Although the advent of new media age has weakened the influence of courbooks/textbooks, it is still necessary that coursebooks/textbooks play an important role in education, especially in courses for majors.
Compared with the online resources, information in textbooks is arranged in a more systematic order, which compact a large amount of fundamental knowledge into pages, presenting a clear line for students to follow or to recollect after absorbing this knowledge. In contrast, the new media age witnesses the vast amount of information pouring upon the students, which is easy to be collected but hard to be recollected from memory, especially when there are lots of hyperlinks extending the scopes of the required knowledge.
Another advantage of the coursebooks/textbooks is that the coursebooks/textbooks are convenient to be carried around and referred to whenever the learners are uncertainty about a particular point of knowledge, while the new media information is only available when particular devices are at hand. For example, if a learner wants to check out the definition of a term, he can either consult a printed coursebook or turn to a CD ROM. However, the only way for him to acquire the information on the CD ROM is to play it in a CD player. Then, what if no CD player is available at that particular moment? Similarly, most new media information is accessible only when the ICT devices are at work. The heavy dependence on these devices like computers, PDA, phone, or tablet PC, etc. decides that new media will never totally replace coursebooks/textbooks, in spite of its increasing popularity.
Moreover, although some digital dictionaries, digital grammarbooks, or media bank are beneficial to learners, it is undeniable that some online resources are not as reliable as expected. Since most learners are not professional enough to identify the misinformation and distinguish the good resources from the bad ones, coursebooks/textbooks on the other hand provide a solid and more reliable information owing to its having been checked, edited and revised times before being published. Additionally, some coursebooks/textbooks recommend considered and trustworthy reference books or online links, which serve as a guideline for learners to do autonomous study and avoid randomly surfing on line and wasting large amounts of time and energy for undesirable results.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
To Use and Adapt DDL
Frankly, I am a strong advocator for data-driven learning (DDL) and I’m convinced that the integration of DDL materials and English language learning can greatly enhance the learners’ knowledge and empower the learners’ performance. In my experience of teaching and learning English in China, I’ve ever noticed and adapted DDL for my context in several practical ways, especially in teaching and learning of writing.
For example, Wikipedia, one of the largest reference Web sites, as a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia, assembles abundant resources on concepts and terms. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. When analyzing newspaper articles from the angle of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), I referred to Wikipedia in searching for the background information about the newspaper, establishing the standpoint of the particular newspaper so as to figure out what accounts for its tone of reporting. And because Wikipedia is an ongoing work, where older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced while newer articles continually updated, “with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias” (Wikipedia, n.d.), it is more convenient for users to access the latest information. In China, language learners can hardly find large numbers of genuine texts showing the most relevant information. For this reason, it is advisable for the language learners and teachers in my context to make good use of this website to do data driven learning.
Another significant feature of DDL is that it can provide vast model texts of different genres, especially on on-line writing laboratories, for example, Center for Independent Language Learning and Colorado State University Writing Center or some web-sites which present collections of texts, like Links 2 Love. These DDL materials can all provide language learners with worthwhile model texts to analyze and deconstruct genre, then imitate the writing.
Corpus, as a digital resource, offers more language scaffolding, especially for us EFL learners. “A corpus is nothing more nor less than a collection of texts input into a computer” (Fox, 1998, p. 25). And corpus linguistics is “the empirical study of language relying on computer-assisted techniques to analyze large, principled databases of naturally occurring language” (Susan, 2000, p. 548). “By studying concordance lines students will become more aware of language, and will note how particular words are used by native speakers,” and “there is certainly a likelihood that increased awareness will lead to increased proficiency” (Fox, 1998, p. 42). We Chinese EFL learners come from a totally different language background from those in western countries. English to us is quite unfamiliar. When we bear words by heart, we mostly use dictionaries to match them with Chinese equivalents, while mostly the usage of some words or expressions are not similar in the two cultures. This causes a great trouble to these learners. Corpus exposes us to the genuinely used language in certain contexts, which will definitely benefit us.
In all, DLL materials will contribute to language learning, and I will surely make and endeavor to take advantage of this treasure and try to adapt it for my learning and teaching.
References:
Center for Independent Language Learning. (n.d.). http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/CILL/writing.htm
Colorado State University Writing Center. (n.d.) http://writing.colostate.edu/learn.cfm
Fox, G. (1998). Using corpus data in the classroom. In Tomlinson, B. (ed.) Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Links 2 Love. (n.d.). http://www.links2love.com/love_letters.htm
Susan, C. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century? TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 548-560
Wikipedia. (n.d.). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
For example, Wikipedia, one of the largest reference Web sites, as a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia, assembles abundant resources on concepts and terms. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. When analyzing newspaper articles from the angle of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), I referred to Wikipedia in searching for the background information about the newspaper, establishing the standpoint of the particular newspaper so as to figure out what accounts for its tone of reporting. And because Wikipedia is an ongoing work, where older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced while newer articles continually updated, “with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias” (Wikipedia, n.d.), it is more convenient for users to access the latest information. In China, language learners can hardly find large numbers of genuine texts showing the most relevant information. For this reason, it is advisable for the language learners and teachers in my context to make good use of this website to do data driven learning.
Another significant feature of DDL is that it can provide vast model texts of different genres, especially on on-line writing laboratories, for example, Center for Independent Language Learning and Colorado State University Writing Center or some web-sites which present collections of texts, like Links 2 Love. These DDL materials can all provide language learners with worthwhile model texts to analyze and deconstruct genre, then imitate the writing.
Corpus, as a digital resource, offers more language scaffolding, especially for us EFL learners. “A corpus is nothing more nor less than a collection of texts input into a computer” (Fox, 1998, p. 25). And corpus linguistics is “the empirical study of language relying on computer-assisted techniques to analyze large, principled databases of naturally occurring language” (Susan, 2000, p. 548). “By studying concordance lines students will become more aware of language, and will note how particular words are used by native speakers,” and “there is certainly a likelihood that increased awareness will lead to increased proficiency” (Fox, 1998, p. 42). We Chinese EFL learners come from a totally different language background from those in western countries. English to us is quite unfamiliar. When we bear words by heart, we mostly use dictionaries to match them with Chinese equivalents, while mostly the usage of some words or expressions are not similar in the two cultures. This causes a great trouble to these learners. Corpus exposes us to the genuinely used language in certain contexts, which will definitely benefit us.
In all, DLL materials will contribute to language learning, and I will surely make and endeavor to take advantage of this treasure and try to adapt it for my learning and teaching.
References:
Center for Independent Language Learning. (n.d.). http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/CILL/writing.htm
Colorado State University Writing Center. (n.d.) http://writing.colostate.edu/learn.cfm
Fox, G. (1998). Using corpus data in the classroom. In Tomlinson, B. (ed.) Materials development in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Links 2 Love. (n.d.). http://www.links2love.com/love_letters.htm
Susan, C. (2000). Will corpus linguistics revolutionize grammar teaching in the 21st century? TESOL Quarterly, 34(3), 548-560
Wikipedia. (n.d.). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
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