Distance Education on English as a Second Language (ESL) Education
Introduction
There are dramatic changes in the ways of languages teaching from the teaching of explicit grammar structures to the fostering of communicative ability, and technologies have been introduced to language teaching in many ways.
Shifting perspectives on Language Teaching and Use of Technology
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Structural
Perspectives
|
Cognitive
Perspectives
|
Network-based Language Teaching |
|
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How
is language understood to develop?
|
Through transmission from competent users. Internalization of structures and habits through repetition and corrective feedback. | Through the operation of innate cognitive heuristics on language input. | Through social interaction and assimilation of others' speech. |
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What
should be fostered in students?
|
Mastery of a prescriptive norm, imitation of modeled discourse, with minimal errors. | Ongoing development of their interlanguage. Ability to realize their individual communicative purposes. | Attention to form (including genre, register, and style variation) in contexts of real language use. |
|
How
is instruction oriented?
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Toward well-formed language products (spoken and written). Focus on mastery of discrete skills. | Toward cognitive processes involved in the learning and use of language. Focus on development of strategies for communication and learning. | Toward negotiation of meaning through collaborative interaction with others. Creating a discourse community with authentic communicative tasks. |
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How
are language texts primarily treated?
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As displays of vocabulary and grammar structures to be emulated. | Either as "input" for unconscious processing or as objects of problem solving and hypothesis testing. | As communicative acts (doing things with words). |
|
What
is the principal role of computers?
(CALL-Computer Assisted Language Learning) |
To provide unlimited drill, practice, tutorial explanation, and corrective feedback. | To provide language input and analytic and inferential tasks. | To provide alternative contexts for social interactions. To facilitate access to existing discourse communities and the creation of new ones. |
NBLT
(1) Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) - Communication
with instructors, other learners, or speakers of the target language in asynchronous
(ex. e-mail) or synchronous (ex. videoconferencing)
(2) Globally linked hypertext
(Cited from Kern, K., & Warchauer, M. (2000). Network-based Language Teaching: Concepts and Practice Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press)
Last Updated 4-3-01