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EUROCALL, Languaging and Digital Natives
EUROCALL
For those of us who missed the EUROCALL conference in Ireland and online last month, we can catch up with recordings of the presentations that are located on the University of Ulster website. I have just watched an especially engaging talk by Bernd Rüschoff about the use of web 2.0 in language learning.
Languaging
The presentation mentions a new term for the process of producing language: “languaging”; a term, which was first used by Merrill Swain. Languaging is defined as “speaking, writing, collaborative dialogue, private speech, verbalizing, … in acts of meaning negotiation / negotiating comprehensible output”. So languaging focuses on the process of producing language, rather than the produced language (text / speech) itself. This resonated with me since the WebQuest / SurReal Quest approach is very much about using the process of producing output in order to practice and develop language skills.
Digital Natives
Bernd Rüschoff points out that we are now seeing not only “digital native” learners, who are naturally more at ease with using web 2.0 applications in their language learning, but also that there will soon be a generation of digital native teachers, who will have already experienced education 2.0 as a learner and therefore feel at ease with their role as an educator 2.0. Certainly learners at Avatar English seem very comfortable with using education 2.0 tools such as wikis, podcasts, Google Docs and even Second Life (is Second Life web 2.0 or perhaps even web 3.0?) Not all of these students are young enough to be digital natives, so it seems that the future will naturally tend to involve even more use of social and interactive online tools for language education.
