EDU 3212 Computer Applications in TESL

Presentation 1: Metaphors about the Computer and CALL

Definitions
Computer Assisted Language Learning CALL CAI, CMI, CALT, CAT, CBT What is the computer and what is its role in language learning and teaching? What is the closest object you can associate it with?

Metaphors
Metaphors help us to interpret, talk about and understand human experience more fully without which we would be a thoroughly literal, and consequently fairly dull minded species (Meskill, 2005, p. 26). In using metaphors, we select certain properties of one object or idea to use in comparatively expressing the characteristics of another object or idea (Schefller, 1991).

Common Metaphors
A heart of stone Strong as an ox Kata kata pedas/Stinging words Pagar makan padi/Wolf in sheeps clothing

Metaphors
Shared cultural and sociolinguistic knowledge guides the selection and non selection of comparative features. His brain is well wired He is like a snake Through metaphor, our understanding is our bodily, cultural, linguistic, historical situatedness in and toward our world (Johnson, 1987, p. 128).

Computer Metaphors in Teaching and Learning

Meskill (2005)

Metaphor 1-Conduit
One of the oldest, most pervasive and influential A body of knowledge passing to the waiting brains of the learner delivery, transmission, imparting Once transferred assess how well it has been received by testing its presence there.

Metaphor 2- Berry Bush

Open access rather than pre programmed Learner-controlled computer assisted activities Learners control paths through the content

Metaphor 3- Magister
Director and controller of instruction Authority to evaluate, praise and censure Will impose the order of events and structure on the learners Drill and practice; keep records and assign them accordingly

Metaphor 4- Pedagogue
the slave who escorts the children to school original meaning (Higgins, 1988: 14) Sole function is to respond to and serve the learner Answers questions, recites poems when asked, plays a game all that is demanded of him

Metaphor 5-Worlds metaphor

A conceptual space where content, teaching and learning are transacted Simulated educative experiences during which students figuratively enter a space in which they can control certain features of the space to effect change Experiential learning Computers as a thinking tool an object to think with

Seymour Papert Mindstorms (1988)

Microworlds Logo children move a turtle around in the screen in order to learn geometry In language A Lrencontre de Phillipe

Metaphor 6-Tool
Like machines, used to assemble, construct, attach, detach and fashion etc. products Jonassen (2000) Mindtools (Learning occurs when learners interact and think in meaningful ways) Orchestrate highly involved, meaningful learning Access to target cultures, authentic tasks and contexts, stimulation of active collaboration with others in the TL

Metaphor 7-Community and Meeting place

Support for telecommunicating with others Possibilities of direct human interaction Greater control over the presentation of self Special characteristics of online communities and communication (CMC) and relevance to languages

Metaphors
Can push us to see what was once invisible, to conceptualise the unconsidered Make associations between the unfamiliar and what we know well However, metaphors OK for local sense making but if too globally applied, they can be flawed as they may oversimplify a complex phenomenon.

End of Presentation 1 Thank you

Major Reference: Meskill, C. (2005). Metaphors that shape and guide CALL research. In Egbert, J. & Mikel Petrie, G. CALL Research Perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum: New Jersey. pp. 25-40

The blind man and his walking stick