The "Rear-View Mirror" Approach
James Nord
Nagoya University of Commerce
ABSTRACT: Foreign language teaching can make great advances through the use of
new educational media. The new interactive videodisc systems can be particularly helpful
in making this progress. Unfortunately, the implementation of this new educational
media is being done with the "rear-view mirror" approach spoken of by McLuhan. That
is, this new media is being used with the methods of older, different media. Instead, it
should be used in conjunction with a new methodology which could better capitalize on
the great potential which this new media has. A model is described for this new
methodology.
KEYWORDS: "Rear-view mirror approach," SENtences, SITuations, SELective,
sens-it-cells, interactive video
Rear-View
Interactive videodisc systems, sometimes known as AVC (Audio Visual
Computer) systems are the current rage in the educational field, especially in the
foreign-language education field. Like most new media innovations, they seem
to be following the rear-view mirror approach described by McLuhan many years
ago. McLuhan pointed out that most new media innovations follow a rearview mirror approach, in that they use the former media as the content for the
new media. . . at least at first, until the new media is better understood. He
pointed out, for example, that the first movies tended to use old stage
productions as the first content. The first TV used the old movies as their first
content. Likewise, the first CAI programs follow the old teacher tutorial
methodology, and the new interactive video seems to be incorporating primarily
the current foreign language classroom content: conversations or communicative
situations.
Is this rear-view mirror approach inevitable, or can it be short cut? This
paper will attempt to suggest ways in which the profession can gain maximum
benefits from the new media sooner, by cutting short the rear-view mirror
approach through better understanding of its causal influences. This involves
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first understanding some of the characteristics of media in general, second,
understanding some of the characteristics of the subject matter language better,
and finally, understanding the learning process better.
First, to understand media better, one can consider the media as simply
extensions of man, or extensions of human functions. These extensions are
basically of three types: a fixative type, a distributive type, and a manipulative
type. For example, one can consider the human skin as a surface or boundary
function. Clothes, for example, can be viewed as simply an extension of the skin.
At first, new clothes were made to act as a second skin, to hold in the heat or to
prevent scratches etc. In the beginning, they were basically fixative, in that they
were made to remain in place for a period of time. Later, we learned to duplicate
them, mass produce them and distribute them in space to larger numbers of
people. Now, fashion designers create an infinite variety of variations by
learning how to manipulate certain variables. In this same way, communication
media are generally extensions of our sensors (or expressors). For example, the
telescope was an extension of the eye function; the microscope was also of this
same nature. Movies were also an extension of the eye function, which could
fixate a scene, duplicate it for distribution and even manipulate our view of
reality.
At first, the extension is usually of a fixative nature. This makes it
permanent in time. It can thus be reliably repeatable over time. Movies therefore
had an inherent advantage over a stage production by fixating it in time, and
thus allowing it to be repeated over and over again, with very little additional
costs. Once the stage productions were capable of being fixated through the
media of movies, they were also capable of being distributed over a geographical
area, although at a somewhat higher cost. These two advantages were sufficient
to make movies into money makers, using just the old stage productions. That is,
the original movie makers simply set up a camera in the theater, and fixated the
show, then by duplicating the film, distributed it around the country.
When television came into being, it by-passed the fixative stage and went
straight to the distributive stage. It used the old movies as content and
distributed them around the country through a broadcast media which allowed
millions of people to see the movies at the same time with just one broadcast. In
the beginning, the financial advantage of this was sufficient to make running old
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movies a money maker. Indeed, even today, we can still see our president
performing on late night TV in some cities in his former capacity as a movie
actor. TV supporters also recognized the value of a fixative stage, so they came
out with a video system so that people could fixate a broadcast and play it at a
different time.
At first new movies used stage shows, and TV used movies because their
fixative and distribution advantage was sufficient to make them money makers.
But slowly, some of the better movie producers and directors, and later TV
producers and directors, began to see the unique manipulative advantages in
their new media. For example, the movie makers began to realize that one could
move the camera and come closer to the scene or farther from the scene. One
scene could be taken today and another the next day. A scene in the movies
could be manipulated much more easily than a scene in a stage production.
When a few bold and daring new directors created these new types of movies,
the public quickly saw the advantage, and went to these instead of the old stage
production types. Soon more and more directors had to look for more and better
ways to manipulate the movie. The editing room became a major part of the new
movie empires, just as today, special visual effects were the latest in the
manipulative extension of vision utilized by the modern movie industry. The
same type of transformation is taking place with the TV industry, with "instant
news" gaining a greater portion of the broadcast TV's time, money and effort.
Global, instantaneous news broadcasts are now considered natural for the new
media. But the people who saw these natural manipulative extensions were
pioneers, bold and daring in their time. Where are these people in education?
One of the latest media to hit the educational scene is the interactive
videodisc. It is being used in foreign language teaching. It is being touted as the
latest and the greatest. It is innovative and daring. Or is it? A look at most of the
newest and latest products could make one wonder. This new media does have
advantages in fixating teaching patterns. indeed, this appears to be the first
usage, to establish an interactive teaching-learning sequence and fixate this on
the computer. The distributive phase is still somewhat slowed because the costs
of some of the new equipment, plus the cost of reproducing some of the
videodiscs is still fairly high. The real advantage, the powerful manipulative
potential has, I believe, been barely recognized. As a consequence, the standard
classroom approach, the communicative competence routine, the conversational
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approach is being fixated and distributed on the new media in a rear-view mirror
approach to media innovation.
Time and a few bold and daring new producers will eventually
demonstrate new approaches and new manipulative uses of this media. But must
we simply wait for this to happen? Isn't there something we can do to encourage
it? I would like to suggest that Pogo may have been right when he said, "We
have met the enemy, and they is us." Language teachers look at the new
interactive videodisc systems, and they almost immediately think of how they
can use it to get students to interact linguistically with it, i.e., as a conversational
interaction. I would like to suggest that the first thing we need to do in order to
use the new media more effectively and efficiently is to re-look at what we mean
by language as an interactive process.
In another paper, I argued that we need to look at language as an
interactive process. What I meant however, by that expression, was that we look
at language, not as an interactive process between people, as in a conversation,
but as an interactive process within people, within their brains. This interactive
process is between form and meaning, between signal and concepts, between the
publicly available "language signals" and the privately meaningful
"understandings." I have argued that the interaction between people, the socalled conversation demonstrates no significant meaning to the viewers. The
words have no meaning in and of themselves, all of the meaning is in the heads
of the participants and these are not directly perceivable.
Annie Sullivan began to move the handle of the
pump up and down. Soon a steady stream of water came
pouring out of its spout. Now she took Helen's hand and
held it under the cool flow. W-A-T-E-R, she spelled into
Helen's wet hand. At first, Helen pulled away. But then,
suddenly, she stopped. A new light seemed to come to her
face. Annie saw the look. W-A-T-E-R, she spelled again
quickly. W-A-T-E-R! W-A-T. . . . Helen began to spell back.
And with each movement grew brighter. For suddenly she
knew! The shapes that the stranger was making with her
fingers did have a meaning! Everything had a name.
Everything in the whole world had a name! And she could
learn them all. (Davidson, 1969)
The story is about Helen Keller and her first encounter with language. It
was sign language not oral language, because Helen was deaf. It was sign
language not written language because Helen was blind. Helen Keller's first
language was sign language but it was not a language for her until it interacted
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with meaning in her brain. Helen had been like a fish out of water. Annie
Sullivan had been moving her fingers in the form of letters for weeks, but there
was no language until the sign in her hand connected through the brain with the
water in her hand. It was the interaction of the sign and the meaning in the brain
that made language for Helen.
I have therefore argued that using conversation as a teaching mechanism
is the least effective approach to language learning, especially using an
interactive videodisc as the teaching medium. I have argued for a new definition
of language as an interaction within the brain which would utilize the inherent
advantages of the new AVC systems to their maximum right from the beginning.
Because scientists have objected to "non-observables," I have proposed a
Sens-it Cell theory of language which hypothesizes an atomic sens-it cell as the
basic language unit, but I have also operationalized it to make it testable. The
theory is elaborated in other papers, but a brief description of the key points
should be sufficient to demonstrate how it might be useful in by-passing the
rear-view mirror approach, and begin producing more effective and efficient
interactive video programs for foreign language training sooner.
The sens-it cell model was originally invented in the process of
developing a language course in Russian. The name and the conceptual
framework of the sens-it cell model were originally derived from the SEN:SIT
concept first formulated by 1. A. Richards, and then combined with the principle
of SELection inherent in a hypothesis testing theory of learning. The combination
of a signal with a meaning, was treated by Richards in the following way, when
he expressed his views about language and language teaching some forty years
ago.
1. We learn a new sentence or sentence element by seeing how it applies in
a situation.
2. We teach by presenting the sentence and the situation together.
3. In what follows, the abbreviation SEN-SIT will be used for this unit
made up of a sentence in the situation which gives it meaning.
4. Teaching a language effectively consists of inventing, arranging,
presenting, and testing SEN-SITS.
To illustrate this phenomenon, consider Helen Keller again. Her teacher
put one hand under the flowing water, so that she could experience the
SITuation clearly. With her other hand, she moved her fingers into the arbitrary
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positions, which spelled out the SENtence. The magical moment, when Helen
Keller was able to connect, associate and relate this SENtence with that
SITuation, was the beginning of her experience with language and the beginning
of a whole new life for her.
This concept is illustrated in practical terms by the example given about
Helen Keller. The SELection or interactive structural mechanism is what
connected the abstract or mental picture of water with a physical way to
represent that picture or idea. This mentally interactive process is what language
is—connecting the SITuation (mental picture or abstract) with a SENtence (a way
to represent it to others). I have taken the SEN-SIT concept and attempted to
expand on it, I first added the concept of SELection or the interactive structural
mechanism between the SENtence and the SITuation. Then I modified the
expression, SEN:SIT::SEL to Sens-it Cell to reflect the cybernetic feedback
mechanism inherent in all interactive structures. There is not room in this paper
to go into details of the sens-it cell model covered in other papers, but one
advantage of the model is the use of some of the notation, which I would like to
use in this paper and will therefore expand on slightly.
Since I am referring to language as an internal phenomenon, rather than
an external one, and Richards was referring primarily to the external aspects of
that phenomenon, I have preserved the capitalized SEN-SIT abbreviation system
to refer to the external observable phenomenon, but designate the internal
phenomenon with small letters. Thus a conversation between two people can be
described in the following way. One individual begins with a situation (an
internal meaningful thought). He goes through a selective process generating a
sen:tence, which he then converts through his vocal cord system to a SENtence.
This SENtence is carried through the airwaves to the ear of the listener, and he
converts this to a private sen:tence (which may or may not be identical with the
external SENtence). This sen:tence is run through a selective process and triggers
a situation in the mind of the receiver. If we are to speak of communications as
being reliable, then what we mean is that the situation in the mind of the receiver
is similar to, if not identical to, the situation in the mind of the sender.
The SENtence or signal part of language is a phenomenon which would
be completely ignored if we were not tuned into it. We are however, so
completely used to it, like fish in water, that we do not recognize it as an internal
process which we are projecting on to the world "out there." The converter is
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what makes language meaningful. When we walk down the street of an
international city and we hear people speaking languages we have not learned,
we don't hear a language, we hear the SENtence of that language. For us, it is a
noise which we can very easily tune away from and ignore, just as we can tune
out and ignore the thousand of other information signals which are around us. A
walk through the woods with a real outdoorsman can very quickly demonstrate
the different tuning systems. The woodsman will see, hear, and smell 2, 3, or
maybe 10 times as much as the novice.
The critical point of this analysis is that from the standpoint of a
learner/observer, the only thing that is apparent, that is observable, is the
SENtence. But this has no inherent meaning in itself. Teachers who know the
language automatically imply meaning to words that do not, in effect, exist. The
words are attached to meanings, or trigger meanings in the brains of people
through an interactive selective process. The lack of meaning in words may not
appear obvious to native speakers, but it is painfully obvious to those who have
not internalized this new selective process, i.e., those who have not yet learned
the language. Yet this is the audience, this is the observer in the new interactive
videodisc systems, which are supposed to be designed to teach them the new
language. I suggest that the use of conversations as the basic content of the new
interactive videodisc systems presents only the SENtence explicitly, and leaves
the student unsure of the SITuational meaning. I suggest that a story in which
description and narrative discourse are used primarily would provide a far
better base for language display and manipulation with the new media.
I would like to suggest that if we want to use the new interactive
videodisc systems more effectively and efficiently to teach foreign language, then
we must first carefully redefine language as the development of sens-it cells in
the brain. Once we do that, we can immediately begin to see how we can use the
inherent manipulative advantage of the new interactive videodisc systems more
effectively and efficiently. The video part of the disk provides a potential wealth
of SITuations to manipulate. The present disk configuration provides some audio
SENtence potential, but not the full range of manipulative flexibility that a
separate independent random access audio device would do. With a separate
audio SENtence device and a random access visual SITuational device plus a
computer to provide the manipulative flexibility, language training can become a
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truly learner-centered experience, if we are careful about how we define
learning.
Learning according to behaviorists was tied closely to behavior, to
observable responses by the learner. Technically, most learning theorists would
acknowledge that these were only indicators of learning rather than learning
itself, but the popular expression "learning is a change in behavior" became the
standard for teachers who had nothing but behavior responses to judge learning
by. Once a concept is constructed, it is immediately externalized so that it
appears to the subject as a perceptually given property of the object and
independent of the subject's own mental activity (Piaget 1967). This is why talk is
so important to language teachers; they really have little other evidence to go by
of whether a student has learned. On the other hand, if we acknowledge that
learning takes place only in the brain, and that the learning is a kind of growth,
an informing of the brain, through an instructional process, then we can look first
at that process. We can worry about the indicators later.
Learning as a growth process in the brain implies that we always build on
former structures. We are dealing with informational structures and what we
need to do is feed them, not just exercise them. Observational learning is far
more effective and efficient than learning by doing or trial and error learning,
which would also be very hazardous.
If one grasps the significance of observational learning in foreign language
instruction, one recognizes that we are fundamentally referring to the
development of sens-it cells in the brain. On the surface it may appear to be the
development of listening comprehension, even listening fluency, through a
presentation which clearly presents a SENtence in a SITuation so that it can be
clearly understood, but in effect it is much much more. The more critical aspect is
that the interactive SELection relationship is completely clear. The studentcomputer interaction can then be seen as a means by which the student assures
himself that he did, in fact, not only understand this particular SENtence
correctly, but that he formed the correct sens-it cell with all of the ramifications
that it implies.
Details of how this can be done still await some of the more bold and
daring programmers who can break away from the classroom mold and create
truly innovative manipulative options. A few instructional principles and
strategies are, however, already emerging which can help stimulate these people
in the right direction. They are presented here, not as restrictions, but as
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opportunities for exploration.
Principles
The basic principles expressed by I. A. Richards over forty years ago still
seem very applicable with just a few refinements. They therefore bear reviewing
before the refinements are pointed out. The basic point is the coordinate
presentation of a SENtence with a clarifying SITuation. It is very difficult to do
this with conversational discourse. It is much easier to do this with imperative
commands, such as the "Total Physical Response Strategy" advocated by James
Asher, wherein an individual hears a SENtence and must act out the SITuation. It
is also much easier to combine SENtence and SITuation in descriptive and
narrative discourse. Richards also points out that comparisons and contrasts are
excellent ways to teach. Using an interactive videodisc, students can be allowed
to compare and contrast both SITuation and SENtence variables at many levels
of abstraction.
One major refinement to the principles set out by 1. A. Richards is the use
of extensive "testing with immediate knowledge of correct results." The
computer has excellent capacity for just this potential. Specific SITuations such as
locational distinctions and number distinctions can be used to allow the student
to determine if he can "fluently" cope with such SENtence distinctions as "this,"
"that," "these," and "those," as well as with more general SENtence distinctions
relating to such SITuational distinctions as social register and connotational
implications.
Summary
Foreign language teaching has an opportunity to make a giant leap
forward by the more extensive use of new educational media, particularly by
using the new interactive videodisc systems with audio supplementation.
Unfortunately, most of the present usage seems to indicate that the profession is
following the approach labeled by McLuhan as the rear-view mirror approach.
We seem to be brought up in a world seen through descriptions by others rather
than through our own perceptions. This has the consequence that instead of
using language as a tool with which to express our thoughts and experiences, we
accept language as a tool that determines our thought and experience. The
interactive videodisc is being used primarily, it would seem, to do better what
the teachers have been trying to do: get people to talk. It would appear that the
general professional focus on communicative competence is also the focus of the
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developers of the new interactive videodisc systems.
In order to avoid this rear-view mirror approach, in order to use the new
educational media in a manner more in keeping with its inherent potential, it
was suggested that we look at language as an interactive sens-it cell in the brain,
and that we recognize language learning as a process of growing these language
sens-it cell in the brain. It was argued that if we accepted this viewpoint, we
could then use the interactive video to present SENtences in SITuations so that
students could gain greater understanding of the SEN:SIT relationship, and then
ensure greater clarity of their relationship through SELective testing of
SITuational contrasts as well as SENtence contrasts.
It was pointed out that the use of descriptive and narrative discourse
allowed much greater use of the SENtence and SITuational presentational
potential of the interactive video system than does conversational discourse and
that these two forms of discourse provide much greater manipulative potential
than conversational discourse can. It would therefore appear that while
communicative competence may remain as a worthwhile goal for the profession
as a whole, it does not appear to be a very valuable means to be employed by the
new educational technologies.
References
Asher, James. 1982. Learning Another Language Through Actions: The Complete
Teacher's Guidebook. 2nd ed. Los Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York:
Signet Books.
Piaget, Jean. 1967. Six Psychological Studies. New York: Random Press, 1967, xii.
Richards, I. A. and Christine Gibson. English Through Pictures, French Through
Pictures and other languages through pictures series. New York: Washington
Square Press.
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Author's Biodata
James Nord is a professor at the Nagoya University of Commerce in Japan.
Author's Address
James Nord
Nagoya University of Commerce
Sagamine, Nisshin-cho
Aichi-gun, Aichi-ken
47001 JAPAN
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