Technically Speaking:Transforming Language Learning through Virtual Learning Environments(MOOs)
Though MOOs(multiple ur domains object-oriented)have found a limited u in some language cours,their potential for transforming the language learning classroom has not been fully recognized or valued.In Fall1998and1999,the authors teamed up to teach the first language cour conducted almost entirely using a MOO and involving a7-week exchange between students learning German at an American college and advanced students of English at a German university.Drawing on their experiences,the authors systematically map out the tremendous pedagogical benefits to using a MOO for language learning:a student-centered learning environment structured by such objectives as peer teaching,autonomous learning principles,intellectually rich content-bad instruction,individualized learning,and play.In addition to offering a model for the successful integration of technology into the classroom, this article suggests how MOOs can help achieve the long-sought goal of curely anchoring intermediate or even elementary language learning back into the liberal arts curriculum.
BEGINNING AS FAR BACK AS THE1950s WITH the u of tape decks in the Audiolingual method,new technologies have been a perennial source of hope for making language learning a faster and more efficient process(Blake,1998). The invention and widespread u of personal computers in the late1980s and1990s breathed new life into visions of a new future for foreign languages(FLs).Yet d
espite such promis,even longtime proponents of FL technology often ex-press frustration with the current state of affairs. Garrett’s1991conclusion that technology is still “light-years ahead of the profession’s ability”to harness it for FL learning(p.74)still ems true today.More recently,Bush(1997),citing among other studies an informal survey of subscribers to the Language Learning Technology Interna-tional(LLTI)listrve that“found few examples of language education programs where students spend at least10%of their time using technology to help in their learning,”laments that“there is little evidence that technology is having any sig-nificant impact on the way most students learn languages in today’s classroom”(p.288).While the expens associated with most new technolo-gies share much of the blame,teachers have been hampered just as often by the enormous commit-ment of time required to develop or adopt new technologies,especially becau return on that investment of time is often not immediate.More-over,many multimedia software programs do not yet achieve the promid goals for computer-assisted language learning(CALL).Even if most CALL activities are no longer built around“drill-and-kill”exercis,many commercially available programs are still structured quite rigidly and lack a truly communicative interface.
万劫不朽While educational multiple ur domains ob-ject-oriented(MOOs)are not the only kind of technology
suited to language learning,we think the MOO-bad project we conducted with stu-dents learning German at Vassar College and stu-
SILKE VON DER EMDE JEFFREY SCHNEIDER MARKUS KÖTTER
Department of German Studies Department of German Studies Westfälische Wilhelms–Universität Münster Vassar College,Box426Vassar College,Box501Englisches Seminar
Poughkeepsie,NY12604Poughkeepsie,NY12604Johannisstr.12–20
Email:vonderemde@vassar.edu Email:JeSchneider@vassar.edu D-48143Münster,Germany
Email:kotterm@uni-muenster.de业务员提成
The Modern Language Journal,85, ii,(2001)
0026-7902/01/210–225$1.50/0
©2001The Modern Language Journal
dents studying English at the University of Mün-ster,Germany,can rve as one important model for
using technology to transform and to enrich the language learning experience in the under-graduate classroom.The MOO has evolved from its origins as Dungeons and Dragons game soft-ware in the1970s into an online,synchronous, text-bad learning environment that rves a va-riety of professional and social purpos.At American universities,MOOs have found adher-ents in English class and other subjects,1but they are only now starting to find u in FL class-room ttings.2This delay ems to be in part becau early generations of MOOs admittedly required some training and adjustment time, leading Lafford and Lafford(1997)to recom-mend avoiding them in favor of“less complicated environments”(p.259)such as chat rooms.Nev-ertheless,the newest generation of MOO inter-faces now makes such warnings unjustified. MOOs have come a long way and derve a c-ond look.Until now,however,rearch on MOOs either has underrecognized their true potential for language learning or, despite certain similari-ties between MOOs and chat rooms,has failed to distinguish them fully from other synchronous online technologies.And while we are not the first to u a MOO to teach a FL,we believe we are the first to teach an entire mester-long FL cour around it and to asss systematically a MOO’s potential for the FL classroom.As this article will suggest,the true advantages of using MOOs are best achieved through full integration into the syllabus—both as a way to modify tradi-tional classroom activities, such as discussions, small group work,and paper writing,and as a means for introducing important new communi-cative a
ctivities.Moreover,opting for a less com-plex system means sacrificing real opportunities to transform language learning.
Thus,rather than report directly on u of the MOO in the classroom,this article draws on class-room experiences to outline and document v-eral extraordinary pedagogical benefits from us-ing MOOs for FL learning.Though the MOO reprents a technological revolution of sorts that moves away from the traditional language class-room,it actually offers unique possibilities for applying many theoretically sound language learning methods.Indeed,we want to suggest that the MOO makes it technologically possible for the first time for teachers and learners to achieve many long-held language learning goals in a manner that we could only have dreamt of just a few years ago.Even as extensive contact with native speakers stands out as the most obvious innovation made possible by the MOO,the re-conceptualization of all student interaction as authentic input through the u of the MOO is equally exciting.The MOO has enabled the authors to refashion the FL classroom into a stu-dent-centered learning environment structured by such objectives as peer teaching,autonomous learning principles,intellectually rich content-bad instruction,individualized learning,and, last but not least,play.The MOO realizes the core vision of“communicative CALL”(Underwood, 1984):the transformation of the language learn-ing classroom itlf.
乱七八糟的近义词
MOOS AS A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT MOOs are virtual learning environments with powerful educational tools.3As synchronous, text-bad Internet databas,they extend the very concept of communication itlf—both within and beyond the four walls of the class-room.Of cour,like chat rooms,in which urs have keyboard conversations with each other, MOOs enable people from all over the globe to “speak”to each other in real time.Nevertheless, to appreciate the MOO’s potential impact on lan-guage learning,it is important to understand how it differs from chat rooms such as Internet relay chats(IRCs),or even more complex Web-bad collaborative writing programs such as Daedalus. Although they share with chat rooms the ability to bring together language learners with native speakers for conversational exchange or directed writing,MOOs offer urs many more communi-cation features than are available on the other chat systems.First,MOOs offer a variety of com-municative modalities.Not only can urs con-ver with others in the same virtual room or across different rooms,but one can also“whis-per”to another person(so that others in the room do not e what is being“said”),“shout”(so that everyone in the MOO es,regardless of their room location)and,most importantly,“emote”(that is,express feelings or“physical”actions through words).Second,MOOs provide a wide range of manipulable educational tools and allow urs to create and display their own virtual objects through simple commands or with a few clicks of the mou. For instance, urs can record entire discussions with a(virtual)recorder and play them back
at a later date.They can also write notes for other urs—and even post them on electronic noteboards.In fact,urs can cre-ate an almost unlimited variety of personal cyber objects,since all objects in the MOO consist of a textual description.Third,instead of using pre-
Silke von der Emde,Jeffrey Schneider,and Markus Kötter211
defined and abstract spaces,MOOs allow urs to create personal rooms and describe them in a personal way.As this article will show,the ability to personalize space and objects in the MOO allows a community of urs to create and even analyze its own virtual culture.Finally,the newest generation of MOOs are fully integrated with the World Wide Web.This development means not only that urs can access MOOs bad on the enCore MOO databa using a standard Web browr,but they can also import Web pages and other graphics into the MOO and nd them to other people in the MOO.Becau the hyper-links in the Web pages are active,urs can jump from the MOO to the Web and back again with just a few clicks of the mou.In fact,all objects created in the enCore system have unique Uniform Resource Locators(URLs)and can be accesd directly through the Web,making it easy to publish electronically without any training in Hypertext Markup Language(HTML).As a re-sult of the features,the MOO retains the text-bad elements that its supporters have always admired while comparing favorably with any of today’s graphic-orient
ed multimedia programs. Despite the expansive possibilities,MOOs are easy to learn to u.It takes less than5min-utes for beginners to learn to move around and to communicate,and we found that as instructors we needed no more technical support to teach in the MOO than is required for any new computer software system ud in the classroom.Especially with the new Web-bad interface,even the ad-vanced features of the MOO are intuitive.Fur-thermore,using an existing MOO is absolutely free:All that each ur requires is a computer with access to the Internet.Most educational MOOs allow anyone to sign on as a guest,after which it is possible to apply for a free permanent “character”(sign-on name).Moreover,building a MOO at one’s home institution is relatively easy, though the process requires a small amount of technical support.For instance,with the help of two student assistants,two of us,von der Emde and Schneider,developed MOOssiggang,one of the world’s first bilingual German MOOs.The name is a pun on the German word Müßiggang, which means something akin to leisure,relaxa-tion,and idleness and is intended to capture the MOO’s dimension of play.4When a ur enters MOOssiggang,he or she has the option of going to the“English side” or the“German side” of the MOO.In rooms on the German side,urs are expected to type commands in German,and al-most all feedback from the computer is also in German.5Of cour,even though such a bilin-gual MOO interface offers continuous opportu-nities for language practice at the level of com-puter commands,messages,and u,many of the communicati
ve benefits from using a MOO can also be obtained from an English-language MOO interface.
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND ONLINE EXCHANGE
Beginning in Fall1998,the three of us collabo-rated to reorganize Vassar’s third-mester inter-mediate German cour to include a virtual ex-change with students studying English at the University of Münster.Kötter,an English instruc-tor at University of Münster,was actively arching for American partners for a collaborative ex-change that would enable him to measure the im-pact of MOOs on tandem learning between lan-guage learners and native speakers.6Meanwhile, von der Emde and Schneider were motivated to develop a cour around the MOO to achieve two pedagogical goals:to find a solution to the often vexing range of student proficiencies in our inter-mediate German cour(a common problem in small language programs that often leave some students underchallenged and others striving to keep up)and to introduce intellectually rich con-tent at an earlier stage in the language learning process and thereby move beyond teaching a FL as a mere“skill.”Hence,we also ud the MOO in the weeks prior to the exchange to introduce low to in-termediate FL learners to texts and questions very much along the lines of our own scholarship in lit-erary and cultural studies.7
Becau the German academic calendar starts in mid-October,we at Vassar College organized our intermediate German minar in two dis-tinct phas.8During the first7weeks,students got acquainted with the MOO,began an inten-sive grammar review,and reflected upon general cultural topics.Though we drew on a grammar textbook,the primary focus of this pha was on exploring issues of identity and space through literary and cultural readings,through discussions in the MOO,and by having students create their own cultural spaces and identities in the MOO.In addition to activities that en-couraged students to reflect upon the virtual cul-ture they were constructing in the MOO,this first pha also included assignments that asked students to define their learning goals,asss their progress,build vocabulary,and understand the principles of collaborative learning.During the cond pha of the cour,which lasted from mid-October to early December,students
212The Modern Language Journal85(2001)
at Vassar worked in small groups with students from Münster to develop and prent their own joint rearch projects in the MOO.The col-laborative,interdisciplinary projects aro out of the students’own interests,and all projects fo-cud primarily on differences and similarities between German and American culture.Projects in the Fall1998and Fall1999mesters com-pared German a
nd American educational sys-tems,immigration policies,national stereotypes, multiculturalism, and music culture. Becau the cour met twice weekly for75-minute ssions, Pha2offered each student approximately16 contact hours with native speakers—about8 hours in each language—in groups no larger than two Americans and two Germans.Project work often necessitated that groups also ex-changed emails or met in the MOO outside of class.In addition to the two weekly75-minute ssions in the MOO,Vassar students also met for50minutes on a weekly basis with instructors and teaching assistants to practice oral skills and reflect on their work in the MOO.Instead of quizzes and tests on grammar,students kept a learning portfolio of all their work completed inside and outside the MOO throughout the -mester.The students and teachers ud the portfolios to evaluate the students’overall class performance.9
FIVE PEDAGOGICAL BENEFITS TO USING THE MOO
Of cour,computer technologies such as the MOO do not reprent a particular or inherent teaching strategy in and of themlves.As Garrett (1991)has obrved,“the computer is rather a medium or an environment in which a wide vari-ety of methods,approaches,or pedagogical phi-losophies may be implemented” (p. 75). Though it is still necessary to gather more information on the actual effects of the MOO on student progress before conclusive results can be made available,
our experience with MOOs in the intermediate language classroom has nevertheless led us to identify at least five pedagogical dimensions that should constitute an informed and principled in-tegration of MOOs for FL learning.Each of the following benefits from using MOOs derives in part from the radically student-centered learning environment made possible by the MOO.
Authentic Communication and Content
Almost automatically,the MOO restructures language learning dynamics away from drill-like exercis or an exclusive attention to grammati-cal accuracy to content-bad activities and mean-ingful communication between students.Re-archers in cond language acquisition have long reminded language teachers that language acquisition is not a passive skill of recognition but a creative construction process.Cognitive scien-tists such as Hunt(1982) have found that by matching new language input with older bits of knowledge—what linguists call“schemata”—stu-dents constantly“negotiate”between what they already know and what they hear and e in new communicative situations(Rüschoff,1993,p.
29).Indeed,in order to learn a new language, students must actively gather new information, and then process,reorganize,and internalize it. Already in1985,Ellis pronounced that language learning r
esults from communicative language u.Unlike many textbook exercis(and cer-tainly most grammar exercis),however,the MOO establishes such authentic communicative situations in ideal ways.
First of all,like chat rooms,MOOs can be ud to discuss authentic materials.For instance,in a unit on space during the first pha of the cour (prior to contact with native speakers),students analyzed three exemplary short passages in Ger-man culled from different genres.The first was a paragraph from Franz Kafka’s story“Der Bau”(“The Burrow”),which portrays a mole’s nerv-ously charged relation to his burrow. The cond was taken from a contemporary detective story by Jakob Arjouni that describes the protagonist’s very messy office in ironic,postmodern noir terms.The third was excerpted from a letter writ-ten by Rosa Luxemburg,in which she juxtapos the dull confines of her World War I prison cell with the beautiful,emotionally liberating,phan-tasmic spaces of her memory and imagination.In the first step in this unit,we asked students to discuss the readings in small groups in the MOO. Our experience with discussions in the MOO confirms what Beauvois(1997)has found in her study of chat rooms:Students at the intermediate level were able to draw fairly sophisticated conclu-sions in the target language becau the written conversational form of the MOO enables them to bridge the gap between written and oral skills—a gap that otherwi oft
en prevents the“full ex-pression of ideas”in discussions in a traditional language classroom(p.167).工程质量保证
Using the MOO as a chat room–like discussion space,however,is not the only,or even the most unique,u of the MOO.The MOO also makes it possible for students to construct their own language learning environment and thereby re-
Silke von der Emde,Jeffrey Schneider,and Markus Kötter213
fashion themlves into a community of learners. Eck,Legenhaun,and Wolff(1995)suggest that truly authentic communicative situations only ari when the language classroom itlf becomes the focus of student work and activities,that is, when the classroom environment is recognized and thematized as an integral part of students’living reality(Lebenswirklichkeit)rather than as an unreflected routine outside of it.Thus,after in-itiating another MOO-bad discussion about the relationship between the MOO’s unique spatial dimensions and the three texts illustrating differ-ent notions of space,we asked students to put theory into practice and to construct their own room in MOOssiggang.In the virtual,text-bad world of the MOO,building a room esntially means describing a space—any imaginative space—with language,and thus the goal of the assignment was to have students produce texts on par with the discursive examples they had read for this unit.
Students then analyzed with a partner the spaces they had produced. The partner work exercis not only helped students with their descriptions but also emphasized that their writing had an authentic communicative purpo.For instance,after they built and de-scribed their rooms,partners gave each other feedback about their descriptions,such as what kind of impression they made and what kind of person they thought lived there.Thus,rather than an arbitrary exerci undertaken only to practice the language,the spaces became themlves objects for the same kind of analysis done on Kafka’s story or Luxemburg’s letter.As public documents of a sort,the virtual rooms were qualitatively different from a description of a dorm room,a standard assignment in a tradi-tional FL classroom.
An example of a room description by one of the students from the Fall 1998mester can rve as an example:
朝鲜炮击Zimmer von Carla
Mein Raum ist prima.Ich habe einen
Kuehlschrank,wo mein Wodka steht(aber ich
finde Rum am besten!)Mein Bett liegt in die
Ecke.An meine Anrichte liegt eine Kerze.Die
Kerze ist zauberhaft(aber ich weiss nicht
warum!)Meine Freunde glauben,dass sie eine
Frau in die Flamme hen koennen.Ja,ich finde
es hr mystisch.Mein Raum ist auch hr ruhig.
Leute spricht nicht in meinem Raum. Sie wollen
nur Musik hoeren.Meine Waende sind
blau—blau wie die Himmel.Mein Teppich ist
gruen—gruen wie das Gras.Mein Raum gibt
欢乐颂2分集剧情
wps批注nur ein Fenster.Ich liebe,wenn ich mich aufs
Fenster lehnen.Ich kann ein Wald hen.Die
Aussicht ist hr schoen.Ich denke oft ueber die
Waeldern.Die Waeldern geben keine Waende.
Manchmal ist mein Raum ein bisschen unorden-
tlich.Mein Kleidung steht nicht im
Schrank—aber es ist mir egal.Mein Raum,
schmutzig oder nicht schmutzig,gefaellt mir.Ach
so—ich habe eine Katze.Herby,die SuperKatze,
wohnt mit mir.Ich bin nicht so einsam.Mein
Raum ist gemuetlich aber ein bisschen unheim-
lich.Ich liebe meinen Raum.
(Carla’s Room
My room is super.I have a refrigerator,
where I keep my vodka(though I like rum
the best!)My bed is in the corner.A candle
lies on my sideboard.The candle is magical
(but I don’t know why!)My friends believe
that they can e a woman in the flame.Yes,
I find it very mystical.My room is also very
calm.People do not speak in my room.
They only want to hear music.My walls are
blue—blue like the sky.My carpet is
green—green like the grass.My room has
only one window.I love to lean out of the
window.I can e a forest.The view is very
beautiful.I think a lot about the woods.
The woods don’t have any walls.Sometimes
my room is a little disorderly.My clothing
is not in the clot—but that’s not impor-
tant.Dirty or not dirty,I think my room is
great.Oh,I have a cat.Herby,the Super-
Cat,lives with me.I am not so lonely.My
room is cozy but a little uncanny.I love my
room.)
Though this assignment generated an impressive amount of language u from a third-mester student just weeks after the start of our cour, we advocate reading the room description for the cultural and personal notions of space it con-veys.As Kramsch and Nolden(1994)stress,in-termediate language students(and their teach-ers)need to value student writing—and take it riously—by subjecting it to the kinds of cul-tural analys that are practiced in the classroom on the published writing by native-speaking authors.Such an approach means that gram-matical accuracy should not be the only or even a primary focus of any respon to student writ-ing—either by a teacher or by a fellow student. Indeed,like the short texts by Kafka,Luxem-burg,or Arjouni,Carla’s room description offers an imaginary space worthy of more careful con-sideration.Perhaps the most striking feature of her room is its fusion of practicality with mysti-cism.Though one of the first things she tells us
214The Modern Language Journal85(2001)
is that she has a refrigerator with alcohol(not an uncommon feature of a dorm room), she also informs her fellow students that she has a burning candle near her bed in who flame v-eral visitors claimed to e a spirit.This cond point makes the room em very different from a typical dorm room.Nevertheless,it is possible to read Carla’s room as a reaction to the chal-lenges and unc
ertainties of life as a first-mester freshman.Her own virtual room—with its blue walls rembling the limitless sky—attempts to strike a curious equilibrium between unlimited possibility and natural borders.This arch for an equilibrium ems to be required of all fresh-men as they leave the confining comfort of home for the big adventure of college.That new life is both exciting and scary—perhaps some-times lonely or even uncanny.Carla’s virtual room captures that heady combination of feel-ings—and,with affirmative statements at the be-ginning and end of her description,embraces it.
When students build their own rooms,create noteboards or other educational tools,and rep-rent their own(virtual)personality in the FL, their motivation to u the target language is genuine and has authentic communicative goals. While rearch into computer-mediated commu-nication(CMC)has verified its significant im-pact on learner motivation(Warschauer,1996; Beauvois,1994),the MOO necessarily expands the definition of“communication”beyond syn-chronous discussions or other direct and inten-tional exchanges(such as email)with native speakers,classmates,and teachers.Indeed, building rooms in the MOO is not just a pretend exerci,which students hand in and then for-get.Instead,their rooms become part of the en-vironment that the students themlves con-struct and u for their language learning. Becau the virtual rooms become the meeting places for groups of students working on proj-ects or just lo
oking for fun,the students’writing becomes part of their identity as language learn-ers and can potentially trigger countless discus-sions and exchanges with other learners in the MOO.Like one’s own apartment,home,or dorm room,the virtual rooms convey important information about who students are or want to be in the target language,and in this n they reprent their owners to the native and nonna-tive speakers they might soon encounter and even work with.Hence,it would be a mistake to discount the virtual nature of spaces and in-teractions in the MOO as“unreal”or“inauthen-tic.”As Haynes and Holmevik,the developers of the MOO core ud in this study and two of the MOO’s most thoughtful theorists,eloquently put it:“Our work debunks the myth that online re-lationships are somehow UNREAL and ONLY full of inane chat;rather,it is a testimony to community-building,not dehumanizing urbani-zation”(Haynes&Holmevik,1995).The writing that students do in the MOO becomes part of this community’s discour and plays an integral and lasting role in constructing that public cul-ture.What kind of communication could be more authentic?
生孩子后多久来月经Autonomous Learning and Peer Teaching in a Student-Centered Classroom
Much rearch on the u of synchronous on-line systems in class has obrved that working with the programs inevitably transfers more re-sponsibility for the direction of the cour from the teacher to the students(Beauvois,1992;Laf-ford&Lafford,1997).In our u of the MOO, this happened
at two distinct but intimately re-lated levels.First,the decentered space of the MOO necessarily gives students more autonomy as learners,which Little(1991)provisionally de-fines as“a capacity for detachment,critical reflec-tion,decision-making and independent action”vis-à-vis the very process of learning(p.2).In the small group work that takes place in the MOO, students largely control the flow of discussion;in completing authentic documents for the MOO, such as their room or character description,stu-dents decide how many drafts and revisions they must complete in order to meet their own stan-dards for lf-prentation;in reviewing their logs,students identify their contributions to class discussions and their own learning.Second,the community-bad structure of MOOs also natu-rally leads to peer teaching,since students begin to learn from and teach each other.Though tan-dem learning is an age-old method that relies on autonomous learning principles,new technolo-gies such as email have made it more feasible to bring native speakers together with language learners across great physical distances(Bram-merts,1996).In the ca of the exchange organ-ized between students from Vassar College and students at the University of Münster during Pha2,all participants were responsible not only for their own but also for their partners’language learning progress.While having native speakers function as experts incread the number of teachers available to students(from1to about 20)and allowed each student to receive much more feedback,taking on the role of teacher for
Silke von der Emde,Jeffrey Schneider,and Markus Kötter215
