Brave New Digital Classroom: Technology and Foreign Language Learning

Preface

Preface No language instructor, professor, applied linguist, graduate student, or department chair would deny the importance of using new technologies to enhance the learning environment—and the subject area of foreign languages is no exception. But the rapidly changing parameters of the technological field have made the first-time entry into using technology in service of the foreign-language (FL) curriculum a daunting, if not forbidding, task for many. My intent here is to explain the use of technology for language learning in a straightforward manner by maintaining a dogged focus on the pedagogy , whenever possible, rather than by concentrating on the dizzying array of tools and gadgets that assist us in this endeavor. Accordingly, this book is directed not only to all language teachers—whether from the elementary and secondary schools or the postsecondary level—who consider themselves technological neophytes or troglodytes but still wish to plunge in and plug in but also to experienced computer-assisted language learning (CALL) practitioners who continue to evolve their CALL pedagogy so as to take maximum advantage of these new technologies. Chairs and administrators should also find ample food for thought with respect to revamping the FL curriculum and evaluating those colleagues who work in the CALL field. I do not advocate the use of new technologies as a mere replacement for equivalent functions that can be done well with more recognizable tools such as pencil and paper or chalk and board. Rather, as the title indicates, I envisage a radical change in language teaching to occur not solely because technology is involved but as the result of teachers’ rethinking what they do as they begin to incorporate new technologies into the syllabi along with their respective affordances. Clearly, I am tipping my hat to Jim Cummins’s Brave New Schools: Challenging Cultural Illiteracy through Global Learning Networks (Cummins and Sayers 1995), which has led the way for so many teaching reforms in the English as a second language (ESL) and second language acquisition (SLA) fields. xiii Undoubtedly, some of the technological tools reviewed here will have already been surpassed by other innovations by the time this book is published and lands in the hands of the reader: Becoming outdated is a constant worry for those who work in the CALL field. In chapter 1 I analyze this fear as well as other misconceptions surrounding the use of new technologies that persist among some teachers and graduate students, despite the profession ’s as a whole having reached more sophisticated notions about technology in the postmodern era. Although newer generations of students may not suffer from these misconceptions and worries, many classroom practitioners , young and old, still shy away from using new technologies. Today’s graduate preparation rarely includes as a required subject an exploration of the use of technology. My hope is that this text will provide a sound basis for professional training within the context of a single-author publication (although many edited volumes on CALL already exist; see Blake’s review 2008). To assist in this endeavor, I place some concepts and terms in italics, and I draw the reader’s attention to the glossary at the end of the book. Without a doubt, the most ubiquitous entry point into new technologies is the Internet, the focus of chapter 2, but discrete CALL programs are still much alive in the field, as reviewed in chapter 3. In chapter 4 I examine computer-mediated communication (CMC), especially synchronous chatting , the most exciting development in the CALL field in the last decade. At the most radical end of the technological-use continuum is the idea of a completely online or virtual language course—distance language learning, the focus of chapter 5. In chapter 6 I close with an in-depth examination of how teachers must change their approach to language education if they wish to take full advantage of the benefits that new technologies can potentially offer. Woven among these chapters are ample references to CALL research, although the focus of this book is not about how to do research (a worthy goal in itself) but rather how to implement new technologies into the FL curriculum . Teachers should always remember that, in language learning, no particular technology is superior to any other tool; it’s all in the way the activities are implemented so as to engage and foster the student’s own sense of agency. Equally important for the Brave New Digital Classroom is the constant reflection on intercultural...