Transcript Entering the Brave New World of Interculturality via

Entering the Brave New World
of Interculturality via Digital
EFL Learning
廖美玲
台中教育大學英語學系
Meei-Ling Liaw
National Taichung University
Changing Scenes in EFL Education
• Global village
國際村
• Tribalized teenagers 部落化青少年
• Digital Natives VS. Digital Immigrants
數位原住民 vs. 數位移民
• Networked society
網路社群
WORLD INTERNET USAGE AND POPULATION STATISTICS
World Regions
Africa
Population
( 2007 Est.)
Population
% of World
Internet Usage,
Latest Data
% Population
( Penetration )
Usage
% of
World
Usage
Growth
2000-2007
941,249,130
14.2 %
44,361,940
4.7 %
3.4 %
882.7 %
3,733,783,474
56.5 %
510,478,743
13.7 %
38.7 %
346.6 %
Europe
801,821,187
12.1 %
348,125,847
43.4 %
26.4 %
231.2 %
Middle East
192,755,045
2.9 %
33,510,500
17.4 %
2.5 %
920.2 %
North America
334,659,631
5.1 %
238,015,529
71.1 %
18.0 %
120.2 %
Latin
America/Caribbean
569,133,474
8.6 %
126,203,714
22.2 %
9.6 %
598.5 %
Oceania / Australia
33,569,718
0.5 %
19,175,836
57.1 %
1.5 %
151.6 %
6,606,971,659
100.0 %
1,319,872,109
20.0 %
100.0 %
265.6 %
Asia
WORLD TOTAL
NOTES: (1) Internet Usage and World Population Statistics are for December 31, 2007. Copyright © 2000 - 2008, Miniwatts
Marketing Group. All rights reserved worldwide.
Internet World Stats reports that
• TAIWAN TW - 22,858,872 population - Area: 36,175 sq
km, Capital City: Taipei - GNI p.c. US$ 13,392 ('99)
• 15,400,000 users as of June/07, 67.4% penetration, per
TWNIC.
• At end-2004, the IDC Information Society Index (ISI)
rated Taiwan as having the world’s best wireless Internet
penetration.
• Taiwan has undoubtedly one of the most advanced
telecommunications networks in Asia.
New Challenge
• “…the single biggest problem facing education
today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors,
who speak an outdated language (that of the predigital age), are struggling to teach a population
that speaks an entirely new language.”
– Marc Prensky, (2001) On the Horizon Vol. 9 No. 5
• “Should the Digital Native students learn the old
ways, or should their Digital Immigrant educators
learn the new? Unfortunately, no matter how much
the Immigrants may wish it, it is highly unlikely
the Digital Natives will go backwards.”
Virtual Learning Environments and Online
Intercultural Exchange
• The availability of high-speed internet connections and
communication tools allows students to socialize and
communicate in ways that language teachers before never
thought possible.
• David Crystal (2001: 218) suggests that the days of AngloAmerican domination of the internet are quickly coming to
an end.
• Global Research (2004) suggests that learners surfing the
internet are likely to encounter users from a great number
of different nationalities-each one bringing with it its own
cultural-specific beliefs and expectations as to what is
appropriate behavior in CMC.
From Communicative Competence to
Intercultural Communicative Competence
• Communicative language learning
– Authenticity
– Interactivity
– Contextualized learning
• Through online interaction, learners become aware that
communicating in a foreign language involves not only the
exchange of information, but also the expression of
speaker identity and the development of relationship in
situations of intercultural contact.
Interculturality
• Culture and communication are two intimately
related elements of the process of meaning
construction.
• Interculturality is the educational objective related
to culture and communication and defined as the
active participation in communication helped by
critical awareness and analysis and motivated by
the appreciation of diversity as the foundation of
society.
• Developing the intercultural dimension in language
teaching involves recognising that the aims are: to
give learners intercultural competence as well as
linguistic competence; to prepare them for
interaction with people of other cultures; to enable
them to understand and accept people from other
cultures as individuals with other distinctive
perspectives, values and behaviours; and to help
them to see that such interaction is an enriching
experience.
– Michael Byram, Bella Gribkova, and Hugh Starkey
• “Students need to gain insights both into their own
culture and the foreign culture, and be aware of
the meeting of cultures that often takes place in
communication situations in the foreign language.”
– Claire Kramsch (1993)
• “Learners must first become familiar with what it
means to be part of their own culture and by
exploring their own culture before they are ready
to reflect upon the values, expectations, and
traditions of others with a higher degree of
intellectual objectivity.”
– Hans Straub (1999)
Becoming Intercultural Speakers…
• Michael Byram and Michael Fleming (1998, p. 8)
define “intercultural speakers” as people who can
“establish a relationship between their own and
the other cultures, to mediate and explain
differences – and ultimately to accept that
difference and see the common humanity beneath
it.”
Key characteristics of virtual exchanges that help to
develop learners’ intercultural communicative competence
• Students have opportunities to express their
feelings and views about their own culture to a
receptive audience
• Students are encouraged to reflect critically on
their own culture through questions posed by their
partners
• Students engage in dialogic interaction with their
partners about the home and target cultures.
– Robert O’Dowd (2003)
Models of Intercultural Exchanges
• eTandem founded with the support of the European Commission
– Reciprocity
– Learner autonomy
– Asynchronous email and synchronous text-based CMC (e.g., Instant
messenger, Chat, MOOs)
• Cultura supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the
Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning
– Structured model
– Series of stages
– Culture is the explicit focus
• eTwinning supported by European Union
– For primary and secondary schools
– Partnership on school or teacher level
– Creating e-journals with the help of partner class
Words associated with corruption
Possibilities of Intercultural FL Education
• Groups from different cultures in contact together
via online communication will interact on a more
“equal footing” than they might in a face-to-face
situation, thereby increase the potential for
interaction in which neither group is dominated by
the other.
• Interaction between individuals or cultures
produces a genuine change or shift in their way of
viewing the world.
Caveats
• Presenting online communication as a “utopian middle
landscape” free from historical, geographical, national,
or institutional identity is inaccurate, unrealistic, and
fails to exploit the medium to its full potential.
• Online educators should take into account different
cultural attitudes to online collaboration and interaction
when planning online learning tasks for groups of
international learners.
• Online communication should provide students with
the opportunity to confront and deal with prejudices,
stereotypes, racism, and myths that they hold about
other social groups and cultures and that others may
hold about them.