5.1. Correlation among cooperative learning, web-based learning, and CLT

5. Conclusion

5.1. Correlation among cooperative learning, web-based learning, and CLT

After the discussion in Chapter 3, we can find that cooperative learning and web-based learning work together to enhance the learning effects of ESL/EFL teaching and learning. The major factors directly intervene into this are the degree of cooperation, the degree of teacher intervention and the degree of the use of computer technology. The three factors decide the success or failure of a cooperative learning activity in web-based environment. Cooperative learning provides students with more opportunities to interact with other learners. Through the interaction, the students can have clearer and more elaborative ideas. Besides, during the interaction, they can have more opportunities to practice their target language with other learners. What’s better, the vicious competition might be reduced if the cooperative learning activities are well practiced. Computer technology (web-based environment) constructs a suitable language environment for students to acquire the target language naturally. The limitation of physical classroom settings, both in time and in space, is completely broken by the Internet. Students can cooperate with some unknown net users, but not just their next-seat neighbors to enhance their foreign language learning. Teacher intervention plays a very important role. Cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment do give English teaching a prosperous future. Language teachers now have more opportunities to do authentic activities for their students to acquire the target language. Students might have more opportunities and longer time to get in touch with the target language. The interaction among students seems to give students clearer concepts of knowledge and help students elaborate the knowledge.

Although many laborious and mechanical tasks have been transferred to computer,

and students have greater responsibility in these activities, the teachers’ responsibility

also seems increased, but not reduced. They have to well organize these activities to

make sure the students can cooperate well with each other in the web-based environment and acquire the target language effectively.

The interaction of the three factors directly influences the CLT. Since CLT intends to enhance students’ communicative competence. That is, students should possess the ability to communicate with others with the target language in authentic environment. During the learning process, students’ accuracy and fluency should both be emphasized. Besides, since the language should be learned naturally, but not instilled into students’ brains, the learning of target language should be through activities. Therefore, we can see how the three factors affect the effect of CLT. The computer technology provides an authentic environment for language learners to use their target language. Powerful tools and rich resources provided on the Internet also lengthen language learners’ time to get in touch with the target language and reduce teacher’s mechanical workload. The cooperation among students means the cooperative activities conducted in the class. Students can gain more interaction with other students or obtain more elaborative knowledge through these activities. High degree of teacher’s intervention guarantees the smooth progress of the cooperative language learning activities. Both accuracy and fluency can be emphasized by teacher’s intervention. Therefore, computer technology, degree of cooperation, and teacher intervention do provide a satisfactory environment for ESL/EFL teaching and learning.

5.2. Summary of the findings

From the discussion of chapter 4, we can find that there are two major types of

cooperative language learning activities on the Internet. Both might be helpful for our

language teaching and learning. One type is cooperation in communication, while the

other type is cooperation in learning tasks on the Internet. The former means various

activities conducted directly on web-based environment, such as discussion in

chatting room. The later means activities with large portion of time taking place in the real world, but with the help of tools provided on the Internet, such as publishing e-paper or construction of websites. A major difference between the two types is that the first type includes cooperation with unspecific cooperators, while the second type includes more specific cooperators. For students with different linguistic competence and learning experience, different types of activities should be adopted, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to choose suitable cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment for their students.

5.3. Limitations of this study

The major limitation of this study is that the activities mentioned in chapter 4 are not really put into practice. This makes it difficult to see if the expecting effects really exist. All the discussions are only about the essence of these activities. Theoretically, they should be good to language teaching and learning. However, whether these activities really work that well still depends on many practical factors. For example, do students like such activities? Does the school provide such environment for teachers to implement such activities? Do teachers have the competence to conduct such activities? All these factors should be taken into consideration when these activities are really put into practice. Or some unexpectable failures might occur.

Another limitation is that this study puts more emphasis on teaching aspects, but it lacks of learning aspects. Students’ individual differences don’t seem to be discussed much. Students’ factors may cause the success or failure of a learning activity. If these factors are incorporated into this study, it might become more complete.

5.4. Limitations of current teaching environment

After the discussion of these activities, we can find that all of them contribute

to our CLT. However, there are still some limitations left unsolved. These limitations

can’t be done by us English teachers. It’s the government that should eliminate these limitations.

5.4.1. Infrastructure of the Internet environment

Currently, the ratio of the computer room and the number of class is 1:40. That means a school with 40 classes can have a computer classroom. This ratio shows a fact – the computer rooms are seriously insufficient. With the best arrangement of courses, every class can have a computer class a week. Some classes even do not have a chance to use the computer class. In such a situation, it seems very difficult for English teachers to have a chance to use the computer classroom to teach their students. Therefore, how to increase the number of computers in the school becomes a very important factor whether we can conduct cooperative language learning in web-based environment.

5.4.2. The speaking skill isn’t really practiced on the Internet

As we discussed, there are two types of cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment, cooperation in communication and cooperation in learning tasks. The latter provides students with abundant interaction. If the communicating language is fixed to English, the students can orally practice the target language. However, the orally practice of the target language is still limited to non-native speakers. As for the first type of activity, cooperation in communication, there is a major limitation. Currently, due to the high data- load on the Internet, most interactive activities on the Internet are still limited to listening, reading, and writing.

Chatting room does provide opportunities for students to “speak” in text. However,

Students do not really speak out. Although they have genuine interaction with

someone at somewhere in the world, whether they can develop the ability to directly

speak to real human beings is unknown. However, when the infrastructure of the the

Internet environment is improved, this limitation will be broken.

5.4.3. Current exam system hinders the practice of these activities

Current entrance exams still focus on pencil-and-paper tests. This might bring wash-back effects on our language teaching. All activities we discussed in this chapter take long time to finish. The effect might last long. However, it doesn’t seem to directly enhance students’ pencil-and-paper grades. The teacher who wants to carry out these activities might face great pressure from school authority and students’

parents. Therefore, unless the type of entrance exam is essentially changed, these activities won’t be carried out easily.

Seeing these limitations, some English teachers might decide not to use the cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment. However, if we compare the great effects they bring to our students with these difficulties, it still seems worthwhile to carry out these activities.

5.5. Suggestions for English teachers who want to adopt cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment

Here, I would like to present some suggestions for teachers who would like to apply web-based cooperative language learning activities in their language teaching.

5.5.1. Regular maintenance of the websites

To construct a good website for students to learn English is very important.

However, to maintain this website is even more important. As we know, the cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment take long time.

Take students’ discussion on a discussion board for example. The teacher in the

beginning has to help students discuss on the board. Then, the teacher sometimes has

to enter the board to see what students are discussing to make sure the y do not deviate

from the topic. The teacher also has to delete certain inappropriate articles to maintain

the board. When the students seem unable to post articles, the teacher has to give

feedbacks to help the discussion go on. Therefore, the whole activity might last for

one or two weeks or longer. The success or failure of this activity lies in the maintenance of the website. If the teacher can intervene into the activity appropriately, and manage the board well, the discussion board might become prosperous. Students can also benefit from a well managed website a lot.

5.5.2. Students’ competence should be taken into consideration first

To carry out a web-based cooperative language learning, students’ competence should be taken into consideration first. There is always a myth that students in every level can do web-based cooperative language learning activities well. This might be right or wrong. It depends on the definition of cooperative language learning activities in web-based environment. If the definition focuses on the direct interaction among net users by using the target language, then it seems that the students with rudimental language competence can’t perform the activity very well, since they even do not have enough competence to understand the target language. At this time, the teacher had better intervene into the activity directly to help students increase their vocabulary and become familiar with the grammar of the target language. After the students possess enough competence, they might carry out direct interaction among net users more skillfully. In the beginning, the teacher should not expect their students to be able to use the target language naturally on the Internet with other net users. The ability needs to be developed.

5.5.3. The essence of the activity should be made clear

In the web-based cooperative language learning activities, there are two parts

that English teachers should pay attention to, the content and the communicating

language. Take publishing e-paper for example. The content means the content of the

e-paper, while the communicating language means the language used to communicate

with other students. The teacher should make sure which should be put more

emphasis on. If the students have possessed advanced language competence, surely

both the two can be emphasized. Ho wever, most situations are not so. If the teacher wants to let students learn English language from publishing an e-paper, then the communicating language should be fixed to English so that students can have more opportunities to genuinely use the target language. However, if the focus is on the content, it seems that the teacher might allow students to discuss with others in their native languages and therefore carry out deeper discussions.

5.5.4. Make the best use of the communicating language in the activity

As we know, the dominant language on the Internet is English. Therefore, we English teachers should make the best use of this advantage. Most articles on the Internet are written in English. Even in non-English countries, besides the web pages in their own language, there are English version pages. This situation gives us English teacher abundant resources and a valuable environment. Since the dominant language on the Internet is English. Two net users from different countries meeting on the Internet might communicate in English. That means, even though we are cooperating with net users from non-English countries, we can still use English as the communicating language. The big problem of lacking authentic materials has been completely removed. What the teache r has to do is choose suitable links for students to be familiar with the target language and provide activities for students to practice the target language genuinely on the Internet.

5.5.5. The interaction in the activities should be emphasized

In web-based cooperative language learning, surely the students are no longer

passive listeners or watchers. The active interaction with other learners or the teacher

should be emphasized. The teacher should design activities for students to practice

their target language, but not only transform the teaching materials from the paper

form to the digital form. Students need to have opportunities to practice and publish

their target language. As we always claim, the goal of language learning is to enhance

students’ communicative competence. English is not only a subject. It’s a real language, and students have to use it. Since the web-based environment has been constructed, therefore, it’s the teacher’s responsibility to construct a language- learning environment for students to really use this language.

From these suggestions, there is an interesting phenomenon. The teacher seems to play a very important role in all these activities. There is always a myth that since computer does nearly every thing, and students have to do more things than they have to do before, the teacher will be substituted. However, after our discussion in this chapter, the situation is quite the opposite. The teacher’s role becomes even more important, explicitly or implicitly. The computers are there. Students are there.

However, it’s the teachers that use their knowledge in teaching and in language to consider all the related factors that affect the learning effects and present a most suitable teaching method for their students to follow. All these can’ t be done by the computer itself. This also breaks the myth that in web-based environment, computer will substitute the position of the teacher.

5.6. Final remark

After the discussion of this study, I feel that there are so many factors involved

in ESL/EFL teaching and learning. Cooperative language learning in web-based

environment is still a new issue in Taiwan. Many ESL/EFL teachers do researches on

it or put it into practice. The factors that we discussed in Chapter 3, cooperation,

computer technology and teacher intervention seem to explain how cooperative

language learning activities in web-based environment contribute to ESL/EFL

learning, and we can use the rationales generated to select, create, or evaluate

cooperative language learning activities on the Internet. In other words, we can use

the rationales generated to examine the “essence” of a cooperative language learning

activity in web-based environment. However, if we want to really implement these

activities in the school, more practical factors sho uld be considered. Is the teaching environment suitable for teachers to do these activities? Do students really benefit from doing these activities, in what way? Do students like to carry out such activities?

Does the school provide the CMC environment for ESL/EFL teachers to use? Do the

school authority and students’ parents support teachers to do such activities? Should

such activities completely substitute the original activities conducted in class or are

they just alternative teaching activities? Are these activities privilege of students with

advanced language competence or are they suitable for students with every level of

language competence? These questions might not have definite answers or the

answers might change with time. However, they implicitly or explicitly decide the

success or failure of the implementation of a cooperative language learning activity in

web-based environment. Therefore, the challenges brought by computer technology,

new teaching methods, and the society are really tremendous. We ESL/EFL teachers

have no choice but to take these challenges, and find out most suitable teaching

methods for the students, or we might be weeded out by the changing era.