Subject: Audioconferencing; CMC; Education; Videoconferencing.
Saba discusses integrated telecommunications and its role in how teachers and students communicate in distance education. Saba describes the educational transaction from the perspective of Moore's concepts of dialog and structure. Dialog, according to Saba's citation of Moore, is "the extent to which, in any educational programme learner and educator are able to respond to each other", and structure is "a measure of an educational programme's responsiveness to learners' individual needs". Saba states that the importance of media is that they enable instructors to "vary the level of dialog and structure, and to provide a balance between the two variables". These two variables are inversely proportional. As dialog increases, less structure is needed, and vice-versa. Integrated systems maximize dialog (and minimize "transactional distance") by various means: "audio (voice) communication", "video communcation (body language)" and "sharing and multitasking (where teacher and student uses the same computer files, application programs, CD-ROM files, or interactive video segments, at one time)". Through increased dialog and the consequent decrease in fixed structure, "adjustments in goals, instructional materials, and evaluation procedures occur and the learner achieves the desired level of autonomy".
Saiedian, H. (1992). An interactive computer-based conferencing system to accomodate students' learning process. Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 21, 109-123.
Subject: Classroom Dynamics; CMC.
Saiedian describes CMC as a tool for encouraging students to participate more actively in class discussions. In the experience described in the article, the computer was used to:
"encourage students to be more actively involved in topics related to the course", "provide a self
assessment environment for students", "provide an environment in which students are encouraged to cooperate with each other", provide a better means of student-student and student-teacher communication, and facilitate team management in group projects.
Saiedian recognizes that students fail to participate in traditional settings for a variety of reasons. Among them are the inability to formulate questions/comments on the spot in the classroom, fear of being incorrect, fatigue, lack of time for thought and digression, the authoritarian presence of the instructor, shyness, and fear of interruption. CMC helps to eliminate many of these problems. It provides an environment in which one can present one's ideas without interruption, students have the ability to compose and revise their contributions carefully to make certain they are correct, "reciprocity" (a feeling of "sharing" when responding to other students) which encourages collaboration, and a reduced authoritarian presence of the teacher.
Beyond increased participation CMC, according to Saiedian, also encourages students to write more "seriously", since what they write will be viewed by a public. It also stimulates thinking, enables more "diligent probing" of questions raised, and saves resources.
Sanaoui, R., & Lapkin, S. (1992). A Case study of an FSL senior secondary course integrating computer networking. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 48, 525-552.
Subject: CMC; Second Language Acquisition.
Sanaoui and Lapkin describe a research project which involved linking anglophone students of French with native French-speaking students by computer in order to help the students go beyond a classroom "plateau" level of proficiency. The "collaborative project emphasized the students' development of communicative competence in the second language, particularly through writing skills, and in reference to topics of cultural relevance and interest to the students". This collaborative course was "structured around five thematic units and conferences on the computer network". The units centered on social, political, cultural and literary topics. Students sent and received messages both individually and in groups. Messages were written in the second language. In each unit, students were given texts to read, as well as listening and speaking activities, in the second language to familiarize them with the issues involved in the unit's theme. Students also wrote texts (which were revised on the basis of feedback both from the teacher and from classmates) which ultimately were sent via the computer network to their partner class. The transmitted texts "served as the basis for further asynchronous (delayed) interactions about the same issues as students read the materials they had received from the other school, discussed them among themselves and sent responses". Some of the units also included real-time interactions between the classes.
Among the advantages of this course format were: the diversity and quantity of social interactions, use of language (both input and output) in a real context (i.e., being involved in real communication), an emphasis on "communication of meaning and fluency" over "error avoidance and accuracy", student generation of topics for further discussion, and experience with the L2 culture.
Sayers, D. (1991). Cross-cultural exchanges between students from the same culture: a portrait of an emerging relationship mediated by technology. The Canadian Modern Language Review, 47, 678-696.
Subject: CMC; Culture Issues.
Sayers describes the use of a computer network program De Orilla a Orilla to connect students of Puerto Rican origin living in New Haven with students in Puerto Rico. Sayers describes "ORILLAS" not as:
a student-to-student penpal project, but rather a class-to-class collaboration designed by partner teachers who have been matched according to common teaching interests and their students' grade level. Partner teachers plan and implement jointly executed, cooperative learning projects between their classes that center on language arts, social studies, math and science.
Sayers also describes typical projects. These include:
(1) shared student publications, such as classroom journal student publishing; (2) comparative investigations, including dual community surveys, joint science investigations, and contrastive geography projects; and (3) oral histories and folklore compendia, such as collections of proverbs, children's rhymes and riddles, lullabies and game songs, and fables and folktales.
Sayers, D. (1993). Distance team teaching and computer learning NetWorks. TESOL Journal, 3, 19-23.
Subject: CMC; Culture Issues; Second Language Acquisition.
Sayers distinguishes between "penpal projects" and team teaching via computer NetWorks. In team teaching, two teachers plan "identical short-term projects" for their classes. "As a culminating joint activity, each teacher will exchange her students' work with that of the partner class, allowing both groups to compare their efforts". The distance between the classes forces them to rely upon communications technology, which acts as a "cultural amplifier" that compensates for "the inevitable distortions introduced as messages cross time, space, and cultures". Thus a network for intercultural learning is created. The article focuses on the program De orilla a orilla which currently has partnership projects established in a variety of languages including Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, English, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and American and French Canadian Sign Languages. The remainder of the article describes how to establish an Orillas partnership (which is free, incidently). The information given includes how to get started, as well as typical types of joint projects such as shared student publications, comparative investigations and folklore/oral history compendia.
Sayers, D., & Brown, K. (1987). Bilingual education and telecommunications: a perfect fit. The Computing Teacher, 14, 23-24.
Subject: CMC; Culture Issues.
Sayers and Brown examine the usefulness of Computer Networking (in particular the program De Orilla a Orilla) in bilingual education. According to them, students in bilingual education programs "need authentic contexts for mother-tongue writing if they are to develop and maintain basic literacy skills, and then transfer them to English academic settings". They describe the use of the Orillas program for establishing links between bilingual education classes and classes in the mother-tongue country. Sayers and Brown state that "these NetWorks keep alive the ties to the 'mother culture', nourishing literacy for bilingual students".
Schwartz, M. (1995). Computers and the language laboratory: learning from history. Foreign Language Annals, 28, 527-535.
Subject: CMC; Second Language Acquisition.
Schwartz's article focuses on using the computer for purposes other than simple drill-and
practice programs. He describes the use of word processing programs, CD-ROM technology for interfacing computers with video machines or to display video directly, as well as discussing the potential use of NetWorks for authentic communication. However, much of the article is a warning. CALL uses must coincide with evaluation methods and goals, lest computer technology go the way of the language laboratory. Language laboratories typically employed an audio-lingual method, while student progress was being evaluated on grammar-translation criteria. "Materials were developed, published, and distributed without research into how best to use the technology. The result was a loss of credibility for foreign language education and for the use of technology in language learning in general". Consequently, Schwartz insists that "it is not enough for teachers to purchase expensive equipment in the hope that students will use it and reach higher levels of proficiency. Teachers need to be trained in the appropriate use of the technology so they may better guide their students to achieve maximum results".
Selfe, C., & Eilola, D. (1988). The Tie that binds: building discourse communities and group cohesion through computer-based conferences. Collegiate Microcomputer, 6, 339-348.
Subject: CMC; Discourse Analysis.
Selfe and Eilola describe an experience in which electronic conferencing was used to form a discourse community among "student-consultants" working as assistants in computer writing labs. Ideally the students who work in these labs should form a discourse community which means, according to Selfe and Eilola, that "its members come to share a special sense of identity or 'communality of interest', 'a suitable degree of relevant discoursal and content expertise', and 'specialized terminology'". They also point out however that for this to happen, there is a need for a "mechanism" or "forum" in which to communicate.
However it is precisely this last point which is lacking. The students staffing the labs are "volunteer[s] or are paid an hourly wage; getting . . . [them] together for a lengthy orientation is impractical". They are a "transient" population, with a "heavy workload" and an "initial lack of education in matters of rhetorical theory, philosophy, and pedagogy". These elements all contribute to the lack of a cohesive discourse community.
It is with the institution of a computer-network conference system that a sense of group identity was formed among these student-consultants. The conference forum allowed the student
consultants to "negotiate goals, expectations, and values and . . . to establish a self-perpetuating, cohesive intellectual community that provided for the enculturation of new members through shared discussion of group identity, group values, and consulting strategies".
Shires, N. (1993). Computer-mediated lists for foreign languages. IALL Journal of Language Learning Technologies, 26, 29-36.
Subject: Online Resources; Second Language Acquisition.
Shires article treats general, practical information about foreign language lists. She describes what lists are, what their potential is, and what lists are available "that might be of interest to modern foreign language faculty". She also points out areas in which faculty may find lists to be of use--scholarly research, prepublication and publication, professional networking and development, and classroom activity.
Sirc, J., & Reynolds, T. (1990). The face of collaboration in the networked writing classroom. Computers and Composition, 7, 53-69.
Subject: CMC; Discourse Analysis; Education; Equality Issues.
Sirc and Reynolds examine the behavior of basic writing students in a university-level LAN. The purpose of the conference in question was to give students a forum to discuss each other's work, make suggestions, comments, etc. However the actual behavior of the beginning writing students was far different from that which the authors expected. Much of their discussion was off the intended subject. The discourse was shaped by social concerns, rather than academic ones.
Sirc and Reynolds study examples of specific interactions taken from the conference. Much of the students' discussion consisted of face-saving and the establishment/maintenance of group cohesion. Sirc and Reynolds state that students exchanged a great deal of personal information, thus creating an "ad-hoc community" based on "personal [and] collective history". "They form . . . a 'subculture', whose style can be seen as a form of resistance by marginalized, subordinate groups against the dominant authority. Groups denied access to the dominant culture (basic writers, by definition) have traditionally evolved their own rituals, languages, and styles. The non-writerly behavior then, of our students suggests an oppression, an ignorance born of disenfranchisement". Their discourse, full of "'in group' markers", "serves to define a subcultural identity".
Soh, B-L., & Soon, Y-P. (1991). English by e-mail: creating a global classroom via the medium of computer technology. ELT Journal, 45, 287-292.
Subject: CMC; Culture Issues.
Soh and Soon describe a telecommunications project between two EFL/ESL classes. One of the classes is in Singapore and the other in Quebec. By means of telephone, fax, and computers the students selected and discussed various topics. One particular topic of discussion was that of two literary texts from each of the two cultures. "In an expansion of the project into cross-cultural and cross-curricular work on literature, the students produced an impressive range of written work, based on their reading of stories about their own and their correspondents' cultures". The project not only helped the students to improve their English skills, but also "enlarged their awareness of themselves as members of an international, global community".
Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1994). Panacea or panopticon? The hidden power in computer
mediated communication. Communication Research, 21, 427-459.
Subject: CMC; Equality Issues.
Spears and Lea examine "how interaction by means of computer-mediated communication (CMC) affects the operation of both status differentials and power relations. They point out that while CMC all but eliminates the outward signs of status, as many theorists have claimed, status and power are nevertheless not the same thing.
A power relation can be defined as one where there is some explicit relationship of dependency . . . and one party has some degree of control over the other's outcomes . . . such as an advantageous position in relations of social exchange. . . . Unlike the case of status that can be seen as the property of a particular person or position, the relational natuer of power implies that its subjects will already be aware of this relation in the absence of any outward social cues; the subordinate will know who his or her superior is independent of the communication medium.
While status may or may not become invisible, power continues to exist in the CMC environment. In addition there is the added aspect of "panoptic power" . Spears and Lea use Foucault's description of the panopticon to describe CMC. The panopticon is:
an architectural apparatus [which] is so arranged that those incarcerated are unable to see each other, preventing mutual interaction, while being visible to an overseer at the center. The mere knowledge of surveillance of the superordinate other, regardless of whether it is actually exercised, is enough to induce obedience and conformity without any direct imposed force or physical confrontation."
Although computer NetWorks obviously do not mirror the panopticon in every way--there is for example in CMC lateral communication--many other elements of the panopticon are reproduced in computer NetWorks. These elements include "hierarchical observation, normalization, and the objectification and individualization of the subject".
Spears and Lea create a model of computer communication which takes into account this modified panopticon, which they call the Social Identity and Deindividuation (SIDE) model. This model shows how computer-mediated communication "may function not only to influence behavior through surveillance (compliance, external power), but more fundamentally to shape and construct the nature of the self". The SIDE model is dependent upon our looking upon messages not simply as "what is transmitted or omitted, but more generally what is made salient and meaningful in the [social] context". Thus "even when people are anonymous, the established roles and relations in which they are embedded are unlikely to be so. The 'faceless' nature of the communication in CMC may often reinforce the bureaucratic or hierarchical dimensions of interaction for this reason".
Stoks, G. (1993). Integrating new technologies into the modern languages curriculum. The CALICO Journal, 11, 76-93.
Subject: CMC; Computer Tutoring; Second Language Acquisition.
Stoks claims in this article that the integration of new technology into the foreign language classroom has to date been unsuccessful, and that this is largely due to the "lack of sound curricular integration". In the article, Stoks traces the history of the development of computer technology in the foreign language curriculum of the Netherlands, and makes proposals for courseware development. Stoks believes that the role of computers in L2 instruction is still very limited, and that "certain methodological innovations, such as teaching funtional grammar in communicative contexts is seldom practised in the programs available". Stoks points out that in some cases computer programs are actually regressive when compared to advances in modern methodology. As a result, Stoks applies certain aspects of "a communicatively oriented approach to modern language learning" to the development of courseware, including "emphasis on real communication tasks", developing "reading and listening strategies" (rather than merely testing "comprehension"), and developing sociocultural competence. A brief section on e-mail is included, although Stoks seems to limit the role of e-mail to penpal letter exchanges.
Tella, S. (1992). The adoption of international communications NetWorks. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 36, 303-312.
Subject: Classroom Dynamics; CMC; Second Language Acquisition.
Tella's article "reports a study of the possibilities of communications NetWorks and electronic mail...in foreign language...teaching". The specific goal of his study is to show "how computer-mediated, FL referential communication, carried out by means of international communications NetWorks and e-mail, can be adapted to FL teaching in Finnish senior secondary schools". Tella's study is based on two premises: "communicativeness as a general objective in FL teaching, and communications NetWorks contributing to simulating communicativeness in FL classrooms".
Tella discusses various "problem areas and problems" involved in introducing e-mail into the foreign language classroom including "the innovation/adoption process", "learning tasks and objectives, goals, and aims", and "the teacher's role and position". Tella's research method is a "multisite ethnographic case study", involving participant-observation, analysis of e-mail correspondence, and informal discussions with participants.
The results of the study showed that:
methods of work in FL classrooms changed to some extent, giving the students a chance to work more autonomously and to discuss goals and contents more freely with each other and with the teacher. This also facilitated communicativeness in the FL classroom. While learners' autonomous work laid more responsibility on them, teachers' roles also changed. Instead of mainly delivering information, teachers became more and more co-workers, co-learners, or consultants with regard to students.
Tella, S. (1992). Boys, girls, and e-mail: a case study in Finnish senior secondary schools. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of Teacher Education.
Subject: CMC; Education; Gender Issues.
Tella's study focuses on "students' attitudes and preferences to teaching practices and teaching tools". The study examines the "gender sensitivity" of e-mail and "the question of equality" in education. Tella addresses the following issues: "computer equity/inequity", "equality education", "opinions and preferences between boys and girls concerning the use of communications NetWorks and e-mail", "achievability of aims and goals", "student-generated disturbances", and "students' initiative".
In the course of the study, Tella found that girls' comments were "more analytical" than those of boys. "When expressing a critical opinion, many girls motivated their views while the boys often contented themselves with blunt statements. More girls than boys appeared to be ready to commit themselves to a new kind of learning environment".
Tella concludes that computer-mediated instruction should take into account the differences which tend to surface regarding boys' and girls' preferences and aptitudes in computing. Boys tend to have an interest in the hardware and technology used in itself, while girls tend to focus on "manipulat[ing] the word-processors" and "exchang[ing] ideas in writing". In the end, "both boys and girls could enjoy working in a learning environment focused on computer-mediated communication", becoming "deeply committed to working in an e-mail-equipped co-operative environment". In such an environment they would "learn not only from each other but also learn from and interact productively with the computer".
Tella, S. (1991). Introducing international communications NetWorks and electronic mail into foreign language classrooms: a case study in Finnish secondary schools. Helsinki, University of Helsinki, Department of Teacher Education, Research Report 95.
Subject: Classroom Dynamics; CMC; Second Language Acquisition.
Tella's dissertation seeks to study how computer-mediated communication could be adapted into "FL teaching in Finnish senior secondary schools". The study "was a multisite ethnographic case study" which included "participant-observation, analysis of e-mail correspondence, informal discussions with teachers (and some students), teacher and student questionnaires, handouts, printouts, and teachers' logs". The results of the study showed that:
Methods of works slightly changed, taking the authenticity of e-mails into account, though the linguistic features of the e-mails were occasionally over-emphasized. The lesson format was learner-centered but somewhat teacher-monitored. Learners' autonomous, dyadic and small group work increased, while teachers partly became co-learners with regard to students.
Tella, S. (1992). Talking shop via e-mail: a thematic and linguistic analysis of electronic mail communication. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Department of Teacher Education.
Subject: CMC; Second Language Acquisition.
Tella's study aims to analyze "the character of computer-mediated communication on international communications NetWorks and the use of electronic mail in the teaching of English as students' first foreign language in some Finnish senior secondary schools". From a linguistics standpoint, the study focused on "contents (themes and topics)", and the "way the target language (English) was used in e-mails". A central issue in the study was "communicativeness" along with the roles of the reader and the writer. "The basic tenet of communicativeness and a naturalistic communicative learning environment in classrooms was connected to the question of the degree of initiative and free negotiable topic choice".
Tella notes the following features of online communication between students in Finland and their counterparts overseas:
1. resemblance to oral communication (including "elliptical language,
colloquialisms, casual style, focus on cohesion");
2. "non-verbal communication replaced by textual visualisations";
3. "phatic use of language (contact establishing and supporting)...essential to
the functionality of the communication channel";
4. use of "artistic, emotive, and poetic language" in addition to "referential or
informative use of the target language".
Tella found that international e-mail exchanges created "open-ended linguistic situations" and an "information-rich learning environment". Also of importance was the collaborative aspect of the learning environment. "A collaborative effort made writing more public, drawing social and negotiation skills into focus".
