Article Reviews
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Article Review 5
Bateman, Blair. E. “Promoting Openness toward Culture Learning: Ethnographic
Interviews for Students of Spanish.” The Modern Language Journal (Aut.2000):
86(3), 318-331.
In Blair Bateman’s article “ Promoting Openness toward Culture Learning: Ethnographic for students of Spanish”, he describes that merely studying a foreign language does not automatically produce cross-culture understanding. Bateman believes that learners need to not only focus on learning a second language, but they also need to acquire the culture as well. In his opinion, the learners need to have face-to-face contact with someone from the native language that they are studying. Bateman insists that this will increase their knowledge of the culture and perhaps increase awareness about their own culture. In this particular article, Bateman suggests that “Ethnographic Interviewing”, a type of communication to seek understanding of how people within a given culture categorize and prioritize their experiences, will increase cross-culture understanding.
Bateman decided to conduct a study at the University of Minnesota’s Twin cities campus to determine if in fact ethnographic interviews do promote cross-culture understanding. The study was composed of 35 undergraduate students enrolled in a second-year Spanish course. The students where given a pre and post questionnaire. Both questionnaires were designed to measure the students’ attitudes toward Spanish and Spanish speakers. The main task of the project was for students to find a native Spanish speaker that was willing to be interviewed twice during a ten-week period. The students were to speak Spanish during the interview, but they could also speak in English if they were having trouble communicating their ideas in the second language. The results of this study did indicate an increase of cross-culture understanding as Bateman had suspected.
During the interview process, the students were able to increase their knowledge about Spanish-speaking people and their culture. The response to one of the questions on the post-questionnaire: what did you learn about Spanish –speaking people and their culture? indicated that the students became more familiarized with some of the important aspects of the Hispanic culture. Some of the topics that the students mentioned were: many Hispanic cultures have similar values and beliefs, Hispanic people tend to be more family- oriented than Americans, gender roles in Hispanic countries differ from those in the United States, and Hispanics like Americans are all different.
In my opinion, I feel that the results of this particular question were very general and not specific, since the responses to the question were provided, but with no explanation why Hispanics are considered more family-oriented, how the gender roles differ from the ones in the United States, and what the values and beliefs are. However, I believe that the interview did increase the students’ level of the Hispanic culture, since I have no doubt that during the interview process the native speakers went into more depth on the subjects that the students just briefly mentioned in their responses to the questionnaire. I would strongly recommend to my students, if they had the opportunity, to speak face-to-face with a native speaker, because through this exchange, students can practice the target language and acquire a different perspective of the customs, beliefs and attitudes of Hispanics in their community. I do agree that teachers can invite native speakers to their classes, since it provides a useful alternative for those students who might not have any possibility of having any direct contact with a member of the Hispanic community.
In addition, during the interview process, the students gained knowledge about their own culture. In response to the question “What did you learn about American culture from listening to other students’ presentations?” there were several themes mentioned, such as: The United States is a country of freedom and opportunity, the U.S. and Hispanic cultures are very different, as Americans we lack knowledge about other cultures, and our views are biased by affluence and materialism. One student wrote in her paper, “The project gave me an outsider’s perspective about a culture I’ve always lived in and taken for granted.” I believe the students not only learned the skills necessary to conduct an interview, but they also learned that they can look beyond the stereotypes and misconceptions that our society has about the Hispanic community within the United States.
I would conclude and strongly agree that ethnographic interviews are an effective tool for increasing cross-culture awareness toward the target language community. The interview allows the students to be able to use their knowledge of the language to increase their awareness not only of the culture of the target language, but also their own. Also, through the interview the students are able to experience and compare the similarities and differences of beliefs and attitudes among members of the Hispanic community and that of the students’.
Al-Jarf, Reima. “The Effects of Web-Based Learning on Struggling EFL College
Writers.” Foreign Language Annuals 37 (2004: 48-57)
The use of technology in foreign language classes has been increasing throughout the years. Several instructors and professors believe that implementing the use of technology in their classrooms will increase the performance of the four basic skills in the study of a language: Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. Reima Al-Jarf includes herself among the educators that use technology in order to increase the students’ performance of a foreign language. She strongly believes that the combination of using the traditional writing methods in class, together with a web-based method will improve students’ writing skills in developing longer essays, creating longer sentences, and facilitating the use of compound and complex structures with high degree of correctness.
In order to effectively support her hypothesis, Al-Jarf conducted a study involving a control and experimental group in her writing1 class for English as a foreign language students studying at the Colleges of Languages and Translation, located in Saudi Arabia. Al-Jarf used the textbook, Interaction One, a writing process book, with both the control and experimental groups; however; she included a blackboard web-based course for the experimental group. Al-Jarf posted several questions and ideas on the black board in order for her students to respond to her questions, and also encourage her students to create their own questions. She also required the students to include their stories and poems, which they had written for the class. The results of the study produced significant results that contradicted professors such as Cifuentes and Hughey, who have found that there is no significant differences in writing quality towards L2 writing in schools, among the colleges that use technology resources, and those which do not.
As a result of implementing a web-based approach in class, Al-Jarf’s students were able to improve their overall writing skills. According to the results of a post test given at the end of the 12 week course, the students in the experimental group scored higher (85%) than the control group (77%). On the other hand, the scores on the pretest indicated that the experimental group had several spelling mistakes per-line, did not use punctuation marks at all, could not capitalize words, and had difficulties expressing their opinions and general ideas, unlike the students in the control group that could construct sentences and express their ideas more effectively.
In addition to the stated above, the students from the experimental group were also exposed to the viewing and reading of several types of authentic material (eg. newspaper articles, ads, entertainment articles, etc), which became an important tool in increasing their written performance of the language. Also, the experimental group had the opportunity to see how the written language was being used while choosing topics of interest from sites such as Yahoo Movies, Yahoo Health, WebMD, and Encarta.
As a foreign language teacher, I believe that a Web-Based course could have a positive effect toward the writing process, by making writing more enjoyable and by providing the students with the opportunity to exchange ideas beyond the classroom environment. I strongly believe that the experimental group greatly improved their writing skills, because they were able to help each other correct their mistakes and answer specific questions they had about various issues discussed in class through the use of the blackboard. The experimental group had the advantage of seeing how the other students’ stories and poems were constructed, which also helped them have a better control of the language when completing their own writing assignments. In addition, the experimental group had the advantage of having quick access to authentic texts that were of interest to them, making their writing process more real
Suh, Jae-Suk “Effectiveness of CALL Writing Instruction: The Voices OF Korean
RFL Learners.” Foreign Language Annuals (2002): 35(6), 669-678.
Jae-Suk Suh a professor at Keimyung University in Korea was very interested in investigating the reactions of students who participated in a CALL program rather than focusing on the output of their writing. The teacher investigated Korean students studying English as a Foreign Language to computer-mediated writing instruction. The students participated in a CALL program that could help them learn about the writing process. The students had to select a writing topic, use the Internet to obtain relevant information, write drafts, evaluate their peers’ drafts via e-mail, revise their works, etc. The students also had to write everything down in a journal such as their positive and negative thoughts and feeling about using the Internet and e-mail during their writing process.
The results of the study indicated that most of the students in the class had had a very positive experience about learning and putting into use the writing process in the L2. Some students had commented on how CALL is an effective tool for learning writing. One student specifically said, “My partner and I became interested in using the computer and navigating to gain information at our pleasure. In my opinion, this is because most sites we visited are nicely designed, look good, and other information in audio-visually convenient ways”. I strongly agree that using the Internet is a very good source for learners to increase their motivation about writing and reading in the L2. The students are able to go to different web sites and choose articles of interest. They are not only exposed to authentic writing materials, but the students also have the opportunity to learn more about their own culture by learning about the culture of English-speaking people through the Internet.
Another advantage the students mentioned about the instruction was that the Internet helped them learn English. One student said. “To me, one great advantage of using the Internet is that it helps my composition a great deal. When writing my drafts in the class, I experienced considerable difficulty finding appropriate structures and vocabulary. When this happens, it strikes me sometimes that a few English sites I visited before included texts using similar structures and vocabulary, which I want to use.” I can relate to this particular student when having to write in Spanish. I find that when using the Internet I am able to see how I can use a certain grammatical structure the correct way and apply what I have learned when writing an essay for school.
As a foreign language teacher, I would definitely use the Internet and e-mail as a means to increase students’ motivation about writing in the L2. I believe that students will have better output when they are able to choose their own topics of interest. Even though the Internet can be a very useful tool that aids in the L2 writing process, I believe that the students will need guidance in being able to sort through all the sites and pick web sites that are going to have a positive effect on their writing process because students might feel overwhelmed with all the material that they are able to view.