I lived in a dilapidated neighborhood with frequent criminal activity (sometimes violent). The only neighbors I liked all spoke Spanish, but a few also spoke English. Nevertheless, I had nearly two years of Mexican Spanish conversation practice on a regular basis. Despite the dark context of the neighborhood, I had the privilege and convenience of situated language socialization where I was able to interact with expert speakers. I did not have mobile augmented reality to mediate my “learning of” Spanish and the culture of speakers like the participant L2 Spanish students in Holden and Sykes’ (2012) study on learning via mobile interactive story-telling game. The students were in both a fictional narrative and historically relevant physical setting with live expert speakers. However, I did gain similar benefits from my experience.
Chavo and his girlfriend, Demi, lived next to me. Chavo’s brother, Chipo, and his friend, Dan, lived nearby and visited frequently. Other speakers, I did not become as familiar with, were around often as well. Every other weekend, Chavo’s sons, Raul and Alejandro, liked to come visit me unless I was already at Chavo and Demi’s. Chipo did not know more than a few words of English and many of their friends were at a similar level. We often shared company over cervezas and comidas regularly making fun of the more belligerent (generally xenophobic) addicts in the neighborhood (en español por supuesto).
Between the time I had failed my first attempt at Spanish 201 and my successful attempt 18 months after, I had improved my speaking skills quite a bit, despite having a lot of vernacular in my speech. Until, I had received high marks on a short story assignment making fun of American redneck culture, I was not sure I would pass the second time around either. It was about half-way through that summer immersion course when I finally felt like I had a chance of graduating. She had not only found my story humorous, but praised my narrative writing.
Sometime later, I realized I had had some other facilitative factors which were artful narratives. I almost dropped a chicana and latina English Literature course when I realized a large portion of it was untranslated Spanish (and I had already failed Spanish 201). We were reading bilingual poetry, novels, short stories and creative non-fiction narratives. The course listing did not list any prerequisites, so I was surprised and felt quite intimidated. It was also nearly a year before taking the intensive Summer classes. I somehow managed to talk myself into giving it a try and ended up with an A in the course. It turned out to be one of my favorite literature classes. I was an English literature major with a creative writing focus, afterall. I have been attracted to narratives more than most and in her (2011) article, Nicole Mills, discussed how people across cultures generally like to engage with and through stories.
Both of the previously mentioned stories implemented a form of narrative. Holden and Sykes (2012) focused on augmented reality game (place-based) learning where the participant players took on roles of characters in different families connected to a cold case murder mystery set in a real-life long-standing Spanish speaking neighborhood. The students were able to engage with the narrative, each other, and speakers “on site.” Mills (2011), on the other hand, had her French learners create fake personas on Facebook with detailed profiles and co-construct a narrative taking place in a fictional residential building in Paris, France.
These authors found that their participant students were, overall, engaged and motivated. Although one participant had to drop the class in Mills’ study, he continued participating as a phantom (ghost) character. Holden and Sykes also stated students to be highly into the situated learning.
There is something to be said for interaction whether the community is virtual with all L2 speakers, as in Mills’ study, fictional blended with actual locations and expert speakers (Holden and Sykes 2012), or having real life (although, perhaps sometimes not as enjoyable) situated socialized learning. Additionally, being drawn to storytelling, the narrative can really mediate the experience as well. I think that each of these instances (although mine is anecdotal/testimonial), suggest some important aspects of learning to consider. There is already an extensive body of scholars interested in socialization, collaborative learning (Vurdien, 2013), co-constructed knowledge (Mills, 20ll), language play (Bell, 2005), “ubiquity of access” (Squire, 2009; Holden & Sykes 2012) situated and personalized learning (Holden & Sykes 2012; Mills, 2011; Squire, 2009).
With respect to computer/mobile mediated language learning, one may not need to have geographical access to the speakers and cultures, though I would argue the latter would be more ideal. Some learning contexts do not have the access to live settings as in many cases of foreign language learning, but with our modern means of communication there are still means to tap into authentic content, culture, and expert users of the language being learned.
In communicative practices and Linguistic Pragmatic cultural learning, there have been scholarly contributions on the topic of “Bridging Activities” not just on Facebook (Thorne & Reinhardt 2008; Reinhardt & Ryu, 2013; Blattner & Fiori, 2011), but also interactive online role playing games like World of Warcraft (Thorne, 2008; Thorne, Black & Sykes, 2009). Even wikis (Thorne & Reinhardt 2008), emails, and instant messaging (although less of the former) offer facilitation of socialized intercultural language learning (Holden & Sykes 2012; Mills, 2011) through both synchronous (Thorne, 2008) and asynchronous co-constructed (Thorne, 2013; Vurdien, 2013) discourses and shared repertoires (Reinhardt & Ryu 2013) across superdiverse (Thorne, 2013) communities.
Holden and Sykes (2012) emphasize the “knowledge of” rather than “about” language and culture since the first would mediate intercultural competence as opposed to the second which merely molds paper writing test takers. I would agree that the old way is an obsolete and, hopefully, fading practice (Squire, 2009; Holden & Sykes 2012). It is well past time to replace the outdated pedagogical textbook, lecture, and drill practices with more contemporary tools in which most of the developed world has already ritualized into its daily habits (Squire, 2009). That is not to suggest doing away with textual literacy so much as include the new emerging mutliple-literacies (Squire, 2009; Mills 2011; Thorne, Black, & Sykes, 2009) along with it. I hope that, those of us with alternative learning needs, will also be addressed concerning technologically mediated learning (language or otherwise) unlike most of the history of traditional pedagogy which I would argue still has some lingering artifacts in academia.
In conclusion, it is well agreed among many academics that language socialization, engagement, motivation, situated and collaborative learning, social relations, membership, ownership, and identity all play important roles in not only language development, but social, cultural, and personal development as well. We cannot always be physically immersed within the setting of the language and culture we attempt to learn, but we still have significant and practical ways of mitigating that limitation through the use of technology.
References
Bell, N. D. (2005). Exploring L2 language play as an aid to SLL: A case study of humour in NS–NNS interaction. Applied Linguistics, 26(2), 192-218.
Blattner,, G, & Fiori, M. (2011). Virtual social network communities: An Investigation of language learners’ development of sociopragmatic awareness and multiliteracy skills. Calico Journal, 29(1), 24-43.
Holden, C. & Sykes, J., (2011). Leveraging mobile games for place-based language learning. International Journal of Game-Based Learning. 1(2), 1-18
Mills, N. A. (2011). Situated learning through social networking communities: The development of joint enterprise, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire. CALICO Special Volume: Second Language Acquisition Theories, Technologies, and Language Learning (Eds., S. Thorne & B. Smith), 28(2).
Reinhardt, J., & Ryu, J. (2013). Using Social Network-Mediated Bridging Activities to Develop Socio-Pragmatic Awareness in Elementary Korean. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT), 3(3), 18-33.
Squire, K., (2009). Mobile media learning: multiplicities of place. On the Horizon.
17(70-80).
Thorne, S. L. (2008). Transcultural communication in open internet environments and massively multiplayer online games. MEDIATING DISCOURSE ONLINE, magnan, sally sieloff, amsterdam: John benjamins, 2008, pp 305-327.
Thorne, S. L. (2013). Language learning, ecological validity, and innovation under conditions of superdiversity
Thorne, S. L., & Reinhardt, J. (2008). “Bridging activities,” new media literacies, and advanced foreign language proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25(3).
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