Does digital mean better?

What should I do with these?
Photo by Tzvi Meller

I’ve always envied people who can whip up a blog post straight after returning from – or sometimes while still at - a conference. Although I didn’t write any IATEFL 2012 reflections there was one session that particularly resonated with me: Andrew Walkley’s Technology and principles in language learning. He talked about how trying to bring technology to our digitally native learners many teachers have lost the focus on language. He listed five things that he found particularly worrying about unprincipled integration of technology into ELT:

• Vocabulary and grammar are seen as separate entities
• Grammar domination
• Vocabulary taught in sets
• Activity overload
• Skills are separated from language

Andrew seems to have taken the thoughts right out of my head – only I was afraid to verbalise them apart from this post where I lightly bemoaned the lack of web tools and apps focusing on the link between grammar and vocabulary, multi-word phrases and syntagmatic features of words. But, in all honesty, all the digital language learning materials I've seen tend fall into two categories: on the one hand, presentation of lots of individual words which, depending on the tool/app, are matched, flipped or shaken; on the other hand, exercises aimed at practicing sentence grammar, available in alarming abundance.

Same sh*t, new wrapping

Despite some very convincing evidence (Nation 2000, Tinkham 1993, Waring 1997) that presenting vocabulary in semantic sets (e.g. spoon – fork – knife) is counter productive, most online materials repeat the faults of the published ELT materials and organise vocabulary precisely in this fashion. When it comes to grammar teaching, digital resources also mimic the mistakes of many old-fashined grammar books overemphasising explicit rule teaching and sentence-level grammar.

I recently attended a webinar where - after waiting for quite a while for the presenter’s files to upload - we heard a talk about how technology can be used not only with young learners but with adult beginner learners. Great idea, I thought! While I do not wish to detract from the quality and clarity of the presentation itself which was very well organised I went to the websites mentioned by the speaker and checked out some of the recommended exercises. For example, this Past Simple matching exercise taken from the ESOL Courses website - click here

I’ve always avoided and discouraged my students from using grammar reference books that use unnatural examples to demonstrate a grammar point. Why would I switch badly written grammar books for badly written online exercises? I cannot imagine anyone responding to the question on the left with the answers on the right. In fact, the inclusion of unnatural longer responses I went shopping on Sunday instead of the more natural went shopping defeats the purpose of the exercise because most of these questions can be answered by matching days of the week rather than by attending to the Past Simple form (did you do; went) if that’s what the exercise purports to do.

  

Am I a luddite?

Far from it. I think I am fairly dexterous with computers and, like many, I’ve embraced technology in my daily life, personal and professional. I use social media to connect with teachers around the world, take part in weekly #ELTchat, show Youtube videos in class and play online games with my students. I’ve also read and quoted from Mark Warschauer, attended the Virtual Round Table and given learning technologies courses.

In fact, it’s a bit ironic that I am writing this because earlier this summer I helped organise an ETAI pre-conference event “Integrating technology into ELT” featuring Gavin Dudeney and later on coordinated and taught an advanced learning technologies summer school alongside the Queen of Ed Tech herself - Shelly Terrell. I am neither anti- nor pro- technology; I simply use technology and believe it can enhance learning. But unfortunately much of what I see under the guise of educational technology serves little educational purpose. The fundamental principles of language learning and teaching seem to evade many digital materials out there, whether online resources or mobile language learning apps. It also saddens me to see many bloggers pandering to the lure of Ed Tech and glorifying the use of cartoon makers and online poster designers over the genuine focus on language.

Photo by eltpics

All doom and gloom?

Not really. There are many web tools which can be used in the EFL classroom and help teachers and learners focus on language - see my collection here

Interestingly and sadly, when I was presenting these tools at the above-mentioned summer school - and the activities involved actually focusing on language - the more advanced, tech-savvy participants, who were very adept at creating photo slide shows or Glogster posters quickly lost interest and “switched off”. ‘Nuff said.

References

Nation, I.S.P. (2000) Learning vocabulary in lexical sets: dangers and guidelines. TESOL Journal 9 (2), 6-10. Available at
http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/about/staff/publications/paul-nation/2000-Lexical-sets.pdf

Tinkham, T. (1993). The effect of semantic clustering on the learning of L2 vocabulary. System 21(3), 371-380

Waring, R. (1997). The negative effects of learning words in semantic sets: A replication. System 25, 261-274