Saturday, March 29, 2008
Mini-Project 2
My second mini-project can be viewed here. A link is also on the right side of this page under the "assignments" heading.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Intercultural Communication
As the world becomes increasingly globalized, an increased emphasis should be placed on intercultural communication. The consequences for failing to communicate successfully across cultures could have disastrous consequences, especially given the rise of international business. So I think it's a good thing that researchers and educators are exploring this issue in greater depth.
I think one of the best ways to change your perspective on ICC is to study abroad or actually work abroad for an extended period of time. Because if you do that, then for what is likely the first time, you will be in an area where you, your culture, and your worldview will not be in the majority. So you will be forced to at least open your mind and learn a bit about how people of other cultures think and how they see things.
But not everyone has the luxury of being able to study abroad or take an overseas job. So what's needed is patience. And you have to be a bit proactive as well. There's a lot of mistrust between different groups, so an honest opening gesture or overture could go a long way towards dismantling stereotypes and barriers.
I also think we should focus more on our comfort levels than the actual dialogues themselves because if you have a rapport or the trust, then you will know that you should not assume bad intentions when there's a communication breakdown. Patience and trust will allow both the speaker and listener to cooperate and negotiate meaning together.
However, to be sure, repair strategies, recasts, and recul are indeed essential to successful ICC. The aspect of recul is probably more important for one's own personal development because it could make your future ICC interactions a bit more successful. However, is the goal of ICC to understand each other, or is it merely to avoid offending someone? If you believe it's the former, then recul is more important. If it's the latter, then mere tact and patience would probably suffice.
I think one of the best ways to change your perspective on ICC is to study abroad or actually work abroad for an extended period of time. Because if you do that, then for what is likely the first time, you will be in an area where you, your culture, and your worldview will not be in the majority. So you will be forced to at least open your mind and learn a bit about how people of other cultures think and how they see things.
But not everyone has the luxury of being able to study abroad or take an overseas job. So what's needed is patience. And you have to be a bit proactive as well. There's a lot of mistrust between different groups, so an honest opening gesture or overture could go a long way towards dismantling stereotypes and barriers.
I also think we should focus more on our comfort levels than the actual dialogues themselves because if you have a rapport or the trust, then you will know that you should not assume bad intentions when there's a communication breakdown. Patience and trust will allow both the speaker and listener to cooperate and negotiate meaning together.
However, to be sure, repair strategies, recasts, and recul are indeed essential to successful ICC. The aspect of recul is probably more important for one's own personal development because it could make your future ICC interactions a bit more successful. However, is the goal of ICC to understand each other, or is it merely to avoid offending someone? If you believe it's the former, then recul is more important. If it's the latter, then mere tact and patience would probably suffice.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Research question
Here is my research question for the end-of-term research proposal:
1. To what extent does using instant messaging as opposed to flash cards (PowerPoint) influence learning Japanese vocabulary?
1. To what extent does using instant messaging as opposed to flash cards (PowerPoint) influence learning Japanese vocabulary?
On Social Bookmarking
I like to think of social bookmarking as a way to make using websearches easier. When you go to Google's website to search for something, you often have to weed through a lot of old, tangential, inappropriate, or outdated sites in order to find the things you want. Social bookmarking is good because it allows you to visit sites that have been recommended by other real people who are interested in the same things. I think this could potentially allow websearchers to save time.
However, I'm not quite on board with the importance of sites like Digg or StumbleUpon or Citeulike because if you have reasonably strong computer skills, you are probably going to be able to find what you are looking for without the assistance of social bookmarking. We learned in this class the various ways of making your search strings more powerful, such as capitalizing certain words, adding quotes, and adding "OR" or "AND" strings.
Another disadvantage to social bookmarking is that even though they should theoretically make websearches more efficient, it's still maintained by people, and people are not always perfect. In other words, some sites might be improperly tagged, thus causing people to miss what they are looking for or to have to weed through something they're not looking for. In addition to this, who's to say that the popular site that you can find on Digg is a site that you in particular are interested in. With your own bookmarks in Internet Explorer or Firefox, you are the sole arbiter of which sites you want to provide quick access to via bookmarks and which sites don't quite make the cut.
Social bookmarking didn't really exist when I was an undergraduate, so I'm admittedly not quite on board when it comes to using this, either in my regular internet use or in the classroom. But maybe my opinion will change.
However, I'm not quite on board with the importance of sites like Digg or StumbleUpon or Citeulike because if you have reasonably strong computer skills, you are probably going to be able to find what you are looking for without the assistance of social bookmarking. We learned in this class the various ways of making your search strings more powerful, such as capitalizing certain words, adding quotes, and adding "OR" or "AND" strings.
Another disadvantage to social bookmarking is that even though they should theoretically make websearches more efficient, it's still maintained by people, and people are not always perfect. In other words, some sites might be improperly tagged, thus causing people to miss what they are looking for or to have to weed through something they're not looking for. In addition to this, who's to say that the popular site that you can find on Digg is a site that you in particular are interested in. With your own bookmarks in Internet Explorer or Firefox, you are the sole arbiter of which sites you want to provide quick access to via bookmarks and which sites don't quite make the cut.
Social bookmarking didn't really exist when I was an undergraduate, so I'm admittedly not quite on board when it comes to using this, either in my regular internet use or in the classroom. But maybe my opinion will change.
Blogs and Language
Blogs seem like a creative way to integrate technology into the classroom. Blogs allow for a sense of ownership, thus blog owners will be more apt to take their blog, their writing, and their overall product seriously. It's a reflection of themselves. And when another internet user leaves a comment on your blog, it is quite validating of your "worth" as a blogger.
Another advantage of blogging is that readers can easily track one's progress over time. Unless blog entries are set to private (which would defeat the purpose of using them in a language classroom), readers can easily see all previous entries and contrast those earlier entries with later ones. Students and readers may be surprised by how much the blog owner has improved regarding his or her language ability.
Because blogs are easily customizable, blog owners may be more interested in maintaining them because they can add their favorite pictures, You Tube videos, polls, etc. When you are interested in something, your performance improves. And if learning doesn't seem like learning, that would seem to make this a tool worth pursuing in a K-12 environment, where motivation is often a problem.
One of the disadvantages of blogs that should be of particular concern to K-12 teachers is the element of privacy. Anything on the internet is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. If a child blogger posts information on his blog that can identify his address or other personal information, that introduces risks that parents and instructors may find unacceptable. And what about strangers leaving comments on the blogs? This could be circumvented by changing the blogs' settings so that only registered users or particular users can access the blogs or leave comments.
Maybe this is one reason why I'm not much of a K-12 kind of guy, even though I've taught children English before...
Another advantage of blogging is that readers can easily track one's progress over time. Unless blog entries are set to private (which would defeat the purpose of using them in a language classroom), readers can easily see all previous entries and contrast those earlier entries with later ones. Students and readers may be surprised by how much the blog owner has improved regarding his or her language ability.
Because blogs are easily customizable, blog owners may be more interested in maintaining them because they can add their favorite pictures, You Tube videos, polls, etc. When you are interested in something, your performance improves. And if learning doesn't seem like learning, that would seem to make this a tool worth pursuing in a K-12 environment, where motivation is often a problem.
One of the disadvantages of blogs that should be of particular concern to K-12 teachers is the element of privacy. Anything on the internet is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. If a child blogger posts information on his blog that can identify his address or other personal information, that introduces risks that parents and instructors may find unacceptable. And what about strangers leaving comments on the blogs? This could be circumvented by changing the blogs' settings so that only registered users or particular users can access the blogs or leave comments.
Maybe this is one reason why I'm not much of a K-12 kind of guy, even though I've taught children English before...
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Gender issues
For my research paper, I would like to examine gender differences in CALL. I studied psychology as an undergraduate and I remember taking a course called Psychology of Women. Hillary Clinton's candidacy also reminded me of this course.
Anyway, I'm interested in seeing how comfortable the different genders are with using technology and with performing in front of others face to face or over the computer. Will men be more self-conscious with making mistakes over the computer, or will women be more self-conscious performing in front of a group? Or will women do better because they can feed off of the other students in front of them? Or are there no differences at all?
Research and statistics show that women are increasingly likely to go to college and more likely to complete it than men, so this kind of research seems pertinent. I'm still working on the methodology right now, but I'm leaning towards reciting a foreign language dialogue over webcam, voice chat, and face to face and comparing fluency, hesitation devices, and accuracy.
My subjects for this study would be adults. I know there's a paucity of research regarding children, but my interest is not in K-12 teaching. I taught children when I lived in Japan and I gave it my best shot. But it's just not for me. I had fun sometimes, but I just didn't like the lack of control I had regarding criticism. Sometimes parents can be too bossy or stifling.
Have a good spring break, everyone.
Anyway, I'm interested in seeing how comfortable the different genders are with using technology and with performing in front of others face to face or over the computer. Will men be more self-conscious with making mistakes over the computer, or will women be more self-conscious performing in front of a group? Or will women do better because they can feed off of the other students in front of them? Or are there no differences at all?
Research and statistics show that women are increasingly likely to go to college and more likely to complete it than men, so this kind of research seems pertinent. I'm still working on the methodology right now, but I'm leaning towards reciting a foreign language dialogue over webcam, voice chat, and face to face and comparing fluency, hesitation devices, and accuracy.
My subjects for this study would be adults. I know there's a paucity of research regarding children, but my interest is not in K-12 teaching. I taught children when I lived in Japan and I gave it my best shot. But it's just not for me. I had fun sometimes, but I just didn't like the lack of control I had regarding criticism. Sometimes parents can be too bossy or stifling.
Have a good spring break, everyone.
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