By Jannie Roed
Jannie Roed in the University College London in United Kingdom had investigated the psychological aspects of online behavior among the first and second year university students learning Danish at University of Edinburgh and University College London. He found that when compare to people’s behavior in classroom setting and online working, some students’ learning behavior changed positively.
Some shy and introvert language students who reluctant to speak out in class found it much easier to communicate in the target language when working via computer because they felt less inhibited.
Students’ participation in online discussions is greater than in face-to-face classes because communicating online could reduce their anxiety, say, they didn’t need to worry about accent or grammatical mistakes because they could ensure their answer correct before responding.
They are more willing to use strong language in an e-mail than face-to-face because there were no immediate negative reactions, such as giggles or raised eyebrows, from either teacher or classmates.
Some student’s reflected that they felt more confident discussing online than face-to-face classroom discussion because nobody discriminated their unattractive looking and they could gain more positive responds there.
My reflection:
I agree that people may feel more willing to express themselves in target language online than in face-to-face contact because they may feel more confident in using the correct language since grammar and spelling check are provided in computer and there is less time constraint for them to think and write. However, I doubt the language proficiency will be improved a lot if some students, like me, are not interested in computer. They probably very often don’t switch on the computer. How can they learn from it? Thus, unless teachers force students to search for information or do assignment on line, those inactive computer users will not learn much from it.
Enjoy the pig song: Farting pig cartoon song
Long Live the Rubber Duck!
11 years ago
Hi Jenny,
ReplyDeleteI really love that Farting pig cartoon song. It is so funny and interesting. I'm sure I will show it to my students in order to arouse them in my lesson. You've mentioned that you don't like using computer and you doubt that students can improve their English proficiency through it. I understand your concern and I have the same feeling too. However, for lower band students, lighten their interest is the priority for all teachers. Language proficiency is not the most important criteria in this case. Therefore, if computer is a trend for all age of students now, I rather try to use as much as technology I could to make my lesson more fun for my students. Don't you agree with me?
I always agree that people feel more relaxed and willing to join in communication in a virtual environment. Your reflection gives me a new point, that is students may not improve a lot in such environment if they don't like computers. That's really interesting and I think such cases do exist. There is no approach that can be fit for all students, maybe more technologies applied together can achieve the complementary of each other.
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