I agree, by and large, with Pellettieri that NBC can be a useful activity that "fosters the negotiation of meaning" (83). It puts the students into a synchronous communication environment yet unlike speaking, it slows down the time sequence which allows students to respond at their own pace or at least allows them time to process what is being said and select their vocabulary/grammar structures. Due to the fact that the students have this slight lag, Pellettieri suggests that students actually spend more time processing their grammar then they might in oral production.
I also agree with Pellettieri that this type of activity could devolve into a rather chaotic process if it is not guided in some way and have some specific end or goal in mind. For instance, giving students a topic to debate or discuss or (better yet) a specific end they need to achieve will help guide their discussions and keep them from: a) talking about whatever they might think of and b) require some kind of accountability for their discussion.
Perhaps one of the best things about it is that "NBC" is authentic input and output and let's students practice a variety of strategies as well as discourse markers that might not come up in more "stilted" classroom practice.
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I like that in some chat forums, you can actually save a transcript of the chat, which creates a record that exists long term, whereas after a conversation is over, there is nothing that can be reviewed.
ReplyDeleteI also liked the idea of providing topics for the students to talk about. This would work well if the text is arranged thematically so the students can be given topics that will pertain to the vocabulary that the students are to be learning.
I agree with you that network-based communication can be a good method of incorporating authentic input into an activity, but I think that the instructor would need to have a way to evaluate the usefulness of the activity or the accomplishment of an assigned task NBC activity.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the Prellettieri on the issue of student guidance. Using NBC chatting without any guidance could turn out to be a chaotic experience with no clear benefits for the students. Regarding the topics I believe they should be a matter of discussion between the teacher and the students, so that they are interesting and also demonstrate a difficulty level that is challenging but not overwhelming for the students.
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