Defining Technologies,
the Sociocultural Mind,
and the Second Language Classroom
Eduardo Negueruela-Azarola, PhD
University of Miami
Associate Professor of Spanish & Applied Linguistics
enegueruela@miami.edu
My Connection – My story
1999-2000 The Pennsylvania State University
My first laptop circa 1999
Intermediate Spanish
O Fall 2001: Telecollaboration Project
O Design a web site
O Email every other day
O Online chatting every week: chat rooms
O Videoconferencing: once at the end of the
semester
Conclusion
O Technology was impressive. It was defining, but it
needs to be framed (pedagogically: Project based
pedagogy)
O It promoted communication (Pennsylvania)
O It connected learners across the Atlantic
O Extremely motivating to learners, but not in the
mainstream psychological sense of motivation
(Negueruela, 2011)
A couple of questions
O How do we understand the role powerful
defining technologies play in the L2
classroom?
O What are the effects of these technologies
in L2 learning? How can we capture them?
15 years in 15 minutes
My research agenda partly begins with this
experience in telecollaboration in 1999
(teletandem)…
O … because it connected (1) meaningful
technologies (2) with critical thinking (3) in a
L2 classroom context
(1) Defining Technologies
O Innovations that become so central in our
daily functioning that define who we are,
what we do, and even how we think
O Web 2.0: Computer-mediated-communication
(2) The Sociocultural Mind
O Symbolic activity which emerges from ability
to construct representations that promote
conscious-awareness
(3)In the L2 classroom
O L2 learning is not about…
O
Chit/chat proficiency (Language for tourism)
O It’s about teaching-learning concepts, critical
thinking: ideas that become powerful tools
for communication and orientation
Teaching-Learning Concepts
The ability of learners/people…
… in any classroom/context…
…to internalize/create new
ideas/generalizations…
…with concrete functional significance.
In the Second Language
Classroom
Learning a FL is not only about forms,
meanings as content, but also as meaning
as concepts (implicit models used to think
through activities).
E.g. Grammatical (tense, aspect, modality),
textual (genre, coherence), pragmatic or
communicative (context, script,
intentionality).
Anything Conceptual
…
is quite challenging because it cannot
be taught through basic explaining;
… cannot be practiced as basic forms,
… cannot be easily learned through
induction or deduction
As a result, critical concepts are not taught
or considered as one of the benefits of CMC
What do we do?
Goal of Presentation
To illustrate how and where defining
technologies and the sociocultural mind
meet in the language classroom.
And where they meet is in the process of
conceptual mediation.
Conceptual Mediation
O One of the central goals of L2 teachers and
researchers should be to promote critical
thinking.
O That is, conceptual internalization in the
second language classroom
O This applies to grammar teaching,
writing/reading, CMC and teletandem
Order of presentation
(1) Puzzle: Cartesian Dualism in Education
(2) Paradox: Models as defining technologies
(3) Solution: Mindful Engagement
(4) Application: Second Language Teaching &
Telecollaboration/teletandem (Mónica
Durán)
1.Learning/Teaching Puzzle
Why (good) students do not learn certain ideas
that they are supposed to learn?
Why are some ideas so hard to teach in the L2
classroom?
E.g. preterite/imperfect, indicative
subjunctive, prepositions, ser/estar, articles,
metaphors, textual organization, pragmatics
1.2. Not Everything is
Conceptual in the Same Sense
On the one hand, we (learners) constantly
create generalizations (pattern building)
On the other, we (teachers) have a hard time
to teach/orient systematic concepts
(generalizations and abstractions)
1.3. Solution to a Challenge
Can we orient this change? Can/should we
teach conceptually? If so, how?
(1) Understanding human thinking as mediated
thinking
(2) Understanding implicit conceptual tools as
defining technologies
(3) Understanding mindful conceptual
engagement
1.4. Application of MCE
Any field:
(1) Astronomy (Engestrom)
(2) Foreign Language Grammar (Negueruela,
García Frazier, Polizzi, García, Swain,)
(3) Mathematics (Anne Watson at Oxford
University)
(4) Literacy (Alex Kozulin in Israel)
1.5 Grammar in FL Teaching
Teach grammar through meaning as content &
self-expression (Communicative: fluency)
Teach grammar through mechanics and
simple rules: basic accuracy
morphology/syntax
Meaning of grammar (concepts and models) is
indirectly presented through rules of thumb.
1.6 Cartesian Dualism in
Education
(1) Traditional education (forget about content)
Teach forms, basic skills, and mastery of
conventions.
E.g. FL classroom: teach basic grammar & vocabulary
(2) Progressive education (forget about forms)
Teach content, and self-expression.
E.g. Promote communicative interactions
1.7 Mindful Conceptual
Pedagogies (MCP)
Discovery of implicit models, conceptual
representations… which requires mindful
engagement: understanding and
constructing new models through
conceptual manipulation and application.
2. Defining technologies
The introduction of artifact which changes
an activity. Tool use creates new ideas, new
implicit models, new opportunities.
E.g.
(1) Typewriter/pc/laptops
(2) Cell phones
(3) Social networking
(4) Powerpoint
2.1.1 Technologies Effects
O The introduction of artifacts, new
technologies, changes the organization of
activity (not necessarily the nature of the
activity)
O Writing (computers)
O Communication (smartphones)
O Political advocacy (facebook)
O Presentations (powerpoint)
2.1 Typewriter
1988 (1900)
1992
2.2. Personal Computers
1994 - 2000 - 2009
2.3 Cellphones/Smartphones
(1973) – 2004 - 2009
2.4. Social Networking
(2013)
O Political Advocacy
2.5. Transparencies
1999-2004
2.6. 2003 (first beta version)
2.7. On the Cognitive
Effects
Amplification:
O New technologies are faster/efficient
O More flexible
O Less time on task…, more time on new
technology (allows you to do more… too
much)
2.8 Change the nature of
the task?
New is not always better from the point of view
of critical thinking/conceptual development
2.9. Isomorphism
Re-organization (advantages and limits)
O Isomorphism: Calculator is not transparent in
its operations. You only see the result. It’s not
concrete in the representation of the concept
of mathematical unit.
O Calculator is more efficient than an abacus
but it is less powerful conceptually.
3. Models as Technologies
3.1 Phases of the moon
High School Science Classes (Astronomy):
“ Why sometimes only a part of the moon is
visible or it is not visible at all, even though
the sky is cloudless?
In other words: What causes the different
phases of the moon? Clarify your answer
with the help of a drawing.”
3.2 Astronomy
3.3 Engestrom (1994)
The most common answer among both the
younger and the older students was that the
moon is regularly covered by the shadow of
the earth, which causes the new moon.
“The shadow of the earth is cast over the moon
in different sizes as the moon revolves around
the earth.” (Boy, grade 11)
3.4 Confusing Events
This, in fact, is a fairly accurate description of
a relatively uncommon event, the lunar
eclipse - and a completely incorrect
explanation to the regular phenomenon of
new moon.
3.5 Synthetic Stupidity
We provide a illogical answer… it is not our
fault… it is the fault of the models we use to
think through.
3.6 Observations
We have mislearned what the natural science
could have taught us: to observe the world.
What is even more problematic, we have
empty sentences readily at hand because of
“simplistic” models which are used as tools
for thinking.
3.7. Problematic Models
In basic diagram of the solar system, used in
astronomy textbooks even at universities,
you may observe how conveniently close the
earth and the moon are to each other and
how little difference there is in their sizes.
3.8. 150 meters textbooks
In reality, if the sun were symbolized with a ball with a
radius of little over 50 cm, the earth would be
symbolized with a ball with a radius of just a little
over 0.5 cm and located 150 meters from the sun.
The moon would then be symbolized with a ball
whose radius would be 1.75 mm and which would be
located nearly 40 cm from the earth.
3.9. Unthinkable models
These distances and sizes are almost
unthinkable on the basis of the neat
textbook diagrams.
Something very essential is destroyed with
the loss of distances and sizes.
Furthermore, it’s a two dimensional model
3.10. Faulty Models
O Students cannot very easily grasp how
small the likelihood is that the shadow of
the earth hits exactly on the moon and
makes it invisible. Destruction of sizes and
distances lead learners to give artificially
“naive” answers to researchers/teachers
who are using such distorted pictures as
“props”
3.11. Three Dimensions
3.12. A View from the Earth
3.13. Mathematics and CME
O Anne Watson at Oxford
O Mathematics, and thinking in mathematical
concepts, has very little to do with the activity
we call math teaching in most schools.
O Most math classes do not teach generalizations
and thinking. We teach the mechanics of
solving specific problems through repetition
4. Grammar as Models
O We think in terms of models (diagrams,
drawings, and rules)
O Models are transparent to us. We don’t see
them as models, we see them as faithful
representations of reality.
O It’s critical to represent models because
they are tools for thinking
4.1. Writing as a Model for
Language
The literacy challenge from a SCT perspective:
Learning a model of language: you need to begin
to see speech in terms of a written system…
O Once you learn, you see language through the
written system.
4.2 Foreign Language
Teaching
We see/explain grammar/language through
faulty rules of thumb
These models are implitic/invisible to
teachers/researchers
4.3 CMC and Models
O CMC is helping teachers and researchers
document/teach communication (not just
language)
O Confirm the realization that language
learning is not a skill but an activity
O What are the implicit models that learners
internalize because of the technology and
the representations we offer them?
5. Concepts in SCT in the L2
classroom
An idea, both general and concrete, systematic
and functional, so as to have practical
relevance in explaining, understanding, and
orienting specific activity.
E.g. The grammatical concept of aspect
to understand preterite/imperfect
5.1 Mindful Conceptual
Engagement
Mindful engagement through concepts is
necessary for internalizing meanings
connected to thinking for speaking.
Mindful engagement is achieved in conceptual
reflection which requires transpection.
5.2 Transpection
Verbal thinking that is not about the past
(retrospection) not about the future
(prospection), not even about the self
(introspection), but about making sense of
the world through systematic ideas
(transpection: a very specific type of
reflection).
5.3 Concepts as Tools for
Thinking
The use of a concept as tool for thinking
seems to be the key to transform inert
concepts as declarative knowledge into
conceptual categories, which are functional
for communication and conceptualization.
5.4 Mindful Engagement &
L2 Classroom
A conceptual approach to L2 classrooms
needs to articulate a curriculum based on
concepts: categories of meaning
O Peer editing, teletandem, creative writing
O (Mónica Durán, Fall 2013, University of
Miami)
5.5Conceptual Manipulation
O
To instantiate a MCE approach in CMC in the L2 classroom,
teachers/researcher need to:
O
(1) become aware of implicit models present through technology and
interaction,
O
(2) a concise visual representation of these models, a sophisticated
explanation to promote sense-making activity, and finally and most
importantly,
O
(3) Reflective activities based on language: use of language as a tool
for making sense of: communicative models, grammar, creative writing.
5.6 Pushed to Reflect on L2
Learning
O Challenging conceptual tasks. It is the use of
language as a tool for internalization of L2 complex
meaning (grammatical, textual, pragmatic) such as
tense, aspect, and modality.
O Learners need to engage in conceptual/reflective
tasks where they are pushed to reflect on issues in
conceptual ways.
5.6 MCE: Intellectual Effort
Genuine conceptual reflection is challenging and
requires considerable engagement and
intellectual effort on the part of learners and
teachers.
O Project based pedagogy and integrating critical
reflection tasks (e.g. Peer editing in Tandem).
The future
O Born into teletandem!