Page 40 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ####### ######## ######## ########### ### ### ## ### ## # ### # Interpersonal Computing and ### ### ## ### ## ### Technology: ### ### ## ### ### An Electronic Journal for ### ######## ### ### the 21st Century ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ## ### ISSN: 1064-4326 ### ### ### ## ### January, 1994 ####### ### ######## ### Volume 2, Number 1, pp. 40-49 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Published by the Center for Teaching and Technology, Academic Computer Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057 Additional support provided by the Center for Academic Computing, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 This article is archived as CONONELO IPCTV2N1 on LISTSERV@GUVM ---------------------------------------------------------------- TEACHING LANGUAGES WITH NETNEWS Terri Cononelos Even Start Literacy Program, Salt Lake City, UT Maurizio Oliva Dept. of Language and Literature, University of Utah INTRODUCTION Although much has been written about the use of computer software in language teaching, little emphasis has been placed on the possibility of using computer networks in this setting. Yet, Network Resources (NR) such as Usenet (NEWS) and E-Mail do not have the intrinsic restrictions that software does, i.e. software is usually limited to specific systems, and the degree of interaction between the computer and the student cannot be compared to that between human correspondents. Because NR can connect students with other native speakers, they are adaptable to the specific needs and tastes of teachers and learners. Current theory holds that using language for the purpose of communication, rather than focusing on the memorization of vocabulary or grammatical rules, facilitates language acquisition (Krashen, 1985; Brinton et al., 1989). If interaction is the key to the learning process then the learner will benefit by communicating with the greatest possible number of competent speakers. Learner motivation also seems to play a part in language acquisition, and courses which allow learners to choose their own topics of study have been effective (Legutke, 1991, p. 232; Nunan, 1988, pp. 22-24). We believe network use facilitates language development by allowing communication with a wide range of native speakers on topics of students' choice. Page 41 In this paper we will argue that the Internet offers many resources which are useful in the teaching and learning of languages. We will show how some of these resources were used in Italian 401, a fourth-year Italian class taught at the University of Utah by one of the authors (Maurizio Oliva), during Spring term, 1992. In the first section, we will briefly describe the development and capabilities of Internet, E-Mail and NEWS. Then we will discuss the network features used in Italian 401 and the advantages they offer to the teaching of languages. Development and capabilities of Internet According to Ed Krol (Krol 1989), the ARPAnet was the beginning of the international computer network. It was an experimental network which connected hosts and terminal servers together. In time the system operators worked out standard procedures for the allocation of addresses and other network operations. In time some hosts became gateways to other machines or to local networks: all this led to the creation of a protocol (or set of rules for communication), called the Internet Protocol (IP), to allow the exchange of information and interoperability among different systems. When the ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency of the Department of Defense) finally withdrew from the ownership, the name "Internet" gradually came into common usage.(1) The huge growth of the Internet, which as of January 1993 had approximately 1,776,000 hosts (MIDS, 1993), and its continuing accretion of subsidiary networks did not harm interoperability, thus allowing millions of scholars, researchers, scientists, and other people to keep in touch with the world (Jones, 1989). The people who access the net are numerous; every machine hosts from one to several thousand people (Jones, 1989). The services available through the net are the most sophisticated and powerful in the world. Users can remotely access a supercomputer to display elaborate graphics of lab results; they can search and transfer of public domain software, or access the library catalogs of most of the major universities in the world, or access Usenet: one of the most powerful means of communication available to individuals. Three main procedures allow you to access all those services: Electronic Mail (E-Mail), File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and TELNET. We will focus our attention on E-Mail and access to Usenet as the most potentially useful network tools for language teaching. Page 42 E-Mail E-Mail is probably the most well known and largely used of the Internet services. E-Mail delivery on the Internet is very fast and efficient compared with mail service to BITnet (Because It's Time NETwork) addresses because it is either delivered directly to the addressee or it goes through only a small number of gateways.(2) An analysis of an Internet address illustrates how E-Mail works. In the address "MOLIVA@CC.UTAH.EDU" MOLIVA is the userid (user identification), CC is the name of the machine where the account is located, UTAH indicates the site, while EDU signals that the domain is an educational institution, as opposed to "COM" (commercial), "GOV" (government agencies), "MIL" (military), or "ORG" (other organizations) etc., in the United States. In the rest of the world addresses end with the code of the country (e.g."MOLIVA@GHOST.SM.DSI.UNIMI.IT", where "IT" stands for Italy). Although the most powerful computers can often access all the major networks (Internet, BITnet and Decnet), it might happen that a user on a machine connected only to the Internet needs to send E-Mail to another user connected only to the BITnet. In this case it would be necessary to go through a "gateway", a computer system that transfers data between dissimilar networks (Jones 1989). USENET NEWS Another form of electronic traffic carried over many computer networks (including the Internet) is the Usenet newsgroups, commonly referred to as NEWS. Spafford (1993) claims that in trying to define Usenet, one must focus on the use that people make of it: "Usenet is the set of people who exchange articles tagged with one or more universally-recognized labels, called 'newsgroups'. Usenet encompasses government agencies, large universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes, home computers of all descriptions, etc....." Usenet as a whole is not a democracy. However, there is exactly one feature of Usenet that demonstrates a form of democracy: newsgroup creation. A new newsgroup is unlikely to be widely propagated unless its sponsor follows the newsgroup creation guidelines; and the current guidelines require a new newsgroup to pass an open vote, signifying a readership interested in the proposed topic. There is no higher authority on Usenet than the people who own the machines on which Usenet traffic is carried (Spafford, 1993). Although there is no Page 43 authority in charge of enforcing regulations on Usenet, a set of widely accepted guidelines has been worked out for topics like "netiquette" (network etiquette), newsgroup creation, or to prevent commercial advertising and other forms of abuse. A violation of these guidelines generally leads to a reaction by other users, often directed to the system operator who manages the site where the abuse originated. This is because it is the _site_ (rather than individual users) that subscribes to NetNews, holding all the messages in a common area accessible to users via newsreaders tailored to the particular site's hardware. Most Usenet postings are transmitted as ASCII (3) characters, but newsgroups with restricted area distribution (as opposed to world wide) may use a special set of characters (e.g., Japanese kanji). People who communicate on NEWS in languages other than English and want to reach the widest audience possible for their posting would be best off choosing to use only characters in the fundamental ASCII (3) set for their writing. However, in doing so they give up the possibility of accurately representing all the features of the language they are writing.(4) This may be true also for E-Mail and for other network communication tools. NEWS carries mostly personal articles posted by users from many countries as well as some news information services. The articles are organized into large groupings including "alt" (alternative), "comp" (computer), "news" (the "metagroup"), "rec" (recreative), "sci" (science), "soc" (society), "talk", etc. Thousands of newsgroups are distributed in the United States. The following list is a sample of some of them: - - "alt.hypertext" on uses of the hypertext and technicalities - - - "comp.sys.laptops" on portable PCs and related - - "news.announce.newusers", periodical digests to explain the functioning of NEWS - - "rec.cooking" on food, cooking, cookbooks and recipes - - "sci.lang", discussion related to natural language - - "soc.culture.mexican", discussion of Mexico's society - - "talk.politics.china", discussion of political issues related to China The wide range of cultures represented in the "soc.culture" newsgroups and the fact the most of the postings are in the corresponding language makes the network useful for a wide variety of language teachers. As we said, the reproduction of these languages is "approximated" using the non-extended ASCII set; in the case of European languages this degree of approximation is quite acceptable. In the case of Italian, the graphic representation of the stressed vowels a, i, u, o, e, are easily replaced by a sequence vowel plus apostrophe, such as: a', i', u', o', e'. Page 44 For the purposes of the Italian course, the instructor focused on the group called "soc.culture.italian" (SCI). SCI is a worldwide newsgroup where people, mostly Italian, post and read articles about Italian culture mostly in Italian. On the average, roughly 150 articles are posted in this newsgroup each week. Description of the course "Topics in Italian Culture: Contemporary Issues," was a fourth-year course taught at the University of Utah, Spring quarter of 1992. It was the last in a series of three courses about the contemporary history, literature, and society of Italy. Six students enrolled, all of whom had achieved advanced levels of proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking Italian. The goals of the course were to increase students' knowledge of Italian society and to engage them in producing authentic text for the purpose of communicating with native speakers about important issues. All aspects of the course were taught in Italian. Students spent the first two weeks reading background material related to Italian society and culture, gathering the basic tools necessary to use the Network and choosing the topic which would be the focus of their study during the quarter. The teacher supplied a list of possible topics related to contemporary Italian society about which students could communicate (via written text sent on NEWS) with native speakers. Those who had an area of interest or expertise not included on the list were encouraged to pursue it. Among the topics chosen were Italian opera, the role of women in Italy, and Italy's place in the EEC. Because students were to be communicating with highly educated native speakers about contemporary issues, they needed to have a solid background knowledge about their topics and be familiar with basic information about the political and social structures of modern Italy. Toward this end the teacher assigned readings concerning Italy's constitution and political parties, the structure of Italian government institutions, and demographic information (including population, education level, unemployment and migration patterns). Students also read newspaper and journal articles relevant to their individual topics of study. During the first two weeks, the teacher discussed the assigned readings and helped students get ready to use the computers. They began by obtaining accounts on the Novell network from the University Computer Center, which enabled them to link up with worldwide news networks.(5) Page 45 The instructor then reviewed basic word processing skills in WordPerfect (WP), taught students how to use the Program Editor (PE), and how to access and use the newsreader and IMail.(6) The PE program was chosen because it resembles WordPerfect but produces ASCII files that could be posted in NEWS. The instructor selected a DOS newsreader that was menu-driven and therefore user-friendly. IMail (Interlace Mail) is a menu driven E-Mail manager for DOS that is fast and allows students to communicate with each other as well as with other users of NEWS.(7) By the third week students were required to send three postings per week to NEWS. These were written out of class so that class time could be spent sending text to the network, checking mail, and discussing other students' postings. Those who wished to receive comments from the teacher prior to posting their texts were able to do so. The teacher checked NEWS to make sure students were completing the required amount of writing as well as to monitor the overall quality of the texts. Since a good deal of the monitoring was done during class, the teacher spent a minimal amount of time outside class reading students' work. Moreover, the teacher had the possibility of performing this part of the work at home by connecting to the campus network by modem. Students received an average of three responses for each article they posted and were required to reply to everyone that posted a follow-up comment through the NEWS network.(8) This was done either by writing an individual reply to each response, or by writing one text containing replies to various respondents. Students also received responses to their news texts through IMail and were encouraged to reply to those as well. Since IMail accounts are private, however, the teacher was only able to monitor the frequency with which the students replied to responses sent through the NEWS network. At the end of the course, students submitted a summary and analysis of the materials they had posted and the reactions they had received. They also participated in an oral evaluation session in which they were invited by the instructor to comment on various aspects of the course. All the students believed their writing had improved as a result of having communicated through the network. One student stated specifically that she had overcome grammar problems, while the others reported feeling more at ease with writing in Italian. Students suggested that courses using NEWS also be taught in the third year, based on their belief that writers at a lower level of proficiency would also be able to effectively use the resources. Page 46 CONCLUSION In conclusion we would like to discuss some of the benefits and challenges associated with using NEWS. In a language learning setting which is based upon interaction, NEWS has been very effective, given the enormous number of readers (in the order of hundreds of thousands) and the large number of regular readers of SCI. Even when a tiny percentage of the readers of SCI are interested in engaging in discussions following the postings of the students, this is still a large number. Most of the readers of SCI are native speakers or have a high degree of knowledge of the Italian language. All this lightens the burden on the teacher as far as feedback to the students is concerned: there is less need for teacher feedback since there is interaction between the students and native speakers. The correspondence between students and other readers may take place at two different levels: publicly with "followups" on NEWS or privately with E-Mail replies. The interaction may lead to a relationship between students and correspondents which extends beyond the time frame of the class. That the use of network resources is not tied nor limited to a specific software or hardware requirement is also an advantage. It can be reproduced at almost any site which subscribes to the Usenet newsgroups. Using the resources on the networks allows the teachers flexibility in adapting to the various situations of their institutions. The decision of what operating system to work with, what editor and mailer, etc. to choose, is best met after considering what is available on-site. Learning languages with NEWS also presents challenges. Sometimes it requires skills that teachers and students do not have initially. This necessitates preliminary work by the teachers in determining which tools are available at their institution and are best suited for their purposes. Exploring how those tools can be applied to classes and teaching students how to use them also takes time. In the case of Italian 401, students learned the necessary skills in the first two weeks of class. We think that some questions have been raised by this work and would like to address the Internet community with some considerations. Italian 401 was possibly the first language class taught using NEWS. This condition could have contributed to its success. What would happen if such an experience were replicated at different institutions and the number of students in the same newsgroup increased tenfold? What would the reaction of the regular readers be? What consequences would this have on the effectiveness of the means? Page 47 We believe that any answers to the previous questions must consider that NEWS is a "living entity," with its own membership and culture, continuously growing and evolving. Its growth is directly determined by each and all of its users. For example, new newsgroups dedicated to the purpose of language teaching could be created if too many students posted on any one newsgroup. Once a general interest exists, it is easy to create newsgroups dedicated to the study of specific languages, moderate them and find a combination of topics that makes them attractive to native speakers, who remain the primary target of interaction. Notes 1. While in the United States the approach to this new reality has been one of "deregulation", leading to the blossoming of hundreds of thousands of machines connected to the Internet as hosts, in the rest of the world and especially in European countries we witnessed the growth of "benign" monopolies, in the hands of governmental agencies. 2 The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is the Internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail messages from one machine to another. SMTP specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control messages they exchange to transfer mail. 3. The ASCII set of characters is constituted by 128 characters (for the most part, those appearing on a regular keyboard) of whom 94 are printable: almost every operating system based on ASCII uses an extended set, but, to be able to communicate with any machine system is preferable to use the lowest common denominator. 4. The International Standard Organization (ISO) developed a character set where some sections were fixed and some smaller sections were variable according to national standards. The United States national set of characters was called American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), developed by ANSI. Because most of the Networking originates in the United States this has become the most widely used set of characters in the World. To compensate, writers of romance languages in Usenet newsgroups have substituted existing ASCII symbols for many of the marks (i.e., the apostrophe is used after a vowel to signify that it is written with an accent. 5. All of these tools run under DOS which is an environment familiar to the many university students. At the University Page 48 of Utah, the tools are installed on a Local Area Network (LAN) connected with the campus NOVELL network so that they can be accessed from many different campus locations. 6. To receive an account, students registered themselves at the University Computer Center. Obtaining accounts proved to be a somewhat cumbersome and inefficient process. Some students were not able to get their accounts functioning until the end of the second week. In anticipation of the Fall 1992 course, the instructor has arranged for the students to be given an IMail account automatically upon registering for the course. 7 IMail has been written by David Hoisve and installed on the Novell campus network at the University of Utah. It is particularly easy and fast, since almost every command is performed by simply pointing and clicking with the mouse. I found it to be very well suited to the purposes of Italian 401, given that most of the students were familiar with the DOS environment and IMail only requires a very short training. 8. Only one student received considerably less than the average number of replies per posting. When the teacher suggested he change his topic, the student refused. He continued to produce the required amount of text and wait patiently for a sympathetic interlocutor. References Brinton, D., M.A. Snow, M.B. Wesche. "Content Based Second Language Instruction". New York: Newbury House, 1989. Greenia, G. "Computers and Teaching Composition in a Foreign Language." Foreign Language Annals 25(1992):33-45. Matrix Information and Directory Services (MIDS)."Growth of the Internet worldwide (linear scale; ASCII)". Gopher akasha.tic.com matrix/growth/internet/hosts.doc, Oct. 4, 1993. Johnson, E. "Teaching on international computer networks." Dakota State University at Madison, South Dakota. Computer readable article. Computer readable article. eric@sdnet.bitnet. 1992. Jones, P. "What is the Internet?" Academic Computing Services, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Computer readable article. pjones@samba.acs.unc.edu. 1989. Page 49 Krashen, S.D. "The Imput Hypothesis: Issues and Implications". London: Lomgman, 1985. Krol, E. "Hitchhiker's guide to the Internet." University of Illinois at Urbana. Computer readable article (RFC #1118), 1992. Krol, E. "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog." O'Reilly and Associates, 1992. Legutke, M., H. Thomas. "Process and experience in the language classroom". New York: Longman, 1991. Lunde, K. "Using Electronic Mail as a Medium for Foreign Language Study and Instruction. CALICO Journal 7(1990):68-78. Nunan, D. "The Learner Centered Curriculum". Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Spafford, G. "What is Usenet?." Usenet, news.answers, 26 April 1993. Computer readable article. spaf@cs.purdue.edu. ----------------------------------------------------------------- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Terri Cononelos received her MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Utah in 1992. She has taught ESL academic writing and worked in adult education. She is presently the co-ordinator of the Even Start Literacy Program in Salt Lake City, Utah. terri.cononelos@m.cc.utah.edu Maurizio Oliva is a graduate student of Middle Eastern History. He teaches Italian and Internet resources as an Adjunct Instructor, in the Department of Languages and Literature at the University of Utah. moliva@cc.utah.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century Copyright 1994 Georgetown University. Copyright of individual articles in this publication is retained by the individual authors. Copyright of the compilation as a whole is held by Georgetown University. It is asked that any republication of this article state that the article was first published in IPCT-J. Contributions to IPCT-J can be submitted by electronic mail in APA style to: Gerald Phillips, Editor IPCT-J GMP3@PSUVM.PSU.EDU