Language&Technology	Readings (8)	-

On-line Learning in Second Language Classrooms
An Ethnographic Study

Mark Warschauer

In M.Warschauer & R. Kern. (Eds.) Network-based language teaching: Concepts and practices (pp. 41-58).

Abstracted by Anne Daugherty

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This chapter reports on a two-year ethnographic study of the uses of the Internet in language and writing classrooms by citing data from interviews with students and teachers, classroom observations, and analysis of students' writing. To document the role of the Internet and other new digital technologies in the development of language and literacy, this study focused on four classes in three schools in Hawaii: ESL at Miller College, ESL at the University of Hawaii, Hawaiian language at the University of Hawaii, and English at Bay College.

The author comments that the study powerfully illustrated to him that the Internet does not constitute a pedagogy, rather that each teacher bends the technology to serve their curricula goals and beliefs.

All the classes included an important focus on writing. The classes comprised second language students, culturally and linguistically diverse learners who are at risk of being marginalized from the information society--international students, immigrant students, and Native Hawaiian students.

The author's claim is that by developing online literacy, students in these programs can learn to better participate in the English language-dominated on-line world. A second claim is made that students can also carve out on-line space for their own language and culture. Further, the author suggests that the students in the classes viewed the use of technology not as an aid to learning language, but as a new medium of literacy in its own right.

The author summarizes his data as indicative that for electronic learning activities to be most effective, they need to: (a) be learner-centered., (b) be based on authentic communication, (c) be tied to making some real difference in the world or in the students' place in it, and (d) provide students an opportunity to explore and express their evolving identity.