Please cite as:
Ortega, L. (2007). Online interactions and L2 learning: Some ethical challenges for teachers and researchers. Invited presentation delivered at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 30.
Copyright © Lourdes Ortega, 2007
Online interactions & L2 learning:
Some ethical challengesfor teachers and researchers
Lourdes OrtegaUniversity of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, [email protected]
English Language Institute, University of Michigan
March 30, 2007
Acknowledgement
Eve Zyzik, Michigan State University
Sally Magnan (Ed.). (in press). Mediating Discourse Online.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Information Communication
Technologies
have changed the nature of everyday communication the educational contexts afforded to
our students opportunities for L2 learning
(e.g., Kern, 2006; Thorne & Payne, 2005)
ICTs in our digital society
EmailInternet surfingInstant messagingCell phones
(photos/music)Web page creation,
maintenance, viewing
NewsgroupsChatsWikisPalm-sized
computers (movies)
BloggingGaming
L2 Computer-Mediated
Communication
CM interaction between individuals and groups of users, all or some of whom use an L2
Designed for pedagogical purposes (during regular class time & outside)
Some times with no specific pedagogical aim (e.g., joining a chat room or a news group on the Internet) but with a broad purpose to “practice the L2”
New ethical challenges?
Values that guide research programs (Ortega, 2005) and educational practices
Social usefulness and usability of knowledge (Stokes, 1997; House & Howe, 1999)
Conduct of research involving human subjects (Mackey & Gass, 2005, Ch. 2)
Ethics and Information Technology
(Springer, founded in 1999):
“...aims to foster and promote reflection and analysis which is intended to make a constructive contribution to answering the ethical, social and political questions associated with the adoption, use, and development of ICT”
L2 CMCEuphoric discourse
Idyllic imagesUnquestioned assumptions
No discussions about ethics so far
Computer-Mediated
Communication
tremendous potential for promoting L2 linguistic development Intercultural awareness
(Ortega, 1997; Smith, 2003; Belz & Thorne, 2006)
Main identified benefits
CMCfor L2 learning
“leaner communication”(Walther et al., 2005, p. 634)
Egualitarianparticipation
Higher productivityMore varied discourse
Contact HypothesisAllport (1954)
Target culturecloser to students
Promote interculturalunderstanding
L2 development
Intercultural learning
CMC & participation and productivity
Educational benefits egalitarian participation structures enable the democratization of education via dialogic communication
SLA benefits egalitarian structures bring about higher productivity and more complex discourse, both key ingredients for optimal L2 development
True:
more L2 output and more varied usage of the L2 are fostered online (e.g., Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995)
certain traditional participation structures, such as negotiation episodes, also occur online (e.g., Fiori, 2005; B. Smith, 2003, 2004)
But also:
anxiety provoked by the public visibility of text-based postings
“You always say - great response - but you do not understand the stress - it is going to be there - this response - people will think of me as this horrible person - people who do not know me - because it is on the Web and not at all a communication between two peers - it is like communication with a mass audience.”
“The Web is good to force me to read my note but I think it is very difficult -- I can hardly write - anything without making many mistakes and I cannot find anything to write ... I can just keep quiet in the class unless the teacher calls my name -- but [on the Web] I must talk -- it is very hard for me.”
Sengupta (2001, p. 122)
And also:more equally
distributed participation for one group but not the other (Fitze, 2006)
greater participation for some learners but exclusion of others (Jeon-Ellis et al., 2005)
perpetuation of preexisting power differentials (Reeder et al., 2004)
greater learning in the traditional face-to-face medium than online (Barr et al., 2005)
Productivity Productivity = productive engagement
with the L2?Teachers’ online threaded discussions:
“serial monologues” Pawan et al. (2003)Teachers’ text-only synchronous chat:
“cooperative development” (Edge, 2006)
Not the medium per se, but context and agency
Agency
“Always accessible, never fully alone, the wired personality is both more connected to more disparate others and, for that very reason, all the more forced to make choices about availability, about prioritizing the importance and duration of replies, and about filtering incoming messages and information”
(Burbules, 2006, pp. 117-118)
“Interactivity”
Cummulative meaning making? (Rafaeli, 1988)
Interchangeable roles? Reciprocal influence? Mutual interruptibility?
Walther et al. (2005)
What is the relative value of participation and silence in CMC?
there is a “need to understand lurking behavior not only to make people start participating or de-lurk, but also to be able to create virtual spaces that are pleasant and interesting to be in, even for silent participants” (n.p.)
Do cultural differences that are known to be important in face-to-face communication (such as the valuing of silence and reticence in some cultures) become simply irrelevant when interacting online for the sake of L2 learning...?
Soroka and Rafaeli (2006) on lurking & de-lurking:
What counts as optimal participation and productivity in L2 online interactions?
Quality and not only quantity of interactions
Not the medium per se, but context and agency
Strategy 1: Consider...
CMC forL2 learning
Participation Productivity
InteractivitySilence
(Lurking)
Intercultural learning & L2 CMC
Telecollaborations“the use of Internet communication tools by internationally dispersed students of language in institutionalized settings in order to promote the development of (a) foreign language (FL) linguistic competence and (b) intercultural competence”
(Belz, 2003, p. 68)
Telecollaborations
Have relevance for L2 teachers (Furstenberg et al., 2001; Kinginger et al., 1999; see also Bauer et al., 2006)
Promote contextualized and social views of language in curricula, stressing pragmatic development and cultural learning, rather than just lexis & grammar
Foster a sense of cultural curiosity (Abrams, 2002)
Help confront stereotypes and prejudice (Sakar, 2001; O’Dowd, 2005)
Help reflect on one’s own culture (Ware, 2005)
True:
Telecollaborations can result in
better learning of cultural content
better knowledge of L2 pragmatics
enhanced intercultural understanding
But
also...
If unsuccessful, telecollaborations can
reinforce stereotypes and confirm negative attitudes that students had prior to the telecollaboration (Belz, 2002; Meagher & Castaños, 1996; O’Dowd, 2003)
e.g., Kramsch & Thorne (2002):U.S. undergraduates thought French lycée students were unfriendly & pompous because they had an unfamiliar factual, impersonal, and dispassionate communication style
Is CMC a culture-free zone?
there is good reason to be “suspicious of the assumption of the flattening out of cultural difference” by merely using technology as a medium
Hanna & de Nooy (2003, p. 72)
ICTs are a product of culture
ICTs are a Western, affluent, English-speaking invention (Ess, 2002; Walther, 1996)
Virtual cultures
We now have digital natives (Mcmillan & Morrison, 2006; Thorne, 2003) and they create their own virtual communities and norms
Also, primary access to ICTs is severely unequal across geographies and socio-economic class (digital divide-- Parayil, 2005; Stanley, 2003), so...
Cultural resistance and negotiation
Many competent users of technology may have had “a reluctant entry into the computer age” (B. Q. Smith, 2004)
Many may be resistant/oppositional technology users
Plus, online interaction is never just about language, but about repositioning oneself and negotiating cultural, personal, and power differentials online (Chen, 2006; Lam, 2004)
How can “culture” be defined online?
Global computer uses, emergent cultures of users, and local cultures interact (Kern, 2006; Thorne, 2003; see also Ess, 2002)
Virtual interlocutors in our
classrooms and studies?
For cultural learning, “internationally dispersed students” are the imagined interlocutors (Belz, 2003, p. 68)
So, “intra-community resources remain largely untapped” (Thorne, 2006, p. 9)
e.g.,French communities in the U.S.??
Cajun French, Louisiana Canadian French, New England
Haitian French, Miami
13 million French ancestry1.6 French-English speakers
Francophone Arabs, all of U.S.
Virtual learners in our classrooms and studies?
Yoshie, a Japanese-English bilingual who had studied in Berlin as a high school student
Yen, a native speaker of Cantonese and EnglishLori, who came from a rural, working-class
background and had never traveled outside of the U.S.
Belz (2003, 2006)
What does each bring to CMC for L2 learning?
Strategy 2: Consider...
CMC forL2 learning
“Multilayered Cultures”
(global, virtual, local)
Negotiation & resistance
Legitimate interlocutors?Who are the
“learners”
Public spaceresearch
Humanresearch
Archivalresearch
Creative artsresearch
Human activity?
Consent?
Protection of (virtual & real) anonymity?
Recognition?
Copyrights?
Textual products?
Public access?
Ephimeral or permanent?
Loitering & lurking, ok?
Virtual disguise, sufficient?
CMC & research conduct
An empirical approach
Hudson and Bruckman (2004): Data base: 137 chatrooms and 766
usernames Results: between 56% and 72% of the
time chat members showed great hostility and expelled researchers
Conclusion: Internet users do expect – perhaps against all logic – privacy
Public spaceresearch
Humanresearch
Archivalresearch
Creative artsresearch
Email:
Biesenbach-Lucas (2005)
Chen (2006)
Web creation:
Hull & Nelson (2005)
??
Chats:
Jepson (2005) himself
Tudini (2003) her students
L2 examples
Strategy 3: Consider...
CMC forL2 learning
Purposes for your research
Vulnerability of
population
Credit for cultural
creation?
Protection from harm?
L2 CMCEuphoric discourseIdyllic imagesUnquestioned assumptions
It’s about technology-mediated......human interaction
Thank [email protected]
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