Way to go or What the f***?
Communitication via the internet has become more and more important during the last couple of years – especially for the “younger” generation. While writing letters and talking hours on the phone was quite common during my teenage years (meaning: not long ago!), chatrooms, messengers, forums, and cell phones have outrun the old ways of communication by now.
But in order to stick to this seminar’s topic “New Media in the FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM”, my emphasis will not be placed on the students’ sparetime use of these technologies, but how they can enhance the foreign language learning process.
Netiquette
Before (or should I say B4) using any means of internet communication students should learn about the core rules of talking online.
Since all their activities will be supervised by a teacher, some dos and donts will naturally be adopted. General rules like “Do not use swear words”, “Respect your dialog partner”, or “Pay attention to the content, style and accuracy of your written words” should always be taught, not only when refering to internet communication.
But students should also be made aware of the fact that – even if they adhere to the rules – their communication partners might not. Reading – and memorizing – colloquial language and incorrect grammar could lead to a degradation of students’ English abilities in both oral and writing tasks. Therefore teachers should not only advise the students of these probabilities but also teach them the correct words/expressions for the wrong ones they’ve heard via the internet.
Communication Tools
All communicative tools introduced in this week’s virtual session could be used in the English classroom, especially in order to get in contact with students from other countries. The communication with native speakers and especially the use/learning of colloquial/chat language might be enriching and motivating for our students. Although there are disadvantages in learning colloquial language, students might feel more advanced and comfortable to talk if they know about certain expressions.
Syncronous devices, such as Chat Rooms, MUDs & MOOs, and Video-Conferences can preferably be used during classes, talking to other students (from other countries), etc.
Due to the probable time difference (Germany-US) or different time schedules (Germany-UK) of foreign students, asyncronous devices might be more profitable. Writing Emails or opening forums or newsgroups are very reasonable – and easy – ways of learning, improving, and practicing one’s English.
World English
The least part of our students will study English in their future. But probably a great amount of them will have to be able to communicate in today’s lingua franca. It should therefore be one of our main goals to teach our students not the “perfect, flawless English”, but more a “understandable, international” English.
The ability to talk to people from numerous countries is another, very motivating aspect for learning English, which our students learn through internet communication.
Abbreviations
Although many abbreviations might sound funny or odd, I truly believe that they could help students to learn the English language. Not only will our students experience that abbreviations like “ASAP” or “24/7″ also occur in the daily language use (oral communication, not via the internet), they might also find some of them helpful in order to take notes fast and easily (w/, b/c, etc.). And of course, they help them to memorize the much talked about “connotations” and lexical items.
Overall I think Internet communication is a very good method in order to motivate our students and introduce them to the field of English as an international world-language. If supervised by a teacher, who makes them aware of colloquial language use and the principles of (network) etiquette, students will be able to learn English in authentic communication situations, talking to people of their own age, finding new friends – And still have some time to think about their answer.
Filed under: coursework | 2 Comments
Tags: students, tasks, teaching
Hey Marina,
I have to say that I agree to your opinion about internet communication.
I disagree on your statement about abbreviationis and their usage in school. From my point of view, I don’t think that they are helpful for students because they do not know the spelling of the “right” words etc. May be these abbreviations are used in daily speech but pupils can’t use them in school. What about a written test for example? It think it would be funny to see a text written with abbreviations
Have a nice day!
Maddie
hey,
I liked the way you set up your comment. you included all important aspects and it was easy to follow and comprehend your arguments. Particularly, I agree with your last statement that I-Communication is a good authentic way of communication and it quite effective for learners, if applied properly.