Please cite as:
Ortega, L. (2007). Online interactions and L2 learning: Some
ethical challenges for teachers and researchers. Invited
presentation delivered at the University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor, March 30.
Copyright © Lourdes Ortega, 2007
Online interactions & L2 learning:
Some ethical challenges
for teachers and researchers
Lourdes Ortega
University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, lortega@hawaii.edu
English Language Institute, University of Michigan
March 30, 2007
Acknowledgement
Eve Zyzik, Michigan State University
Sally Magnan (Ed.). (in press). Mediating Discourse Online.
Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Information Communication Technologies
have changed
 the nature of everyday communication
 the educational contexts afforded to our
students
 opportunities for L2 learning
(e.g., Kern, 2006; Thorne & Payne, 2005)
ICTs in our digital society
Email
Internet surfing
Instant messaging
Cell phones
(photos/music)
Web page creation,
maintenance, viewing
Newsgroups
Chats
Wikis
Palm-sized computers
(movies)
Blogging
Gaming
L2 Computer-Mediated Communication
CM interaction between
individuals and groups
of users, all or some of
whom use an L2
Designed for pedagogical
purposes (during
regular class time &
outside)
Some times with no
specific pedagogical
aim (e.g., joining a
chat room or a news
group on the Internet)
but with a broad
purpose to “practice
the L2”
New ethical challenges?
Values that guide research programs (Ortega,
2005) and educational practices
Social usefulness and usability of knowledge
(Stokes, 1997; House & Howe, 1999)
Conduct of research involving human subjects
(Mackey & Gass, 2005, Ch. 2)
Ethics and Information
Technology
(Springer, founded in
1999):
“...aims to foster and promote
reflection and analysis which is
intended to make a constructive
contribution to answering the
ethical, social and political
questions associated with the
adoption, use, and development of
ICT”
L2 CMC
Euphoric discourse
Idyllic images
Unquestioned assumptions
No discussions about ethics so far
Computer-Mediated Communication
tremendous potential for promoting
 L2 linguistic development
 Intercultural awareness
(Ortega, 1997; Smith, 2003; Belz & Thorne, 2006)
Main identified benefits
“leaner communication”
(Walther et al., 2005, p. 634)
Egualitarian
participation
Higher productivity
More varied discourse
L2 development
Contact Hypothesis
Allport (1954)
CMC
for L2 learning
Target culture
closer to students
Intercultural
learning
Promote intercultural
understanding
CMC & participation and productivity
Educational benefits  egalitarian
participation structures enable the
democratization of education via dialogic
communication
SLA benefits  egalitarian structures bring
about higher productivity and more
complex discourse, both key ingredients for
optimal L2 development
True:
more L2 output and more
varied usage of the L2 are
fostered online (e.g.,
Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995)
certain traditional
participation structures,
such as negotiation
episodes, also occur online
(e.g., Fiori, 2005; B.
Smith, 2003, 2004)
But
also:
anxiety provoked by the public
visibility of text-based postings
“You always say - great
response - but you do not
understand the stress - it is
going to be there - this
response - people will think of
me as this horrible person people who do not know me because it is on the Web and
not at all a communication
between two peers - it is like
communication with a mass
audience.”
“The Web is good to force me to read
my note but I think it is very difficult
-- I can hardly write - anything
without making many mistakes and I
cannot find anything to write ... I can
just keep quiet in the class unless the
teacher calls my name -- but [on the
Web] I must talk -- it is very hard for
me.”
Sengupta (2001, p. 122)
And also:
more equally distributed
participation for one
group but not the
other (Fitze, 2006)
greater participation for
some learners but
exclusion of others
(Jeon-Ellis et al., 2005)
perpetuation of
preexisting power
differentials (Reeder
et al., 2004)
greater learning in the
traditional face-toface medium than
online (Barr et al.,
2005)
Productivity
Productivity = productive engagement with
the L2?
Teachers’ online threaded discussions:
“serial monologues” Pawan et al. (2003)
Teachers’ text-only synchronous chat:
“cooperative development” (Edge, 2006)
 Not the medium per se, but context and
agency

Agency
“Always accessible, never fully alone, the wired
personality is both more connected to more
disparate others and, for that very reason, all
the more forced to make choices about
availability, about prioritizing the
importance and duration of replies, and
about filtering incoming messages and
information”
(Burbules, 2006, pp. 117-118)
“Interactivity”




Cummulative meaning making? (Rafaeli,
1988)
Interchangeable roles?
Reciprocal influence?
Mutual interruptibility?
Walther et al. (2005)
What is the relative value of
participation and silence in CMC?
Soroka and Rafaeli (2006) on
lurking & de-lurking:
there is a “need to understand
lurking behavior not only to
make people start
participating or de-lurk, but
also to be able to create
virtual spaces that are
pleasant and interesting to be
in, even for silent
participants” (n.p.)
Do cultural differences that are
known to be important in faceto-face communication (such as
the valuing of silence and
reticence in some cultures)
become simply irrelevant when
interacting online for the sake
of L2 learning...?
What counts as optimal participation and
productivity in L2 online interactions?


Quality and not only quantity of
interactions
Not the medium per se, but context and
agency
Strategy 1: Consider...
Participation
Productivity
CMC for
L2 learning
Silence
(Lurking)
Interactivity
Intercultural learning & L2 CMC
Telecollaborations
“the use of Internet communication tools by
internationally dispersed students of
language in institutionalized settings in
order to promote the development of (a)
foreign language (FL) linguistic competence
and (b) intercultural competence”
(Belz, 2003, p. 68)
Telecollaborations
Have relevance for L2
teachers (Furstenberg et
al., 2001; Kinginger et al.,
1999; see also Bauer et al.,
2006)
Promote contextualized and
social views of language in
curricula, stressing
pragmatic development
and cultural learning,
rather than just lexis &
grammar
Foster a sense of cultural
curiosity (Abrams, 2002)
Help confront stereotypes and
prejudice (Sakar, 2001;
O’Dowd, 2005)
Help reflect on one’s own
culture (Ware, 2005)
True:
Telecollaborations can
result in
 better learning of
cultural content
 better knowledge of
L2 pragmatics
 enhanced
intercultural
understanding
But
also...
If unsuccessful, telecollaborations can
reinforce stereotypes and
confirm negative attitudes
that students had prior to
the telecollaboration
(Belz, 2002; Meagher &
Castaños, 1996; O’Dowd,
2003)
e.g., Kramsch & Thorne
(2002):
U.S. undergraduates
thought French lycée
students were unfriendly
& pompous because they
had an unfamiliar factual,
impersonal, and
dispassionate
communication style
Is CMC a culture-free zone?
there is good reason to be “suspicious of the
assumption of the flattening out of cultural
difference” by merely using technology as a
medium
Hanna & de Nooy (2003, p. 72)
ICTs are a product of culture
ICTs are a Western, affluent, Englishspeaking invention (Ess, 2002;
Walther, 1996)
Virtual cultures
We now have digital natives (Mcmillan &
Morrison, 2006; Thorne, 2003) and they
create their own virtual communities and
norms
Also, primary access to ICTs is severely
unequal across geographies and socioeconomic class (digital divide-- Parayil,
2005; Stanley, 2003), so...
Cultural resistance and negotiation
Many competent users of technology may have had “a
reluctant entry into the computer age” (B. Q.
Smith, 2004)
Many may be resistant/oppositional technology users
Plus, online interaction is never just about language,
but about repositioning oneself and negotiating
cultural, personal, and power differentials online
(Chen, 2006; Lam, 2004)
How can “culture” be defined online?

Global computer uses, emergent cultures of
users, and local cultures interact (Kern,
2006; Thorne, 2003; see also Ess, 2002)
Virtual interlocutors in our classrooms and studies?
For cultural learning, “internationally
dispersed students” are the imagined
interlocutors (Belz, 2003, p. 68)
So, “intra-community resources remain largely
untapped” (Thorne, 2006, p. 9)
e.g.,
French communities in the U.S.??
Cajun French, Louisiana
Canadian French, New England
13 million French ancestry
1.6 French-English speakers
Francophone Arabs, all of U.S.
Haitian French, Miami
Virtual learners in our classrooms and studies?
Yoshie, a Japanese-English bilingual who had studied
in Berlin as a high school student
Yen, a native speaker of Cantonese and English
Lori, who came from a rural, working-class
background and had never traveled outside of the
U.S.
Belz (2003, 2006)
What does each bring to CMC for L2 learning?
Strategy 2: Consider...
“Multilayered
Cultures”
Negotiation &
resistance
(global, virtual, local)
CMC for
L2 learning
Who are the
“learners”
Legitimate
interlocutors?
CMC & research conduct
Public space
research
Loitering &
lurking, ok?
Virtual
disguise,
sufficient?
Archival
research
Human
research
Textual
products?
Human
activity?
Public
access?
Consent?
Ephimeral
or
permanent?
Protection of
(virtual & real)
anonymity?
Creative arts
research
Recognition?
Copyrights?
An empirical approach
Hudson and Bruckman (2004):
 Data base: 137 chatrooms and 766
usernames
 Results: between 56% and 72% of the time
chat members showed great hostility and
expelled researchers
 Conclusion: Internet users do expect –
perhaps against all logic – privacy
L2 examples
Public space
research
Archival
research
Chats:
Jepson (2005)
himself
Tudini (2003)
her students
??
Human
research
Creative arts
research
Email:
Web creation:
BiesenbachLucas (2005)
Hull & Nelson
(2005)
Chen (2006)
Strategy 3: Consider...
Purposes for
your research
Vulnerability
of population
CMC for
L2 learning
Protection
from harm?
Credit for
cultural
creation?
L2 CMC
Euphoric discourse
Idyllic images
Unquestioned assumptions
It’s about technology-mediated...
...human interaction
Thank You
lortega@hawaii.edu
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