Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] identity and the negotiation of meaning
From: Lawrie Hunter (lawrie@info.kochi-tech.ac.jp)
Date: Tue 13 Jun 2000 - 01:36:45 MEST
From: Lawrie Hunter <lawrie@info.kochi-tech.ac.jp> Subject: [IFETS-Discuss] identity and the negotiation of meaning Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 16:36:45 -0700
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Greetings,
Mary Harrsch's comments about language and intercultural communication
touch on the foundation of this discussion, thank you. I have been
developing
a very grass roots CALL lab at my (3.5 years old) university in Japan,
and every
step of the way has seen me more committed to the need for a fundamental
learner-mentor relationship at the very center of our instructional
design.
At KUT we teach introductory English composition to false beginners
in our CALL lab, and I would say that we five instructors are taking an
approach to CALL which at its core represents something valuable.
Our team were all teachers before the computer environment became
friendly,
and we have very different philosophies about language teaching and
learning. However, we have worked to an agreement on essential content
for the program, and on an approach to the initial phase of its
presentation.
After that initial phase we go very much our own ways in all matters
aside from core content.
After one quarter of common practice (hypertext authoring), the
divergence is substantial: one professor teaches HTML and uses templates
to get his
students' writing webworthy. Another focuses on group teamwork in the
publication of student hard copy magazines. Another poses small group
critical thinking tasks which the students negotiate and report via
email. Another carries on with the highly motivating hypertext
authoring.
These choices reflect both instructor tastes and instructor views of
student nature/needs.
Yet we all target on agreed structures and standards for our students'
writing.
The CALL lab is a very different thing for each of us, yet empowering in
every case.
I suspect that this would not be so if we were not all committed
to helping the learner to situate him/herself lucidly in the very
personal experience
of second language learning, and in self-directed learning, which lurks
just
under the surface of any CALL program. ..
I feel that VLE, or any other of the emerging educational technologies
we
are exploring now, needs to be seen primarily as a medium we can all
manifest our
educational wisdom and and skill, and at the same time benefit from,
tap into and self-reflect via each others' easily accessible practice.
Lawrie Hunter
***********************
Professor of English << Information Systems << Kochi University of
Technology
http://www.info.kochi-tech.ac.jp/lawrie/
lawrie@info.kochi-tech.ac.jp
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