Hanna and de Nooy (2003) have made a very important point in their article "A funny thing happened on the way to the forum: electronic discussion and foreign language learning" that it might be advisable to change "practicing French" to "practicing Frenchness" in instructions given to students engaged in online fora for the purpose of second language learning. The authors presented a very interesting study of the online forum exchanges and discussed about the importance of prefacing language learners of what successful participation would mean for a particular forum in order to optimize the expected effect and improve their "cultural knowledge" should forum debates be used for second language learning. In addition, as "neither culture nor genre is seen as firmly entrenched", negotiation of cultural and generic rules would be a great way for language students to improve their language competence, to be more specific, intercultural communicative competence, "through participation in a cultural practice". In this sense, it seems that we could practice second language without really trying, which sounds exciting. However, given the cultural focus of a practice like the forum debate in the article, I believe it is better to be taken as a supplementary part for a second language curriculum. In addition, this type of practice might only be beneficial to language learners who are at least at the intermediate level.
1 comment:
Good point about ability level...I suppose no one really begins to learn a language without trying, but many learners continue to grow linguistically without trying through activities like this. What an interesting article, huh?
Post a Comment