I think that videoconferencing is a potentially useful tool in the ESL classroom. Particularly, it could be useful in EFL contexts where the students generally don't have access to speaking with a native speaker in their everyday lives. Meebo could, with enough planning, allow students to even have a conversation with native speakers from different regions of the U.S. or from different countries where English is spoken (obviously the U.K., Australia/New Zealand, but also places like India or Scandanavia where a large number of people speak it fluently) so that they can get exposure to different accents. There could be a ton of applications for this kind of thing and I know from my own experience that students in EFL contexts are often hungry for that kind of opportunity.
There are a couple of things that are potential pitfalls for Meebo and videoconferencing in general. The first is something that I experience firsthand on Tuesday in that Meebo or any videoconferencing tool might be frustrating in getting it set up. While I got it to work in some cases, I'm still baffled as to why it didn't work in certain instances. If students were doing this remotely, helping them troubleshoot their problems might be difficult. Another potential pitfall in using Meebo in the way I've suggested above is that it could expose some cultural differences that might cause social rifts such as the ones that we read about in this week's reading ("Toward an Intercultural Stance: Teaching German and English through Telecollaboration" by Ware and Kramsch). It might be useful to have very specific tasks for students to work on and also be available to monitor these conversations to help steer students away from "trouble spots."
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1 year ago
While I do think that any sort of unsupervised language exchange always carries the potential for miscommunication, I think that students who are speaking face to face might have an easier time clearing up any problems. I really like the idea of having students talk to students on the other side of the world. I had this same idea, but have been wondering if maybe it woulnd't be more difficult for students from very different cultures to come up with something to talk about. I like your idea of having students complete specific tasks--it might keep them focused!!
ReplyDeleteXtina raises a good point. "What the hell do we talk about?" is sure to come up, especially if one or both speakers' proficiency is limited. Bill, do you think you'd ever use this, for real?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Christina that students who are talking face-to-face may have an easier time negotiating the meaning. Moreover, I think that students from different cultures will find interesting topics to talk about. Perhaps learners will be fascinated with the other culture and would like to find out as much as possible about it.
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