As I wrote in my posting about the Wireless Ready conference, one of the most depressing aspects about the Web 2.0 movement in language education in Japan is the rather dismal record educators have with getting students to use the tools associated with this movement. Regularly, for learning.

Certainly there’s a passion gap. Teachers are finding themselves suddenly surrounded by students and schools that have tools that allow them to do things that the pedagogy has been pointing to for years. Back in 1996 already, Paul Nation wrote, after a comprehensive literature review, that language learners/facilitators should be doing the following with roughly the following amount of time dedicated to each: meaning-focused input (25%), meaning focused-output (25%), form-focused input (25%), fluency practice (25%). At that time, it was nothing more than a dream that we could get our students doing meaning-focused output in an EFL setting for a quarter of their learning time. And meaning-focused input consisted of classroom language and teacher talk, tapes and videos used in class, and tapes made by teachers for students. But now it is possible to do it, with authentic and meaningful language exposure and use. It’s no wonder that teachers are excited, and then a little frustrated and disappointed when students don’t show the interest they should.

I think, though, that there are many reasons for the lack of student use–some timeless ones like laziness and different priorities–and some others that Activity Theory can help us to put in perspective. In Acting withTechnology, Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006) explain how tools are culturally loaded mediators that color the way people act. That sounds intuitive immediately, but when we think on it a little, the implications become more significant. The example the authors give is the ax. Once early humans got the ax, the things around them could be seen in light of how easy or difficult they were to chop up. That is, tools are one of the ways we experience the world and they help to define the norms of our culture. And that really is the key word: culture. We know what an ax is and what it can do, or at least we think we do, and it is our understanding of what it is and how we use it that is a part of the culture of the group we belong to. But even for as simple an instrument as an ax, different people around the world have different notions of what it is and what it does. For example, is it used for recreation or work; is it used by men, or women, or children, or anyone; is it important to learn to use it well, etc.? Now, when we consider our new learning tools, we have to understand that teachers and learners may be firmly lodged in different cultures and every person brings to a course his or her cultural understanding of the tools the instructor wants to use.

                                                     

The ways the teachers see the tools–their possibilities and applications–are not usually the ways learners normally see them. The teacher will look at an iPod and think it is a wonderful device for delivering listening content and participating in authentic communities of use. The learner will likely see a music player, at least at first.

And like cultures that mix anywhere, there are overlaps and there are gaps and the first step to identifying these is to take some serious steps into the other culture. Nobody learns very much about a culture by visiting a restaurant once, and not many people learn much of a country’s language by making a short vacation there. Willingness to try, willingness to immerse, sustained use (required and supported!), and a good amount of time and reflection bring results. We know this about culture and language; it is true also for tools. So with the use of new tools, or old tools for different uses, it is important to ask ourselves some questions: What is the learner’s culture regarding this tool? Am I asking the learner to do something beyond that? How can I gain the student’s understanding and support (enforce, if necessary) their use of the tool? When we think about the culture of tools, the answers to most of these questions come easily. In light of the lack of administrative support for most of these tools, teachers can start building bridges between courses, so the tools are used in multiple courses with different instructors. That will help to create the immersion needed for success. That’s my plan for the upcoming year, and I’ll let you know how I do. Specifically, I plan to use blogs and several online applications for vocabulary training and writing practice.