I think there is a lot of value in the potential of real-time communication to facilitate language acquisition. I've always enjoyed polishing up one of my super-rusty L2s in IRC or similar media.
In the interest of accountability, I think a mechanism should be implemented to give the activity some long-term value. Editing a printout or something might be one solution, maybe peer editing on googledocs or something like that.
And, IM works well for English but a lot of other languages have diacritical marks that aren't convenient or even available in most real-time exchanges.
Notes for Tuesday, April 13, 2010
14 years ago
I agree with your concerns Jesse. Would monitoring screens during the class help? I also like the idea of having a printout that you can review to check for common errors.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of editing google documents to work on accuracy, and I think it might give students more motivation to use their skills to negotiate meaning. Good point about the diacritics, when I talk to my Costa Rican friend on chat, I don't have any accent marks so sometimes what I am saying can be misconstrued. like anos for example. . .=)
ReplyDelete