recently had an interview to work as an online instructor and one of the questions was something like "what kind of responses are appropriate to student writing on discussion boards?" -- really the question was about "on-line tone" and how you relate to students online where posts and e-mails are famously "flat" compared to spoken language.
That question made me think along the lines of these articles -- that there are different social rules and norms in online chat and face-to-face chat. It would be good to introduce students to these differences early.
-Jonathan Gourlay
I agree with Jonathan that students should be introduced early on to the different rules and norms in online and face-to-face chat and with everyone else who questions the meaningfulness and authenticity of using online chat in the classroom or as a learning activity.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do like about online chat programs is that in a way they serve to bridge the gap between speaking and writing - students don't need to engage in the formality of actual writing assignments but are afforded more time than in face-to-face speech to compose their thoughts (and, as the article mentioned, notice errors).
The other question that was brought up in class, and that I think needs to be further addressed, is how does the instructor monitor online chatting, and if she does, does that inauthenticate the activity? Online chatting is typically used in informal settings, and the participants are focused on communicating rather than having their conversation evaluated. Knowing that the instructor might require a copy of a chat may hinder a student from speaking freely and authentically. At the same time, students are not focused on the preferred ways to communicate certain things but merely about getting their meaning across, and both he and his partner may not capitalize on opportunities to stretch themselves and learn something new.
Message boards, while perhaps a little intimidating because students know that an entire online community will be reading and responding to them, might serve to eliminate some of these concerns. The problem with message boards, however is that students will not receive instant feedback, and lessons toward negotiating meaning might be lost in the shuffle.
Trischa
I think the concept of using chat applications for language learning is extremely interesting. The whole debate of authenticity and chat activities reminds me of something a computer teacher in my undergrad said. She talked about how computers, internet, media and advertising are going to have an effect on our language and the way we communicate information. Increasingly, we want information more immediate- get rid of the clutter and give the necessities. This especially reminded me of language used in businesses. During, business writing I was told over and over to cut out the clutter in my emails and letters- be more direct.
ReplyDeleteSo what does this have to do with Chat??
Well I think chat is the same way and I don't think we should try to make it something its not. Rarely have I ever gotten into lengthy debates or philosophical musings on chats. I have always used chats for making plans to get together, touching base to see how someone is doing, or help on a homework problem. And like Ryan mentioned, I have used chat for technical support (in fact, I used it last night with ATT).
So here's my idea:
EITHER
Chat could easily be used in a English for Business class.
Students could chat between "departments" to figure out a problem related to that business- it would have to be quick and effective so that time isn't wasted and neither is money
OR
Students could be in a stimulated environment where they are chatting with a customer service agent on how to solve a problem with their computer, phone or so on. Students would have to be clear and simple about what the problem is (which can be really hard to do)
THe problem with both of these ideas is monitoring- but since technology is changing so quickly it might not be a problem in a year or so
I agree with all the doubts and questions that have surfaced in this discussion. What I gathered from the readings is that applications such as chats and discussion boards can be effective tools to enable students to "notice" a grammatical component.
ReplyDeleteNow in terms of promoting fluency in the language, I think that the problem too is how to decide what is a meaningful task to give students in a chat environment. For me personally, I cannot divorce writing with the idea that there is grammar and lexical structures behind this. I would promote tasks in which my students are given a lot of structure.
I was thinking that if we give students specific prompts such as create questions before you go into and text message someone, students would have a better foundation for looking at what structures they would need in order to send the correct messages to others.
Since my students will be High School students, and not distance-learners, I believe that they might not necessarily be using or needing to much messenging meetings versus the real spoken activities. I do agree however, that using messengers would provide a great way for helping eachother.
I liked Roy's idea of using messengers to promote tutoring or things like that. If I had the opportunity I would love to someday pair up non-native students with native students. Hopefully set up an online tutoring task.
I agree with most of the statements above. I am going to refer to a few, so I apologize if I don't refer to you by name when borrowing your idea...
ReplyDeleteIn reference to Nathan's comments, I use chat as a way of communicating with people whom I fail to communicate with otherwise. Many of my friends live in other states, so if I see someone online, we have drawn out conversations over chat because we can do that while doing something else online. I might not have the time to actually call that person, and without the immediate feedback, I might be unsure as to what that person would want to know about via email.
Moving on to Nathan's comment about "noticing", I agree that one way to benefit from chat is for the class to go back to the chat script and look for mistakes. I do see Lai & Zhao's point about the chatter making immediate corrections. Once you write something, even in your native language sometimes, you realize it doesn't look right, and rewrite it. Chat is so flexible, that you are not holding up the conversation by taking a few minutes, if at all, to respond (that's why chat beeps every time a new message is received). Also, if both chatters are communicating for second language communication purposes, corrective feedback from the other chatter and negotiation of meaning will be more likely over chat.
As for Rosetta's suggestions, I think that they are great! Of course it would be great to have the chatters discuss a movie or something! But I agree with Marc in that it would be pointless if the chatters are in the same room and are doing it solely as an assignment, so I am going to change the scenario...
My interest is second language learning, specifically German. In my case, chatting sounds like a great way to get exposure to the language with immediate feedback. Chat, as is discussed in a later article, can be used for intercultural interaction.
I am now going to take Rosetta's idea and Kramsch & Ware's model and apply them to an intercultural, yet somewhat structured, exchange over chat.
We would have two instructors from two different countries (each learning the language of the other) who have decided that their classes interact over chat. These instructors can ask their students to watch two films, both being culturally relevant to both of the cultures respectively. When the students chat, they can be asked to discuss the films.
In this scenario, the students are exchanging language with a native speaker of the target language AND they are having a cultural interchange in a structured environment. They are learning how the other culture perceives a film from their culture. Although the activity is inauthentic in that the conversation topic is regulated, what is actually being said will not be. I agree with those who suggest that scripts be printed out for the instructor's evaluation.