INTRODUCTION
Using
Communications and Information Technology in
the classroom is relatively new in foreign language settings and not
all case
studies all over the world do provide strong evidence on how effective
it is
for actual language learning. The how’s and when’s that prove the
students’
improvement in their writing skills and the other basic skills are
difficult to
be determined in case studies where teacher’s attention is devoted to
many
students at the same time and the time it demands for planning and
giving
feedback is too much. Nevertheless, the benefits are witnessed by many
language
teachers all over the world whose testimonies about using e-mail,
on-line
resources, and collaborative activities through virtual communities and
e-groups, can be found in the WWW. The
efforts to provide a comprehensive and deep research on this topic must
come
from institutional support and academic team work. In order to get this
support, teaching professionals should show it is worth doing by
getting
involved in web-based activities with a foreign language class.
E-Learning
environments all over the world have been very successful in many
knowledge
areas, even in Language Learning, so it is another reason to start
trying these
new trends in order to get closer to the standards of
Internationalization all
nations are being pushed to achieve with the “TLC”, “ALCA” and other
treaties
that require us to have better educational settings and offers at
Higher Education
level.
THE
KEYSTONES FOR SELECTING YAHOO GROUPS FOR A VLE
As a departing
point for arranging a set of
conditions to set up a virtual learning environment in any foreign
language
classroom, it is important to state what the connotation for VLE is in
our
setting and what VLEs are for Britain
and Liber (1999-2000). Within the possibilities for language teachers
in Colombia,
there are several choices in order to catch up with the trends in
C&IT as a tool for improving classroom conditions. A Small VLE
–that is how
we will refer to Virtual Learning Environment from now on–, is the
combination
of a traditional curriculum in a foreign language, a computer-based
language
laboratory, and extra-curricular activities for students, encouraged by
their
teacher. These activities comprise the use of: free on-line grammatical
exercises, interactivities, TV and radio stations broadcasts on the
web, free e-mail
accounts, virtual communities and discussion lists. A VLE in this case
is
possible when we create an E-group
where many people can join and exchange mail, files, images, and
interesting
links. They can also chat and have synchronous communication, via
web-cam and
voice or via keyboard, among other possibilities. This conception of a
Virtual
Learning Environment derives from a study from the University of
Wales-Bangor, UK,
by Sandy Britain and Oleg Liber, already mentioned above, called A
Framework for Pedagogical Evaluation of Virtual Learning Environments.
The foundations for their research are highly dependent of the Dearing
Report (1997) which searched for
the appropriate use of technology in higher education in the United
Kingdom. This report praises “the
promise for improving the quality,
flexibility, and effectiveness of higher education.” Britain
and Liber focus more on the pedagogical implications than on technical
aspects of VLEs. To develop their framework, they also based on the
Conversational Framework [2] developed by
Laurillard in 1993,
who based on Gordon
Pask's Conversation Theory (1976). From a technical point of
view, a Virtual
Learning Environment is a learning management software system that
synthesize
the functionality of computer-mediated communications software (e-mail,
BBS,
newsgroups, etc.,) and on-line methods of delivering course materials.
The
chance to have these basic components into a VLE is now possible
because of the
advances in technology coming out every day.
1.
Text adapted from the main document presented as
support for the lecture “Trends in C&IT and VLEs in EFL Classrooms”
at the
39Th ASOCOPI conference in Santa Marta,
October
14-17, 2004.
