Week 3: language learning and technology

Part 1. EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES LITERACIES AND TECHNOLOGIES REVISITED ( Godwin-Jones, 2010)

One thing came to mind while reading Godwin-Jones's article ' emerging technologies literacies and technologies revisited: accuracy vs. fluency.
Whenever I heard about 'electronic writing' in social network, I can not help to think about the long debate on accuracy and fluency in second language learning. It seems undoubtably true that social networking encourages fluency rather than accuracy. As Godwin- Jones stated, the kind of writing that people do for social networking is not discipline- based and instruction- available language practice environment. It is easy to witness that many people whose first language is not English write on Facebook or Twitter in English with lots of grammatical errors and using slang and abbreviation. However, it doesn't seem to be a matter to communicate with their friends and deliver what they want to say.
Many net generations or teens are very skilled to this kinds of interaction using social network and their language use is defined differently from academic writing. So, what is teachers or instructors role when they want to utilize social network? How can teachers balance with accuracy and fluency in language learning?
The term 'personalized writing' was very interesting to me since one of the most important aspect of language is its creativeness: language use can be varied depends on who uses it. I want to restate godwin- Jones's sentence that "language produced within social networking is very practical and directly personal way whether one can compose a sentence that a native speaker will understand. That receptivity leads to more focused and more efficient language learning." This sentence affected what I thought about language learning which was more focused on accuracy than fluency.



Part 2: Gaucho space- what can we do more with it?

It was very interesting to see different features and functions that Gauchospace has such as displaying video and web searching page on the same page. Different types of quiz was fascinating since it clearly demonstrated various ways that language learning can take place using technology. Comparing with the early application of technology in language learning which mainly focused on grammar and reading, the advance of technology allows us to deal with all language features- listening, reading, writing and speaking. One thing that I concern about this type of language learning is that how we can encourage our students' engagement and motivation. Even though gauchospace has different resources related to language, quiz still has the similar form of paper- based quiz expect its recording feature and still it is one way interaction. Are there any creative ways that we can use this advanced technology in testing field? I think there must be more effective and creative way that encourage students' engagement and collaborative works using technology.