CHAPTER 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1.1 Thai and English L2 Learners’ Backgrounds – a Comparative
Analysis
In order to assess background information, chosen
experiences and emic perspectives of both English language learners (ELL) and
Thai language learners (TLL), I utilized parallel online surveys.
For both surveys, while many questions were mandatory,
many others (most often, those in which responses were dependent upon the
manner in which a previous question had been answered) were not. An example of this latter category would be
question 9. What do you like to
write about (or post pictures or videos of) in your blog? Because not all
respondents keep blogs, they might a. not be directed to this question, or b.
not be required to answer it.
There were 41 respondents to the first survey, that of
English language learners. In contrast,
there were only 14 respondents to the second survey, that of Thai language
learners. It is important to note that
while I have used the term language ‘learners,’ many of the respondents do not
necessarily, or always, identify themselves as learners. As was discovered during the course of the
research, this is particularly true of the former group, some of whom have been
using English over ten years, and many in professional contexts.
Following is a comparative analysis of learners’
backgrounds, contrasting the first (ELL) and second (TLL) groups with regard to
age, language of origin, years of L2 study, weekly Internet use, L2 Internet
use, simultaneous use of multiple media, and variety of media used
simultaneously.
Age
The age of respondents was broken down into five groups. For ELLs, the majority (51.22%) characterize
themselves as being in the 26-35 year age range. TLLs fell into only three age ranges, with
the average age range shifting higher and the largest group consisting of 36-50
year olds. The following pie charts
illustrate the age ranges of users by age group.
ELL TLL
Figure 1. Age of English and Thai language learners
Language of Origin
The native languages of ELL respondents were as
follows: Indonesian (23), Balinese (2),
Javanese (1), Thai (6), Persian/Farsi (3), Korean (1), Kachin (1). It should be noted that while 2 respondents
noted their L1 as ‘Balinese,’ and 1 noted as ‘Javanese,’ these people are
almost certainly fluent speakers of Indonesian, as this is the national
language of Indonesia, used in the media and education system. Furthermore, many of those who noted their
native language as ‘Indonesian’ may have first learned to speak Balinese or Javanese,
while being fluent Indonesian speakers. All
respondents were native speakers of Asian languages.
For TLL respondents, the largest number (ten) were native
English speakers, with one native speaker of each of the following
languages: French, Hmong, Cambodian
(Khmer), and Japanese.
Years of L2 Study
For ELLs, the number of years of language learning fell
into four categories, with the vast majority (60%) of respondents having
studied English for over 10 years. The
second largest group (17.5%) report having learned English for 6 – 9 years. For TLLs, the vast majority (88.89%) report
learning Thai for 3 – 5 years, with only 11.11% reporting learning for 10 or
more years. The results are represented
by the following pie charts.
ELL TLL
Figure 2. Length of L2 study: English and Thai language learners
Weekly Internet Use
For the ELL group, Internet use was broken down into six
groups, depending on number of hours’ use per week. The largest proportion of users (30%),
utilized the Internet two to five hours per week, while the second largest
group (22.5%) used the Internet over 20 hours per week. For TLLs, Internet use fell into five groups,
with a similar percentage (21.43%) reporting using the Internet more than 20
hours per week. On average, weekly
Internet use in hours shifted higher for the TLL group, with none reporting
less than two hours of weekly use. The
following graphics illustrate the breakdown.
ELL TLL
Figure 3. Weekly Internet use: English and Thai language learners
L2 Internet Use
For ELLs, with regard to L2 Internet usage, 50% of
respondents reported they “frequently use the Internet in English,” while an
additional 32.5% reported they “use the Internet in English only.” Only a very small percentage (2.5%) reported
that they “rarely use the Internet in English,” while none reported never using
the Internet in English. For TLLs, a
significantly larger group (38.46%) reported never using the Internet in
Thai. Overall, the percentage of TLLs
using the Internet in their L2 shifted significantly lower, with none reporting
using the Internet only or frequently in Thai.
The breakdown of respondents is illustrated by the following pie charts.
ELL TLL
Figure 4. Internet L2 use: English and Thai language learners
Variety of Media
Overall, a larger percentage (70%) of TLLs reported using
multiple Internet modalities at the same time, while 53.57% of ELLs reported
doing so. There was very little
difference reported regarding the variety of modalities used simultaneously,
comparing between the two groups, ELLs and TLLs.
ELL TLL
Figure 5. Variety of media: English and Thai language learners
4.1.2 Thai and English L2 Learners’ Experiences and Perspectives–
a Comparative Analysis
While
background information on English language and Thai language learners was
obtained through online surveys, their chosen experiences and emic perspectives
on those experiences were assessed initially through the same surveys, and in
greater depth by means of interviews with selected candidates.
Interviews
were conducted through CMC (text based chat) with three ELLs, and by means of
Skype (audio-video) with three TLLs. The
candidates for interview were selected based on a number of criteria. First of all, only candidates who completed
the entire survey were selected.
Additional criteria included the amount of time spent online weekly, the
amount of online time spent using L2 and the number of years of L2 learning,
with priority given to candidates indicating greater amounts of all of the
above. Preference also was given to those
candidates who provided greater and more expressive detail in answers to
open-ended questions, and those who used a greater variety of online
media. ELL interviewees consisted of two
Indonesian nationals, and one Thai national, while TLL interviewees consisted
of two American nationals, and one Cambodian national. ELL interviewees have been named EC, EK, and
ER, and TLL interviewees as TK, TM and TR.
In
survey question 7, (illustrated in the tables available in Appendix B) respondents
were asked “How much fun is it for
you to do the following Internet activities in [target language]?” This question was followed by a list of 14
activities and ‘other,’ and a seven point Likert scale, with 1 equal to ‘very
fun,’ and 7 equal to ‘not fun at all.’ A
final possible answer, ‘I never do this at all,’ is not scored.
In the following section, I compare responses of ELLs and
TLLs concerning their chosen experiences and emic responses to those
experiences, using data both from online surveys and interviews, noting
instances of contrast, and also similarities which occurred.
Chatting
Concerning
chatting with friends through CMC, overall, TLLs considered this experience to
be more fun than ELLs, giving scores of 2.38 and 2.88 respectively. However, a larger proportion (3/11) of TLL
respondents reported not engaging in this activity, compared with only 2/34
ELLs. Likewise, TLLs scored the next
activity, chatting with strangers as being more fun than for ELLs, with scores
of 2.25 and 4.20 respectively.
Significantly, a high percentage of both groups (7/11 for TLLs and 14/34
for ELLs) reported never engaging in this activity. While chatting with friends is an activity
which most learners engaged in and found enjoyable, ELLs found chatting with
strangers to be considerably less enjoyable, and fewer ELLs did this. Interestingly, while most TLLs also did not
chat with strangers, those that did reported it as being fun, even more fun
than chatting with friends.
Interviews with English language
learners provide further insights.
Interviewee EC commented: “I use
Google translate and use my YM [Yahoo messenger] to chat with people around the
globe.” Concerning chatting in chatrooms
with strangers, he remarked: “Its quite
exciting experience …I can chat with people and share some experience,
knowledge, habits in other countries” These comments fall in line very much
with McGonigal’s notion of games serving to foster meaning and social
connection. EC continues: “from that person I aware that I'm not only
the person who made those mistakes in communicating in English and it gain my
confidence” This kind of sharing also
touches on some of McGonigal’s other notions – those of ‘fun failure,’ ‘happy
embarrassment,’ and ‘vicarious pride.’
Interviewee EK stated that she did
not like to chat with strangers; “however I do chat quite a lot with strangers
who became my friends in twitter.” This
again points to the kind of social connection remarked upon by McGonigal. Concerning (others’) mistakes, EK commented “I
do notice them sometimes, but I don't often act on it.” Interviewee ER, a Thai national who regularly
chats with his Thai (university) friends in English mirrored this carefree,
communication-focused approach to chatting, saying: “we dont take it serious when chatting
…sometimes broken Eng is acceptable LOL”
This attitude shows evidence of Ellis’s second principle, that of
focusing primarily on meaning.
Thai language learners also
highlighted the enjoyment they get from the social aspect of chatting, as well
as the language learning benefits. TK
remarked that he likes to “chat with Thais on various chatting places, social
networks, sometimes on cam too. Talk and type. It's A LOT of fun as I get to
practice my Thai skills and then get to know someone, which is fun.” The enthusiasm with which this interviewee
expressed himself here, and stress on fun, indicates to me, as an interviewer,
the kind of ‘flow experience’ described by Csíkszentmihályi
as indicative of play. In discussing the advantages over face to face conversation,
TK remarks: “when chatting, I can type as well, and then get reactions to that,
or an explanation from the person, live right there. Obviously there's no
typing or writing when you are face to face.”
Such an advantage allows for a number of ‘rules’ as indicated by
Ellis: a greater chance to focus on
form, further opportunity to focus on meaning, and obviously, both extensive L2
input and opportunity to interact in the L2.
TK even goes so far as to say “the number one best learning technique is
through chat.”
TM
offers a similar comment: “It’s
also easier to grab on to phrases, because you’re not just hearing sounds, you
actually see the symbols there and you can take notes and reference them later.” He also remarks that “you can always chat any
time, you don’t have to respond right away.”
This observation too falls into line with one of the ‘5 freedoms of
play’ (Klopfer, Osterwell & Salen, 2009), that being freedom of effort. TM also makes an interesting observation regarding
chat as a form of scaffolding tool: “I
think chatting is actually a really good way for people to kind of step up to
the next level … for those who aren’t
really ready. This way they can kinda
chat, and, they can take their time, use a dictionary, things like that.” This comment mirror’s Gee’s ‘good learning
principle’ number four, that of providing well-ordered problems or
scaffolding. It also displays evidence
of his principle number three – customization, in which gamers decide how they
play, and number ten – system thinking. Furthermore
it shows a relation to McGonigal’s game-based concept of ‘leveling up,’ in that
learners can use chat as a means of ‘leveling up’ to face-to-face
conversation.
TR makes a comment quite similar to
one of the ELL interviewees: “you
worry less about mistakes if you chat than when speaking in person …I don't
care a lot and my friends either, we care only the words we don't understand.” Here, once again, is clear evidence of
chatting as embodying Ellis’s learning principle number two, “focus
predominantly on meaning.” It would
appear from these comments that for learners, chat is primarily concerned with
communication, with meaning, and with relationship building, and that language
learning, and focus on form, while they do occur, are a side product rather
than the primary focus.
Reading
Reading
(articles, reviews, blogs, etc.) was reported to be a fun activity by both
groups, with a score of 2.12 for ELLs, and 2.25 for TLLs. No ELLs reported not doing this activity,
while 3/11 TLLs reported not engaging in reading online. Reading short items
written by friends such as social media posts was considered less fun by both
groups, with ELLs giving a score of 2.76, and TLLs a score of 2.64. All but one ELL reported doing this activity,
while all TLLs reported doing so.
Overall, reading in some form is an activity all learners engaged in and
found relatively enjoyable or fun.
However,
interviewees had little to say about reading.
While almost all survey respondents judged reading as relatively fun, and
interviewees reported reading and gaining something from it, most did not
spontaneously enthuse regarding a particular enjoyment of reading. EC remarks: “I got many new things from reading, new
vocab, new grammar, new social awareness of the impact of using certain word(s)
in a society.” TM reports that he “read
a lot of news articles in Thai.” Of course, with regard to language learning,
reading equates with Ellis’s sixth learning principle, extensive L2 input.
Writing
Overall,
writing scored as being less fun than either chatting or reading by both groups,
with scores in the 3s rather than 2s.
ELLs gave a score of 3.65 for writing social media posts, and a score of
3.36 for writing blogs, while TLLs gave scores of 3.25 and 3.0 for those activities
respectively. While only 12/34 ELLs reported
not keeping a blog (meaning presumably, that the remainder had done so at some
point), 10/11 TLLs reported not having ever written a blog in Thai.
Only
those learners who had indicated having written a blog were directed to
question 9, ‘What do you like to write about (or
post pictures or videos of) in your blog?’ This question garnered the
following responses from each group: For
ELLS, the most frequently mentioned topic (5 mentions) was personal interest,
followed by personal experience, related to posted photos, and teacher’s
request (2 mentions each). Also
mentioned were films, class, and social issues (1 mention each). For TLLs, personal interest (2 mentions) was
also the topic learners most frequently wrote about, with personal experiences
and opinions also mentioned once each.
Most
interviewees showed little enthusiasm for writing online (although all
mentioned understanding its potential value).
ER reported that he wrote a blog when in school, but has since forgotten
the url – a sign of the (lack of) value he places on the product of this
activity. When asked “what did you feel
about making the blog, and about the result?” he replied “its boring LOL.” None of the Thai learner interviewees
reported spending any time writing online.
EK
was the anomaly among interviewees, showing not only a positive attitude, but a
passion for writing. When asked “when
you chat or write stories in English, does it feel more like work / study to
you, or like play?” she replied “Playing, obviously.” When asked why, she says “I
think it's because when I use or write in English, most of the time it just
flows naturally.” EK engages in an activity intrinsic to fan
fiction – joint writing. First calling
it a kind of ‘role-playing game,’ she explains the process as follows: “in this roleplaying game one plays a
character, either from a movie, novel, whomever you like ...There are a lot of
online forums for it …It's more like writing a joint fiction …For example I
write for character A and I write one or two paragraphs … Then the other person
who's playing character B and he/she writes the next. It goes on.
” In response to being asked how
she learns from this, EK answers: “Well
in this kind of role-playing, some of the players write /beautifully/ …It's
almost like reading a novel, haha …I do learn a lot of vocabularies from
it.” When asked what is indicated by
using forward slash (/) around a word, she states that it adds emphasis, as
capital letters might be seen as rude or angry.
This indicates EK’s familiarity with a kind of codified subtlety of
usage particular to CMC, be it chat or joint fiction writing. As with chat, EK’s practice of joint fiction
writing encapsulates many of Ellis’s principles of language learning, notably
extensive L2 input, opportunity for output, and opportunity to interact in the
L2. It also appears to embody two of the
mechanisms for positive emotion detailed by McGonigal, namely continuous
feedback, and clear goals and actionable next steps.
Directed
Activities
For
both ELLs and TLLs, using websites with directed activities for the acquisition
of grammar or vocabulary were rated as more fun than translation sites such as Google
translate or bing. (However, it should be kept in mind that such translation
sites serve primarily as an adjunct, rather than an activity in and of
themselves). ELLs gave scores of 2.88 and 2.94 respectively, while TLLs gave
respective scores of 3.11 and 3.33.
Significantly, almost all users from both groups noted using such sites.
In
interviews, while ELLs did not provide any further focus on websites with
directed activities, TLLs did. Both TK
and TM mention the usefulness of such sites in their learning. TK, when asked what he would like to see in
an ideal Thai language learning site answers:
“it would be a combination between
thai-language.com and its4thai I think. Lots of translations and words, and
then a lot of learning games.” These
sites will be discussed further in the following section 4.3
Virtual
Environments and Games
ELLs gave a score of 3.85 concerning using
virtual environments, with 14 respondents noting that they “never do
this.” TLLs gave a score of 3.00, with
only one respondent, while 10 respondents (out of 11) noted never using virtual
reality sites. ELLs scored playing games
in English at 2.84, with nine respondents noting that they “never do
this.” For TLLs, again, only one
respondent claimed engaging in this activity, giving a score of 4.00, and ten
respondents stating they “never do this.” While
virtual environments and games in English were somewhat popular among ELLs, for
the most part, TLLs did not make use of such media in Thai. This may be due to the prevalence of games
and virtual environments in English, or to other factors such as the average higher
age for TLLs.
Somewhat
surprisingly, none of the interviewees were particularly keen on games,
especially of the MMORP variety. When
asked “Why no games?” EK replied “I'm just not good at it ...But of course it
depends on what kind of game you are talking about ...I like puzzle
games.” This answer indicates a typical
understanding of ‘games’ as meaning the first person shooter or MMORP variety,
as well as the effect of personality on one’s choice of game type. ER mentions “I play Scrabbles online. That’s
in Eng.” And TK states: “I'm not big into the Facebook games, poker,
things like this. I do those on my
iPhone … none in Thai, though I think that would be fun.” It is interesting to note the technology /
activity divide here – clearly this is an area for further research.
Video
Watching
videos on Youtube was noted as the singularly most fun activity for both
groups. ELLs scored this activity at 1.85,
with all respondents reporting engaging in watching videos. TLLs, with only one respondent noting they
“never do this,” gave a score of 2.20. As for making and uploading videos, this
was a less popular, and less fun activity.
For ELLs a score of 3.13 was given, with 18 respondents stating they
“never do this,” while for TLLs, a score of 2.33 was given, with eight
respondents stating they “never do this.”
Among
ELL interviewees, EK was the most enthusiastic about watching, particularly the
type of pop culture media that attract a fan base. In explaining her writing ability, she says
“I think it's because I watch a lot (too much?) of TV series in English.” She
further describes the specific value of watching in saying “Oh and talking
about shows which teaches me a lot of vocabularies, there's QI.” Clearly, EK has a passion for certain
programs. When I mention that I don't
know ‘Dr. Who,’ she states “It's a BBC series.
It has taken over my life.” This
comment, along with further comments detailed below, seems to indicate the type
of experience described by Csíkszentmihályi as typical of ‘flow.’ TK discusses his enthusiasm for watching
videos / programs in Thai, saying “I love watching music videos first, and then
I love Thailand travel shows. Also I love to watch Americans speaking fluent Thai,
so I will watch someone either teaching Thai or if they are being interviewed
in Thailand. I love that.” TR states “I watch movies, listen music, read some
short words with pictures, and search some useful website to improve my Thai
like self teaching, language guiding... etc.”
TM mentions that he enjoys watching “music, videos or Thai commercials. It’s
kind of fun, they’re so interesting or crazy …it’s kind of fun to go back and
try to figure out what they’re saying.”
TK notes preferring subtitles in English with films, and in Thai with
music video, and TM also states: “The
lyrics underneath in Thai, that helps a lot.”
Like the use of translation sites, this feature, subtitles, can act as a
kind of scaffolding for learners, also representing one of Gee’s principles,
that of “just-in-time (JIT) and on-demand information.”
It
would seem that the choice of online media one consumes is very much entwined
with one’s identity and that when learners are choosing specific L2 media they
are very much making a statement about who they are and what they enjoy. In this regard, this activity clearly matches
Gee’s first ‘good learning principle,’ that of identity – “provide gamers an
identity in which to invest,” as well as his seventh, “situated meaning –
contextualization,” as video can serve to contextualize language in a way other
Internet-mediated activities cannot. It
also indicates a clear instance of agency and exploration. Finally, it encapsulates many of Ellis’s
language learning principles, notably, number five, “meeting a learner’s
built-in syllabus,” number six, extensive L2 input, and number ten, focusing on
free production.
Other
Activities
Other activities
were found to be less fun for respondents.
ELLs scored shopping online in English at 3.83, answering survey
questions at 4.35, and other 3.97. TLLs
scored shopping at 4.43, answering survey question at 6.20, and other 3.60.
Survey
question 8 asked respondents ‘What are other activities do you do in English on
the Internet?’ This was a non-mandatory
question and garnered 14 responses.
Respondents answered: Both ELLs
(4) and TLLs (2) mentioned looking for specific information. However, while ELLs typically looked for
information related to assignments, travel, or work (medical knowledge, one
mention), TLLs looked for information related to their immediate (Thai)
surroundings – for apartments, second hand motorbikes, and eating and shopping
venues. Both ELLs (4 mentions) and TLLs
(2 mentions) noted reading as well.
Aside from these two activities, there was some divergence with regard
to “other” activities learners did in their L2 online. ELLs mentioned looking for new friends (1),
work-related activity, such as email correspondence (3), and Skype (1). Interesting additional outliers included: “Write
joint stories with strangers via blogs,” (as discussed above) and “Exploring
web 2.0 tools for education ie: digital story telling tools, video tools,
making online poster/glogster, puzzle makers etc.” TLLs noted watching music videos and looking
for lyrics (3), and using sites for the directed study of Thai (2).
Question
10, ‘How strongly do you agree with the following
statements?’ is similar to question 7 in its use of a Likert scale. The table featured in Appendix B
illustrates statements and responses. Overall,
we can see a similar pattern in responses of ELLs and TLLs, but with ELLs generally
showing a higher level of agreement. (Again,
note, a lower score indicates a higher level of agreement). The statements in this table can be broken
down into the following categories:
feelings of improvement / noticing (items 1, 10, 11, and 14), positive
feelings (3, 5, 6 and 12), negative feelings (4 and 15), online vs. offline
(13), and chatting (7, 8 and 9).
Feelings
of Improvement / Noticing
ELLs typically agreed more with the
statements than did TLLs. Likewise, ELLs’
pattern in responding was shadowed by TLLs. ELLs agreed that the Internet “helps
me improve” in their target language at 1.82, while TLLs scored this item
2.11. Concerning “noticing” new vocabulary,
ELLs rated 1.58, and TLLs 2.20.
Concerning noticing one’s own mistakes, ELLs scored this at 2.19, and
TLLs at 3.11; and noticing grammar at 2.20 for ELLs and 2.63 for TLLs.
Figure 6. Feelings of Improvement and Noticing: English and Thai language learners
In
interviews, both groups provided some elaboration. When asked “do you ever notice new grammar
when you use internet in English?” ER answered “yes always LOL.” TK responded to the same question
saying: “I definitely notice the way in
which someone answers, the sentence structure. I'm really interested in this,
as I would like to start speaking and writing like this myself.” So, for these two learners, extensive L2
input (Ellis’s principle 6), did lead to a focus on form (Ellis’s principle
3). With regard to the effective
transfer of skills from the online realm to face-to-face interaction, ER
remarks: “for speaking yes but for
listening might be less.” Of the four
skills, in general, learners felt they received the least practice in listening
through Internet-mediated activity. This
is quite interesting, as, actually, speaking is the skill (I found to be) least
exercised in online activity. However,
it may be the case that such a statement indicates that learners regard their
chat activity more as speaking than as writing.
Positive
Feelings
The
same parallel patterns emerge in statements regarding positive feelings, with
the exception that ELLs (at 2.35) agree more that they “worry less about making
mistakes in [L2] when on the Internet than when talking with someone in
person”, than TLLs, at 2.82. ELLs scored
the statement “I have fun using the Internet in [L2]” at 1.52 while TLLs scored
this at 2.33. ELLs (at 2.35), agree
slightly more with the statement regarding feeling that they are learning
without studying, than TLLs (at 2.38). ELLs scored the statement “the Internet
is a great medium for learning [L2]” at 1.70, and TLLs at 2.30. So, overall, it would seem that TLLs were
slightly less enthusiastic about their Internet-mediated L2 activity than were
ELLs.
Figure 7. Positive Feelings: English and Thai language learners
Interviews
revealed other positive feelings regarding Internet-mediated L2 activity. First of all, what might go unnoticed is the
choice of verbs used with regard to Internet activity in various languages. While in English we “surf,” “navigate” or
“use” the Internet, in both Thai (เล่น)
and Indonesian (main), one “plays” the Internet. This comes through in ER’s
English usage in his comment: “haha yes
sometimes before I played internet almost all day …i stayed up late like 4 am.” When asked for details about what he was
doing he replies, “I played games with friends and chatted.” Furthermore, this comment illustrates a fluid
use of various media experiences, indicating some of the various freedoms of
play – freedom to experiment, to fashion, and freedom of effort, as well as,
obviously, both agency and a flow experience that often kept him up
almost all night.
When
asked “what things online in English make you happy?” ER replied “good English
conversation with friends … when I have problems, friends always tell me good
things.” This comment shows evidence of
McGonigal’s notion of fostering meaning and social connection. ER remarks:
“friends at home LOL haha so proud of myself LOL.” He goes on to clarify: “cuz they know nothing and its me who put new
things for them. I proud of myself LOL.” Again, this comment falls in line perfectly
with two of McGonigal’s ‘mechanisms for positive emotion’: a ‘fiero’ experience, or emotional rush from
accomplishment, and ‘vicarious pride,’ or the kind of pride one can take in
others’ accomplishments.
EK,
in her response to the question, “Do you ever lose track of time when you are
doing stuff online in English?” also indicates frequently experiencing a flow
state. She replies “More often than I
like to admit.”
Negative
Feelings
Overall, ELLs agreed
more that they “feel like I am studying” when using their target language
online (2.12) than did TLLs (2.44). TR,
when asked during his interview “when you do the things you mention above, do
you feel like you are working, studying, or playing?” replied, without
hesitation “studying.” However, TLLs agreed
that using one’s L2 online can be “difficult and frustrating” (2.70), more than
did ELLs (4.74). Interviewees
elaborated: TR commented “if I open Thai
websites, it just appear Thai and no English , it is useless for me.” Similarly, TK reported “seeing a page
designed for Thai native speakers can be overwhelming.”
Perhaps because
most Thai language learners surveyed live in Thailand, they agreed less (3.78)
with the statement “I learn more [L2] online than I do offline” than did ELLs
(2.73).
Chatting
with Native and Non-native Speakers
Both
ELLs and TLLs enjoy chatting with native speakers (2.07/2.00), and somewhat
less with non-native speakers (2.52/2.50). Again, TLL responses seemed to shadow those of
ELLs, although TLLs agreed that they were “learning when chatting” (1.86) more
than ELLs (2.31) did.
Figure 8. Chatting - details: English and Thai language learners
Difficulties
In
question 11, respondents were asked for more detail concerning any difficulties
they experienced in online L2 usage. Overall,
TLLs noted comparatively greater feelings of difficulty or frustration in using
their L2 online than did ELLs, both in the numerical score given and in their
comments. While ELLs comments were very
limited, making only two comments (concerning lack of certainty in using
grammar and vocabulary), TLLs made eight comments, many quite lengthy. Three comments concerned difficulties with
Thai slang, names and abbreviations (also mentioned in interviews), two concerning
slow reading speed, and many more concerning frustrations with translation
sites such as google translate.
One
comment regarding reading strategies emerges: “My reading speed is still very slow. I can't
scan a page in Thai like I can in English, I have to read word-by-word. Also,
lack of familiarity with slang and famous names also makes it hard.” Another comment concerned a lack of
motivating content. “Another big problem
is, I'm not very motivated to learn about Thai society or cultural views. I'm
more interested in expressing myself functionally. When I actually dedicate
some time to learning Thai, I am often bored by the authentic Thai material I
find out there because I have very little interest in the topics and such. That
can be frustrating, very frustrating. For example, it’s fun sometimes reading
friends posts on social networking sites like Facebook. Some of it’s too
idiomatic for me to understand, and when I get lazy and use the translate
function, and cobble together what I understand, it seems like the people post
things that are very irrelevant or uninteresting to me. Makes me frustrated and
bored and unwilling to delve further.”
Interviews
yielded negative comments concerning translation sites, particularly Google
translate, from both ELLs and TLLs. EC
remarks “Google translate is the most frustrating thing …I only use Google
translate when I feel like there are no choice.” Likewise, TK comments: “there doesn't seem to be a perfect
translator. Google translator, in my opinion, is the worst one out there, not
intuitive at all.”
Best
Ways to Improve
In
question12, respondents are asked the best ways to improve their L2 ability
online. Because there were far more
respondents among ELLs, there were far more responses than from the smaller
pool of TLLs. However, the same patterns
continued to hold true. While eight ELLs mention any kind of reading, three
TLLs also do so. Other activities
mentioned by both groups include:
chatting with native speakers (ELLs 5, TLLs 3), Youtube / videos (ELLs
4, TLLs 2), using Google (4 and 1), following personal interest (2 and 1),
listening to songs / looking up lyrics (3 and 1), and using / doing exercises
(1 and 2). Some activities mentioned by
ELLs only include: chatting with
friends, strangers or non-native speakers, writing joint fiction, watching
movies and TV shows, and sending emails.
Activities mentioned only by TLLs are using Skype, and finding an online
tutor (“An online student tutor would be an advantage for foreigner learners.”)
Some
comments indicating a fluid use of multiple Internet media come from ELLs. “I frequently watch TV shows like Letterman
late show or Lopez show on YouTube through which I would have access to real
daily life talking. It also helps me to be familiar with American culture.
Google can help me with structures in English that I am not sure about. When I
guess that a sentence should be written in a specific form, I type it on Google
and it most often than not will show me the correct structure used in different
articles or written by native speakers.”
Also: “Because I like music a lot, I always find out the lyrics and try
to pronouce same as the singer when I read them. If I don't know what's the
meaning, I use google translation to help me finding out what it means. It's
not only working for English lyrics but for other languages too.”
One
respondent from the ELL group, obviously a teacher, comments: “reading articles, blogs, etc. is a good way
to widen vocabulary, grammar blogs are good to consolidate understanding or
check the accuracy of the structure, listening to songs with subtitles helps
learners with pronunciation, online dictionaries help learners look up new
words, chats and writing posts help learners improve their production skills.
If a learner combines those, there should be significant progress with their
English. However, they can't take over classroom learning. :)”
From
the TLL group, the importance of personal interest comes up again: “i don't know. but it starts with interest.
and probably finding something thats interesting will make the learning easier.
sometimes music (rarely). I seem to find historical a/v with discussions
sometimes actually makes me interested.”
In
interviews, learners offered similar comments.
EC states: “Reading is the best for me, but learning new vocab and
grammar is also exciting.” And TR
comments: “I use both ways, after I read books, I will go to see movies or
listen music or see some cartoon pictures with words so I relax and enjoy …then when I
read a book, those word may appear to me.” Once again, this clearly mirrors both Gee’s
principle of exploration – “a non-linear attitude to knowledge acquisition,” as
well as Ellis’s principle five, that of a “learner’s built-in syllabus.”
What
Learners Like Most and Least
There
was some divergence between ELLs and TLLs when describing what they like most
and least about using the Internet in their target language. For ELLs, a large number (5) noted that they
prefer to use the Internet in English because there is more information
available in that language than in their own.
TLLs did not make any such comments.
Additionally many ELLs cited liking the ability to connect socially with
people (“I can make friends over all the world.”), while, surprisingly, no TLLs
commented on this aspect of the Internet.
Both groups mention liking doing language exercises or watching music
videos with lyrics online.
Interestingly, only TLLs mentioned watching and reading news stories as
something they liked most.
The
item mentioned most frequently (four times) by ELLs as being what they like
least about using the Internet in English is uncertainty with regard to whether
the spelling and grammar of an online article is correct or not. This was not mentioned as a concern by
TLLs. In contrast, the item mentioned
most frequently by TLLs (three times) as being what they like least is
confronting a language level that is too high and thus confusing. Both groups (one time each) cited the
relative lack of speaking practice achieved in online activity.
With regard to what learners liked and
disliked, some outliers came up in interviews.
EC states “Sometimes I use the
BBC …in getting vocab and grammar, also for cultural awareness.” As he mentioned this more than once, this
aspect of cultural awareness seemed to have a high degree of importance for
him. TK remarks i
find that travel books are just silly.
“I
find that travel books are just silly …things that you would never say, or very
rarely, will be in that situation.” This
comment is indicative (by way of absence) of some of Gee’s principles, notably those
of identity and agency.
Outliers
Additional
themes came up in interviews which neither seemed to fit any of the concepts
explored in the survey nor match any of the particular frameworks with which I
tagged and interpreted survey and interview responses. First is that of instrumental motivation. EC remarked “I only use the Internet when I
really need it to help me doing the homework and sometimes for job purposes.” ER
also stated “yes, just like now we face with the high competition. It’s now competitive world so I have to do
myself better than before English influences almost everything.” Equally unexpected was EK’s enthusiasm for
fandoms. Her advice to learners was “Get
into a fandom! …when in a fandom, esp. the one within the international range,
you get to use English. You /have/ to use English.” And, in summing up his interview, TK
commented “then the last thought on learning online. It takes a lot of time and
a certain kind of passion. It's not easy.
But it is fun.”
4.2 Similarities and Differences between Background of Ethnography
Subject and Other Thai L2 Learners
I have provided extensive background information on
myself as the ethnography subject in Section 3.2.2. Following are additional relevant
background data (not included in Section 3.2.2) as related by pertinent
responses on the Thai language learners’ online survey. (Note:
I was not included as one of the original 14 respondents outlined in the
above sections).
During
the period of research I used the Internet on average over 20 hours per
week. During that same period I
frequently used the Internet in Thai. At
age 46, I match the age range of 42.86% of the TLL group. However, while no TLL survey respondents had
studied Thai for less than three years, I have studied Thai for only one and a
half years.
After
completing this study, I have come upon a further realization. Unlike other members of the TLL group, I have
come to this study with the extensive background of a language learner, having
studied and learned at least five languages.
Additionally, I bring the background of years’ experience as a language
teacher, a TESOL student, and a researcher in this particular field. Thus, the observations I bring to this
particular ethnography, aside from possibly being deeper and broader than those
of the TLL or ELL groups, may also be different from the ideas of those
groups. As David Deutsch (2011: 41) has
stated, “All observation is theory-laden.”
As a result of my position as a researcher, my observations may be more
informed by the theories of fellow teachers and academicians, while those of
others surveyed may be more informed by self-generated theories.
4.3 Ethnography Subject’s Emic Perspective on Internet-mediated
Experiences: Agency, Play and Positive Effect
My personal perspective on the
experiences I encountered during my online Thai language activity, has been, as
stated above, filtered through a wide range of theories. As delineated in Chapter 3, I have made use
of a number of ‘frameworks’ as established by other authors. My selection of these specific frameworks is
of itself not arbitrary, but rather, is most likely founded upon their
relevance to other theories that I have either stumbled across, or developed
personally during my 46 years as a language learner and language teacher. From a wide array of frameworks available,
many of which are delineated in Chapter 1, I chose four distinct frameworks,
developed by: Csíkszentmihályi, combined with that of Klopfer, Osterwell, and
Salen, regarding play and agency; Ellis, regarding language
learning; McGonigal, regarding game mechanisms for achieving positive affect;
and Gee, regarding game mechanisms which promote learning, in order to create a
coding system through which I examined the multiple instruments of my
ethnography. Coded frameworks used in interpreting data are
available in Appendix C. Using these
frameworks, I coded the tools of my ethnography – learning log, blog posts, and
chat transcripts – and bundled observations following themes seen in the first
set of ELL and TLL data.
Use of Multiple Media
Similar to the majority of both groups of language
learners surveyed, I also found myself using a number of Internet mediated
platforms and activities near simultaneously.
As a typical example, I would spend time chatting, and in between
chatting, I would be writing a blog post, or do vocabulary activities on a site
such as its4thai.com. Google translate
would be one of the sites I almost always had open in a browser tab.
Like most other learners, I had both positive and
negative feelings about Google translate.
In the first week of my study, I wrote in my learning log: “for quite some time I have been a fan and
critic of http://translate.google.com/.
This site is really more of a simple program offering far too often too
literal, (as in non-colloquial), and thoroughly confusing translations. But it is a great time saver for cutting and
pasting and getting at approximate meanings.”
This kind of fluid use of combined media, in particular the reliance on
a translation function, reflects many of the principles outlined by Gee, namely
those of co-production and customization, in the sense that I have made
specific decisions on how to customize my online environment and production of
output. Even more obviously, the use of
Google translate fills the role of providing JIT (just in time) and on-demand
information, as outlined by Gee in his sixth principle. During that same week, I wrote: “I like it that I can be called upon to use
my Thai at any time now. I still had to
paste most of the replies into Google translate.” Again, Gee’s principles (those
outlined above) and his tenth, ‘system thinking,’ are evident here. Google translate has become a part of my
‘communication system,’ a fluid extension of my unaided ability.
In the following week I wrote: “I’m refining my means of using Google
though. If I’m not sure how to answer I
use Google translate to translate English to Thai, but then I don’t cut and
paste as I had been tempted to before.
First of all, if I do this I know I am cheating myself of learning to
spell and becoming familiar with the Thai keyboard. Secondly, Google translate’s English
sentences are so frequently messed up that I’m fairly sure that when the Thai
sentences look unnatural to me, I’m probably right. And so, I use the
translation as a reference only, typing in what seems correct and deleting or
changing what doesn’t sound natural to me.” This again displays a refinement of
what Gee calls “system thinking,” as well as evidence of the ”freedom to
experiment,” as described by Klopfer, Osterwell and Salen (2009), in which one
displays an ability “to maneuver and invent new approaches to whatever task is
a hand.” (p. 4)
A different sort of customization in my use of Google
translate came up while translating a subtitled music video. In my fourth week of activity I noted that by
alternating between the video and the translation site “I could listen to the
individual words repeatedly on Google translate, then go back and listen to the
video, and back again for more words.”
Towards the end of my study, I used Google translate similarly in
conjunction with a listening / reading site:
http://thairecordings.com. Because the recording was at a native speaker
speed, I copied and pasted the transcript into Google translate, allowing me to
listen to it at a slower speed, as well as to listen to words
individually. Both instances of use here
indicate not only the principles (Gee, 2004, 2005) and freedoms (Klopfer, Osterwell and Salen, 2009) already discussed,
but also
a kind of self-initiated scaffolding procedure (Gee, principle four), allowing
me to focus on form (Ellis, principle
three) while ‘ramping up’ my listening ability.
In my second month of study I noted: “The last two days I’ve been operating in a
‘freer’ fashion, primarily due to camfrog.
[Camfrog is a popular video chat room program popular in Thailand.] So I am doing a few things at the same
time. I open camfrog before I begin,
enter a chat room and click open a few cams.
I may or may not start a chat, or one may come in. At the same time I am doing its4thai. And I’ve been going back and re-reading (and
editing) my blog posts as well. So I’m
doing a bunch of things at once, and it’s a lot more fun.” This kind of activity indicates to me a high
degree of agency, both in Gee’s (2005) sense of “a real sense of ownership”
(p.6) over what one is doing, and in the sense of agency as a type of freedom
of choice. It further demonstrates some
of the noted freedoms – of effort, and to experiment. As I remember, chatting served to inform my
online activity with an “ambient sociability” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 89) which
greatly heightened the feeling of ‘fun’ in my study.
Chatting
With only a rudimentary command of
the Thai writing system, I started chatting within the first week of my
protracted online Thai language activity.
At that time, I wrote: “I have sent a number of simple messages to
friends: Hi, สัไบดีใมกุรป,
which I now realize is spelled incorrectly.”
Indeed, what I lacked was an ability to spell nearly any word in
Thai. I did not let this deter me,
embracing the attitude of risk-taking Gee (2005) describes, in which we are
“encouraged to take risks, explore and try new things.” (p. 5)
Especially during the early weeks
of my chatting, I was continuously taking risks and experimenting in my
spelling. I typically proceeded with a
‘just give it a try’ type of attitude in my communication, an attitude which
not only exhibited some of the ‘freedoms’ of play (notably, freedoms to fail
and to experiment), but which resulted in the kind of “real-time feedback” (p.
21) that “provides motivation to keep playing” as described by McGonigal
(2011). The following exchange indicates
the continuous stream of spelling correction I received from one (offline as
well as online) friend:
CS (Christopher
Stern): ผมชืนคุณไปกินคาว
KP: ผมชวนคุณไปกินข้าว.
In addition to feedback, this exchange,
like nearly all chat exchanges, exhibits several of Ellis’s principles, namely
those of: developing a repertoire of
formulaic expressions, focusing predominantly on meaning, focusing on form, extensive
L2 input, opportunity for output, and opportunity to interact.
In another similar instance I
typed:
CS: วินดี
KP: ยินดี
CS: ขอโทษขอโทษผมแคีนภัสาไทไม่จัด
KP: ครับ / ผมเขียนภาษาไทยไม่ ฝ ก่ง /
คุณเก่งมาก นะครับ.
Here KP expresses the kind of “vicarious
pride” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 86-7) exhibited by individuals who are “actively
contributing to the achievement” of others. At another point KP offers some
feedback indicating that my ability has improved.
CS: ฝนดกแส็ดแลาว ดอนนีมีแดด
KP: ครับ / คุณเก่งขึ้นมากครับ.
This type of feedback was highly
motivating, providing me a kind of ‘happiness jolt’ similar to the feelings of
“leveling up” (p. 130), or a mild “fiero” moment (“what
we feel when we triumph over adversity”)
(McGonigal, 2011, p. 33).
While instances of correction by my
Thai interlocutors were most frequent during my first few weeks of chat, they
occurred throughout the course of my online activity. This type of feedback allowed me to make
quick progress with regard to spelling.
However, I typically received such correction only from friends I knew
offline as well as online, while, when chatting with strangers I did not
receive such feedback.
In another instance, I sent the
following CMC text message: คุณเรียนรู้ด้วยตัวเอง. At this time I had just learned this construction (ด้วยตัวเอง) in www.its4thai.com, and recognized this as a good
opportunity to try it out in real communication. In doing so I feel I was truly creating my
own “well ordered problem,” creating scaffolding which leads one “to form
hypotheses that work well for later, harder problems” (Gee, 2005, p. 6), as
well as moving naturally from the controlled production encountered in www.its4thai.com to a “free constructed response (e.g. a
communicative task)” (Ellis, 2005, p. 8).
In the second month of my study I
wrote: “I spent another 40 or 50 minutes
chatting on camfrog, as I finally went ahead to pay for camfrog pro. It was fun, and I found I am able to
recognize and produce language much faster.”
One week later I wrote “I’ve come to the conclusion that I can probably
communicate and learn quite a bit more by chatting than I could by having face
to face communication.” My reasons for
this conclusion are that chat, for me, encouraged me in a number of the
“freedoms” described by Klopfer,
Osterwell and Salen, far more than face to face communication did. When speaking directly with a native speaker
in Thai, I often feel constrained, particularly by the possibilities of not
being understood, and of not understanding, and thus feel hesitant to try out
any new, untested communication.
However, in CMC chat
I truly embrace the freedoms to fail and to experiment, knowing that any
mistake I make may lead to some useful feedback. Furthermore, chat allows
“freedom of effort” in a way which ‘live’ communication does not, as one can,
up to a point, take their time in crafting communication. Google translate also
offers opportunities for clarification and for instant (JIT) access to the
lexis I need to express myself, as well as aiding in “freedom of
interpretation.” These observations were
mirrored by one of the comments made in an interview with TM (see section 4.1.1
- Chatting). At that time I wrote “This
is because I am also being exposed to colloquialisms which I had never noticed
in speech. Plus, I have time to work
things out at my own pace.” In terms of
Ellis’s language learning principles, chatting offered not only opportunity to
interact in my L2, but also extensive input and opportunity for output.
One of the main reasons that
chatting allowed me the opportunity to solidify and “develop a repertoire of
formulaic expressions” (Ellis, 2005, p. 2) is expressed in a comment I made
towards the end of my study: “Because I
have chatted with so many people, I end up repeating the same entry questions
and responses again and again. I’ve
learned a lot of spelling and colloquialisms this way.”
To sum up, I feel that chatting in
Thai informed my online L2 activity with a number of benefits: ambient and active sociability, input,
interaction, investment, welcome interruption, fun, diversion, feedback, variety,
exploration, opportunities to build on prior scaffolding, and agency. Finally, perhaps because of interaction with
intuitive interlocutors, as well as the JIT information function provided by
Google translate, I felt that the language level required of me was almost
always one at the boundary of my “zone of proximal development,” thus providing
me with exactly the level of “pleasant frustration” needed.
Reading
Although I spent
much time reading while chatting, engaging in reading activities specifically
is one thing which I did very infrequently.
I think that the main reasons for this were the feeling that I needed to
devote more time to expanding vocabulary first, and frustration with my still
slow reading pace. In short, I was too
lazy to read for protracted periods, and found doing so to be not sufficiently
interesting or rewarding. This is
because, I think, reading long passages was simply too far outside my ZPD,
leaving me with a feeling of ‘brain drain.’ Listening intuitively to my “built-in syllabus”
indicated that the time was not yet right for doing so.
One
of the few sites where I engaged in reading activity specifically was www.thai-language.com. In my second month of activity I wrote “Spent
nearly another hour reading FSI lessons on thai-language.com. I am really pleased with how quickly I can
read these now and how well I understand.”
This was a sign of progress, and felt in many ways like “leveling
up.” What I liked about the FSI readings
were their modularity, their length (short), and their very gradual
introduction of new vocabulary in context.
However, I still did not find the stories and content sufficiently
compelling to go back to them often. One
day I made an attempt to read something from the Thai MSN homepage. However, I was so quickly lost in unfamiliar
language that I felt as if I was drowning, and gave up accordingly.
In
the last week of my study I wrote: “My
reading in Thai is still quite slow, I am lazy to actually sound my way through
each and every word to a phrase, and the lack of gaps between words still
confounds me. I just can’t fathom why
they wouldn’t make it easier on themselves by putting spaces between words. But what still drags me down the most in Thai
is my lack of a wide vocabulary.” To me,
this comment indicates perhaps a lack of sufficient willingness to focus on
form, as well as recognition of my abilities and my own particular “built-in
syllabus” (Ellis, 2005, p.5)
Writing
Although
I spent relatively little time reading, I made a significant effort to engage
in writing. And while it was indeed an
effort, it was at times also very fun, both in the sense that I could lose
track of time while involved in it (a sign of flow experience), and in
the reward of having constructed a piece of written work in Thai.
I
purchased a new laptop computer, one equipped with a Thai keyboard, in order to
pursue this study. Within the first week
of doing so, (after successfully typing out some sentences from an FSI lesson),
I wrote: “I feel like the keyboard is
something I can tackle now! That brief
exercise was very empowering” I recall the feeling to be charging, and highly
motivating, easily meeting the classification of what McGonigal (2011)
describes as “fiero,” or “what we feel when we triumph over adversity.” (p.
33)
By the second month of my online activity, I had decided to
begin blogging in Thai. Aside from
chatting, this was the only means by which I engaged in writing in Thai. I titled my blog “แปลกแปลก – ชีวิตคนฝรั่งที่เมืองไทย.” (http://blekkblekk.blogspot.com/) For me, the blog
was not merely an exercise in writing, but an opportunity to “fashion an
identity” (Klopfer, Osterwell and Salen, 2009, p. 4). In terms of Ellis’s (2005) language learning
principles, while blogging clearly was an “opportunity for output,” helping me
to “develop a ‘personal voice’” (p.6), the fact that I delayed in doing so
indicates a kind of response to my “built-in syllabus,” in which “learners
follow a ‘natural’ order and sequence of acquisition.” (p. 5) In terms of Gee’s
(2005) ‘good learning principles,’ blogging offered me both agency, in terms of
“a real sense of ownership” (p. 6) over what I was doing, and an opportunity
for exploration, a non-linear attitude to knowledge acquisition.
In reflecting on blogging in Thai now, I remember many
afternoons of quite easily achieving a flow experience with all the
things I was doing in Thai. It got my
mind actively using Thai in the way that caused much, if not most, of my
thinking to proceed in Thai. Blogging
was typically something I could keep my mind focused on for perhaps thirty or
forty minutes at a time, and then I would want to break to something lighter
and easier, such as chatting or its4thai.com.
I really stretched my ZPD in blogging, especially with regard to
lexis. In fact, I think researching and
choosing lexis to access the meanings I wanted took up most of my blogging
time. Undoubtedly, I stretched my
sentence-building skills in blogging too, but that happened in a more natural
and less researched way.
While a very small amount of the vocabulary I exposed
myself to at that time is available to me consciously now, (especially as my
mind is now in a non-Thai mode), I think that some of it has entered into a
long-term and unconsciously available way so that I may use or recognize it at
the appropriate or needed time. This
reality matches both skill building theory, in which “implicit knowledge arises
out of explicit knowledge, when the latter is proceduralized through practice,”
(Ellis, 2005, p.4) as well as emergent theories, which consider “implicit
knowledge as developing naturally out of meaning-focused communication” (ibid,
p. 4)
In
my first blog post, I used Thai language to establish my identity: “ผมป็นคนฝรั่งที่อยู่ที่เชียงใหม่มาหนึ่งปีครึ่ง ผมมาเชียงใหม่เพื่อ.” The entire point of this first post, to me,
was to explain who I was, and why I was blogging, at the outset of my
endeavor. In this way, I was engaging a
process of establishing my online Thai identity. While
subsequent posts were not so baldly identity-oriented, nonetheless, many served
to allow me to “try on” identities (Klopfer, Osterweil & Salen, 2009, p.4)
as I further invested in creating my identity as a blogger.
My
second post was an exploration of language itself, which for a long time has been
a personal interest of mine. In this
case I looked at similarities I had found between certain Thai and Indonesian
words. Here, in Ellis’s terms, my
activity was not so much focused on exercising output as it was specifically on
form and meaning. In the sense that
blogging allowed me to choose my own topics and pursue whichever line of
interest I wanted to at any time, it allowed me to exercise a high degree of
agency, “a real sense of ownership” (Gee, 2005, p.6) over my activity, and a
sense that I was doing something for myself, and entirely of my own
volition. At the time, I wrote: “the feeling of being able to craft a piece
of communication in written Thai and have it immediately go up on the net is
great.” Later that same week, I also
wrote: “It feels really powerful, really
great, to be able to put down a piece of useful communication in Thai. And I
found it is great help to me to go back and read again what I wrote the day
before, solidifying the new vocab I used in old posts. I also notice I am already reading much more
quickly now.” While both these
statements further convey a sense of agency, looking at them from the aspect of
Gee’s good learning principles, they show evidence primarily of customizing
(principle two) not only the venue for my learning (the blog), but also the way
in which I use the blog – a way which allows me to create my own sets of scaffolding
(principle four) and challenge and consolidation (principle five).
Within
one month of beginning blogging, I wrote “What I love about writing the blogs
is that as I write, as long as I can use Google translate, I don’t feel I am
limited at all in what I can say.”
Google translate (in many activities, not just blogging), actively
served a “JIT” [just in time] and “on demand information” (Gee’s sixth
principle) function for me, and facilitated a pleasant level of frustration in
my activity, allowing me to keep tasks just within the boundary of my ZPD
(Gee’s eighth principle). I concluded
this comment by stating “I do hope some people start taking notice of this blog
and giving me some feedback.”
Unfortunately, aside from my very first post, for which I received
nearly immediate feedback from a former teacher, my blogs never did garner any
comments. While I could (and still can)
gain some satisfaction from tracking the number of viewers I receive each day,
I have still never received any comments or feedback. Had this occurred, I am sure that my
motivation to continue would have been greater.
As
my third, fourth, fifth and seventh blog posts were specifically about videos,
I have written about them in the following section on video / Youtube.
My
sixth post, although about a common occurrence (I wrote primarily about the
burning and resulting pollution during the winter season) in northern Thailand,
was also highly personal for me, in that I wrote about this topic because I
felt strongly about it. In writing this
post, “เกี่ยวกับอากาศที่ประเทศไทย ภาคเหนือ / Regarding the weather in Northern
Thailand,” I was exercising agency in the sense described by Gee (2005) as a
kind of ownership over what I was doing.
Other efforts were not
successful: “after
the first days and days of its4thai, I started today by going back and opening
the blog post I half completed a few days (a week?) ago, and it was not
motivating me. I looked at it and could
barely read it. Trying to read what I
had written was like trying to swim when not knowing how. I certainly can’t call it comprehensible
output. I had been stretching my
abilities so far beyond my zpd it was doing me very little if any good.” In some regards I view my use of Google
translate not so much as a pair of crutches to keep me from stumbling, but
rather, prosthetic legs without which I could not walk. Clearly, this is the case here.
I
had one additional unsuccessful experience.
I wrote in my learning log: “I
have come to realize a reason why I stopped blogging for the meanwhile – I have
found other things to do, more appropriate for my ability level, but also, I
have a blog post that I never finished, and that is really a bit too difficult
for me to write. So, not having finished
it, I feel I cannot yet start another one.
I cannot ditch it, and I can’t make the effort to finish it. So, I have created a motivational bind for
myself. This is instructive in working
with students and asking them to write blogs – don’t push too far beyond your
capabilities, it will not serve you well.”
Here, the principle of pleasant frustration is instrumental – clearly
the frustration was not pleasant, and therefore the whole endeavor became
demotivating, as well as holding up any further progress. McGonigal (2011) comments on the importance
of being able to not only start, but also finish work: “to be truly satisfied, we have to be able to
finish our work as clearly as we started it.” (p. 57)
Recalling
my first blogging days I wrote “It sure was fun to write for the first three
days. I can’t quite imagine writing
something using the vocab I’ve learned through its4thai the last three days,
about cleaning the room or changing the lightbulbs, or the parts of the face or
feeling sick. But I should give it a
try.” Here, after recognizing the fun I
did have when I made blogging work for me, I imagine the next step I will take,
again, working from my own “built-in syllabus” (Ellis), and creating my own
“clear goals and actionable next steps” (McGonigal). The
attitude is also clearly one of exploration, or, as Gee (2005) describes, a
non-linear attitude towards language acquisition. (p.6)
In
my ninth post, “ผลไม้,” I made use of vocabulary I had
recently seen on www.its4thai.com.
Shortly afterwards, I wrote: “This
was fun to do, but at the same time it got a little tedious. Not tedious in the way of constantly having
to look up vocabulary and consider whether or not it worked correctly where I
put it, but in the constraint on topic.
I didn’t have to stretch for lexis so much. In fact I modeled these posts off of language
I had just recently learned on its4thai, this, for example, being about fruit
and food. I always enjoyed getting
students to use new vocabulary to make up crazy stories, the crazier the better,
and I often helped out pushing stories in crazy directions, although many did
not need any help in this department. So
after a few sentences here I got bored with the straightforward and varied
things a bit, writing about the dog who eats with fork and knife in
restaurants.” Perhaps more clearly, or at least in
the traditional sense, this post seems to encapsulate elements of play more
than any other. In addition to relying
on my own built-in syllabus, scaffolding my own well ordered problems, and relying
on a kind of system thinking, I am engaging a freedom to fashion, in this case,
a whimsical identity.
My
tenth blog post, “ที่ห้องผมมี่หลายสิ่งหลายอย่าง / In
my room there are many things,” followed a similar pattern. In my learning log I wrote: “I wrote a new blog post
as well on the day I reviewed vocab about the house – I wrote about many items
in my apartment. And my eighth post was
much the same: “I have begun today by
taking all the lexis from yesterday’s last its4thai lesson (adjectives to
describe people) and used it to write a blog about the kinds of people I like
and dislike.”
Clearly
these blog posts, (and my reflection upon it,) as well as much of my writing
activity, indicate many of the themes outlined, particularly those of Ellis
(2005) and Gee (2005). From Ellis, these
include focus on meaning (second principle), drawing on the learner’s built-in
syllabus (fifth principle), and opportunity for output (seventh principle). From Gee we can see investing in an identity
(first principle), scaffolding (fourth principle), challenge and consolidation
(fifth principle), contextualization (seventh principle), pleasant frustration
(eighth principle), system thinking (tenth principle), agency (twelfth
principle), and exploration (thirteenth principle).
Other
Skills / Language Notes
Before
beginning my online Thai activity, I wrote down some of my feelings about Thai
language: “the sets of sounds which must
be distinguished – long and short vowels, tones, and aspirated vs. unaspirated consonants
– are not sets which we ever bother distinguishing in English, and compounded
together, this makes listening, in particular, to Thai, exceedingly difficult.” Prior to learning to read and write, this
relative inability to properly focus on form was further compounded by not
having a properly representative phonemic system (the Thai alphabet).
Several
survey and interview respondents commented on the relative lack of opportunity
to practice listening and speaking online, and I concur with their
observation. www.its4thai.com,
however, provided some listening practice, albeit at a very slow pace. I observed:
“Its4thai, in regards to listening, has also given me some insights, as
I have seen firsthand now that even slow listening activities can have a major
positive impact on real-time listening ability.”
One
month later I wrote: “Yesterday I found
a site which states: ‘There is a lack of
material for intermediate learners of Thai. While many websites cover the
basics, there are only limited resources available for more advanced learners.
This website tries to contribute to closing this gap.’ (http://thairecordings.com)
This site provided downloadable sound
files, all at a native speaker speed, with corresponding transcripts. All the material was at an upper intermediate
level and highly colloquial. While this
material was very challenging for me, it was nonetheless at a roughly
appropriate level, enough so that I proceeded.
However, I recognized many shortcomings in the way the material was
presented, which could be addressed through technology. I noted:
“Some features I would like to see with this sort of activity: the listening would benefit by offering adjustable
speed; further benefit would be gained through integration with the transcript,
by which each word is highlighted as it is heard; scroll-over translation for
the transcript (per word) would be very helpful; finally, some comprehension
questions, even in multiple choice form (to offer instant feedback) would go a
long way in making this an activity which truly engages the listener / reader. These deficiencies point towards the
experience I’ve had with this particular medium: While helpful, it is frustrating – being able
to listen only at native speaker speed doesn’t allow one to ‘ramp up’ their
ability.”
The
reading / listening I worked on was about a trip to the beach. At the time, I made some notes on how I
addressed some of the deficiencies noted above as best I could: “I’ve been reading it word for word, and
copying and pasting into Google translate every single word I do not know or
don’t recognize …I am also amazed at how many individual words I did not know,
and yet how much meaning I was able to get.”
It is obvious that ‘top-down’ schemata theories were really working here. In terms of Gee’s principles, this fits as
representing “situated meaning” or “contextualization” (seventh principle). “…I admit, I have been engrossed, and while
not really fun, I have easily lost track of time.” Clearly, I was enmeshed in a flow
experience, yet, interestingly, not really having ‘fun.’
Directed
Activities
Because
sites designed by and for native Thais were far too challenging for me, I spent
the bulk of my online Thai activity using sites designed for the study of Thai
by non-native speakers, which of course always included directed activities for
doing so. The first such site I used was
www.thai-language.com.
In
the first week of my study I wrote: “Just
found www.thai-language.com, as recommended to me by my friend CH. I feel very enthusiastic about this. In the FSI language course section there are
numerous dialogues, which I am now capable of reading, even without the
phonetics, and I took about an hour or so to copy out two of them by hand. I think I might go buy a keyboard tomorrow
and try their Thai typing game.”
Many
of the directed activities on sites designed specifically for learning Thai
have game-like elements. Following, I
describe one of these activities on www.thai-language.com: “I’ve spent the last hour and a half using thai-language.com’s
one syllable tone quiz, in which I am presented with a one syllable word
written in Thai script only, a sound icon and a choice of five buttons
representing the 5 tones to click on.
I’ve started by trying to pronounce the word first, then listen, then
choose the tone.” Here, by pronouncing
before listening, my goal is clearly to focus on form, and make use of
rule-based competence to the degree I have developed it. I continue, commenting “Although I did not do
very well at first, as I still have a hard time remembering and applying all
the tone rules, as soon as I took out my charts for character class, final
endings and tone markers, I started doing really well.” Here, I am returning to examine explicit
knowledge, hopefully while internalizing it so that it becomes implicit.
Following,
I describe how the mechanism provides continuous feedback: “A percentage tracker keeps track of how many
words you have indicated correct tones for, and it is marked against for each
wrong attempt, even on the same word.”
Finally, I indicate the likelihood of having achieved a kind of flow
experience in writing “I had originally planned to dedicate only one hour, and
because I was having so much fun, (and waiting for a word “smelly” to come up
again – it didn’t) I kept going for an hour and a half.”
Another
feature of www.thai-language.com
is a vast collection of resources of specific aspects of the Thai language,
which I describe here: “I went to
thai-language and found two pages, one on prefixes, and the other on Pali and
Sanskrit based prefixes. The latter are
extensive, and I am fascinated, because so many of them bear resemblance to
Indonesian words.”
At
about one month into my study I discovered another site, www.its4thai.com. Most of the activities on this site loosely
follow the game-like multiple choice format I have described above. I was almost immediately hooked. I wrote:
“Yesterday I spent all three (and a half) of my online study hours doing
ALL the free activities as its4thai.com.
I’ve decided to pay the 249 Baht per month for two months for this site
as it seems definitely worth the price.”
I
explain my attraction to this site’s activities: “after days of stretching myself posting
blogs in which I have to look up a third to half the vocabulary and really
think things through thoroughly, and never be entirely sure if I’ve really got
it right, it was a real joy to work through exercises and get things right
nearly every single time, while actually having to think a little bit too.” Clearly blogging was becoming too
frustrating, and I wasn’t getting any feedback.
These activities offered the contrast of being well on the other
(interior) side of my ZPD, and offered plenty of immediate feedback, both
visual and auditory. And they quickly
engaged me in a flow experience:
“It kept me going for three hours without much thought to the time going
by.” I describe the activities offered
as follows: “Each unit has a fairly
predictable format, either being grammar or lexis based (grouped by topic – ie.
fruit and veg.). The vocab/grammar is
first presented, then you can review it, with Thai script, English meaning,
picture, sound and phonetic script all presented in the same frame.” Thus we see Ellis’s focus on meaning
(principle three), focus on form (four), and extensive L2 input (six). Additionally, the learner can customize
(Gee’s third principle) the interface as one “can choose if you wish to choose
from a choice of four or eight possibilities.”
The site offers further means of customization, from a selection of
sounds for correct and incorrect answers to “being able to flag words for my
own vocab list. The system also flags
words answered incorrectly for remedial work.”
The final activities are: “Next,
listen and choose from English definitions, and for grammar portions finally
sentence arrangement – level one inserting one word in the sentence from a
choice of about eight (the sentence is given in English), level two arranging
all the words to put the sentence together.”
And this same format holds for each of approximately 30 lessons offered
on the site. I comment on some of the
aspects I enjoy most, saying “this set of activities gave me a lot of
COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT and only occasionally put me at the edge of my ZPD. I had more chance to focus on form at a
simple level – pron and spelling.” I also recognize immediately how well this
site fits my immediate need of broadening my lexis: “it is providing me with LOTS of useful
vocabulary – and I do recognize that at this point in my learning, what I need
to do more than anything else is build vocabulary.”
I
additionally comment on some of the drawbacks of www.its4thai.com: “The real downside of this site is lack of
any contextualization or any story building, or any true production
activities. What I’d like to see
additionally from its4thai is more production exercises, specifically ones
following the sentence arrangement activities where one has to actually type
out, rather than simply arrange responses.”
For
the most part though, I felt very positively about its4thai, and came back to
it on an almost daily basis. Some of the
other positive features: “I really enjoy
scoring the 100% scores, seeing the progress bars completed, as long as I’m
being exposed to maybe about 5% - 8% new language items. If now and then it is less or more than this
it is ok.” Also: “The perpetual next question / challenge
aspect of it, just as with the typing exercise (which I did this morning – a
slow cascade of Thai characters, which one must type one at a time before they
reach the bottom of the screen) is hard to leave off from.”
Finally,
I state: “I love its4thai. I have become completely addicted.” Afterwards, I begin to think about why this
is so. “What makes its4thai so addictive? I think more than any other factor, it is
that learning has been broken down into discrete, achievable tasks.” Additionally, it is automaticity: “you don’t have to do any thinking about how
to do it, but only do it.” In ‘Exploiting the neuroscience of Internet
addiction,’ Davidow (The Atlantic, 2012) states “Gaming
companies talk openly about creating a "compulsion loop," which works
roughly as follows: the player plays the game; the player achieves the goal;
the player is awarded new content; which causes the player to want to continue
playing with the new content and re-enter the loop.” He continues his
explanation as follows: “achieving
a goal or anticipating the reward of new content for completing a task can
excite the neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain, which
releases the neurotransmitter dopamine into the brain's pleasure centers. This
in turn causes the experience to be perceived as pleasurable. As a result, some
people can become obsessed with these pleasure-seeking experiences and engage
in compulsive behavior such as a need to keep playing a game, constantly check
email, or compulsively gamble online” (Davidow, 2012)
In
addition to becoming compulsive, I became very competitive with myself, and,
because I could, began to accept only perfection: “I’ve just become obsessive about finishing
every activity with 100% accuracy, especially the final sentence formation
activities. This is achieved by ditching
any activity at the point where one makes a mistake and reloading it. The activity is scored only after you hit the
‘I know this item’ button after the last exercise, so you can avoid a low score
this way. It took me three tries to get
through the last activity and I was getting pissed off and a bit careless
towards the end, but I got there.” In addition to perfectionist tendencies,
this statement indicates a propensity for customization and an excessive focus
on form.
However,
after time I began to notice other drawbacks as well. I commented, “Yesterday I got a bit fed up
with its4thai. This was because I
decided to work through one of the vocab lessons, and it included the names for
each finger, which I thought was fairly useless information for me.” I found this very demotivating and remember
leaving off further activity on its4thai for a while at this point. Another point that began to annoy me was the
predictability and lack of variety. I
wrote: “I am beginning to find the
format of its4thai a bit too rote.”
Finally, I began to feel that its4thai was not really helping me that
much with acquiring spelling knowledge or improving my reading speed. Towards the end of my study I commented in my
learning log: “aside from words that I
have actually produced (typed) frequently and a few that I have read
frequently, I still read very slowly – my recognition is poor. Its4thai has actually provided very poor
preparation in this regard – I have ended up not truly reading and sounding
through everything, for one because I get the audio, and two because I never
have to actually spell anything.” This
comment is related to the one above regarding production activities, in that such
activities would go far in addressing this issue.
Virtual
Environments and Games
As
with a large number of both English and Thai language learners, I spent no time
using virtual environments, and very little time playing what are typically
considered “games.” In this case, with
this word “games” I mean to indicate all variety of computer games aside from
those that, formally, are closer to quizzes or tests – multiple choice answers,
and time-based selection challenges. Before even beginning my online L2
activity, I had written: “it doesn’t seem all that good a match to my
personality or at least to my present habits …with the exception of chatting,
these [things which I propose doing, including playing games] are not things I
do online in English anyway.”
Nonetheless,
a number of activities that I did do on sites designed for language study, such
as www.its4thai.com
or www.thai-language.com,
consisted of varieties of multiple choice answers or time-based selection
challenges. The first of these was a
typing game offered on the latter site. Within the first week of my study, I
wrote: “I can now report that the Thai
Typing game is really cool, mentally exhausting, and a sure way to quickly
increase my Thai typing speed. It is
really cool being able to recognize and say almost every single character that
comes up (with the exception of some of the infrequently used characters), and
now, to be able to type them quickly too.” The factors making this activity fun for me
are some of those identified by McGonigal (2011) as mechanisms for provoking
positive emotion, namely “fun failure” (p. 64) and multiple feedback systems
(p. 24).
The
following week I spent time on a game-like quiz on the same site. I wrote:
“Now I’ve just spent time testing myself on consonant classes and found
I did quite well. I also now recognize
there are still some consonants whose names I do not know. Time to go back to the flash cards. Multiple choice activities like these I find
to be both brain numbing and enjoyable at the same time.” Although not games per se, what makes such
multiple choice activities trigger positive emotion like games are their
similar mechanisms, notably those of ‘fun failure’ and feedback, as mentioned
above, along with “clear goals and actionable next steps.” (McGonigal, 2011, p.
55) Additionally, the goals provided
were all appropriately at the boundary of my ZPD, thus providing the kind of
“pleasant frustration” (Gee, 2005, p. 7) necessary to keep me interested.
Moreover,
in this case as well, I found that such activities spurred on a competitive
side of my personality. In the following
month I wrote: “Then went back to the
tone game, determined to reach 100 words with 100% accuracy … Much later in the
day. YES, I DID IT! 100/100 100%
correct. STOKED!” This is clearly a “fiero” moment for me, the
kind of feeling that makes us want to “throw our arms over our head and yell.”
(McGonigal, 2005, p. 33)
A
later comment indicates the way I viewed my activity: “I just goofed around doing the typing game
and the tone game on thai-language, but I did well - about 83% for the typing, and 87% for the
tones, without listening (audio doesn’t work today on this site) and rarely,
almost never looking at tone rules chart.”
Clearly, I did not regard this as serious study; rather, the phrase
‘goofed around’ indicates I viewed this more as play. And yet, I was at the same time quite
competitive and results-driven, as evidenced by my score-keeping. Finally, the fact that I had finally put
aside tone chart rules and audio, and simply worked out tones successfully
based on the characters themselves indicates, in Ellis’s terms, both a focus on
form and the development of implicit knowledge. (Ellis, 2005, p. 4)
Finally,
I explain my lack of affinity for games as a function of my personality. I wrote:
“I think overall I am not much of a fun and games type of person. Sure I like to laugh and have a good time
as much as anyone (maybe not quite as much), but I have also always been quite
serious and driven as a student …This is just me; I’m not a games-oriented
person.” In fact, I have always taken
pride in my academic work, and this is where I exercise the greatest sense of agency
as a “real sense of ownership” (Gee, 2005, p. 6). David DiSalvo (2011), in What makes your
brain happy and why you should do the opposite, writes “For students motivated to achieve excellence, making
tasks entertaining may actually undermine their performance …trying to force
yourself into a motivational mold not sized for your personality probably isn’t
going to work.” (p. 102) Thus, it is
worth noting that while game-based learning may be appropriate for a large
number of students, it may be less appropriate or effective for others. This is clearly an area for further research.
Video
Like most of the
language learners surveyed, I also spent a good deal of my Internet-mediated
activity time watching videos in my target language on Youtube. I began doing so just at the point in time
that I started blogging. Thus, some of
my earliest blog posts are based around videos I had watched.
The
first such video I discovered was that of Stuart Jay Raj. In my third week of study I wrote the
following: “I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube
today, and I’ve discovered someone brilliant, Stuart Jay Raj, polyglot who
fluently speaks, reads and writes over 20 languages. But his Thai is absolutely phenomenal, and
what makes me so stoked to watch him, is that I feel I can actually begin to
understand really fast spoken Thai.”
However, that comprehension came, really, only with the concerted effort
to learn some new vocabulary (by using the English subtitles in tandem with
Google translate). This was a step I
took later. My first effort at watching
this video, as with all others, was a very relaxed, receptive activity. And my memory of watching videos in Thai is
one of taking time off, or goofing off, exploring and having fun. This was not something I considered as ‘study’
or ‘work.’ This is reflected in the
inverted commas I used in the following note I wrote in my learning log : “I spent much of my 2 hours and 43 minutes of
‘study’ today watching videos on Youtube, of which I understood very little,
but the little that I did understand was gratifying. And I learned how to say ‘bottle opener’
which is useful.” Out of all the
activities I did, I think that watching videos, even when I understood very
little, was the least stressful and most amusing activity I could do.
However,
I quickly discovered that for me to gain much of any benefit from videos, I had
to use them systematically. So, I began
to follow some advice I used to often give students with regard to video: I chose a video which interested me, which I could
understand much of, and which had subtitles.
I watched it numerous times, I noted down vocabulary I needed to look
up, I looked it up, I studied, and I watched and listened again, and again. I outline this process in my second blog post
:วิธีการใช้youtubeเรียนภาษา. While I already had some ideas about how to
best use video for language learning, the process was, for me, clearly an
exercise in exploration, as well as a chance for me to tap into my own “built-in
syllabus” (Ellis, 2005, p. 5)
At
the time of creating that blog post, I wrote in my learning log: “Today I wrote another blog post, my third in
four days. Feels great. It took me less than two hours, and I think I
did a pretty good job. I used quite a
bit of new vocabulary, repeatedly. The
post is about how I’ve used Youtube, specifically part one of a five part show
with SJRaj in Thai about learning languages, and my process of watching the
video clip repeatedly, looking at the subtitles (English) for the words I don’t
know, looking them up on www.translategoogle.com, studying them, and then going
back and watching again and again and then finding an opportunity (in the blog)
to use those words.” Clearly, I was
engaging a number of the freedoms of play here:
to fail, to experiment, of effort, and of interpretation. And the time I put into doing it as well as
the tone in which I wrote about it afterwards indicate a flow
experience. Furthermore, the process
relied on a number of Ellis’s principles in addition to that of a “built-in
syllabus,” notably focus on meaning and form, extensive input and opportunity
for output. Finally, I was the one who
created this process for myself, and it was one in which I decided and pursued
my own “clear goals and actionable next steps” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 55)
Later on, recalling this particular video, I wrote: “Stuart Jay Raj was cool. I was really stoked when I discovered
SJ. I remember listening and feeling
that if I knew all the vocabulary he used, I would be able to clearly make out
everything he was saying, and imitate it, because I felt his speaking, compared
to most Thai people, was incredibly clear.
I also appreciated how well he spoke Indonesian, clearly and with a West
Javanese accent as well. And I enjoyed
seeing a farang being able to speak Thai so well.” Recall that TK, a Thai language learner
interviewed, had also commented on enjoying seeing foreigners who can speak
Thai well.
My
fourth blog post was also centered on a video:
“ข้อเท็จจริงเกี่ยวกับประวัติพลังObama / The Facts about President Obama's Energy Record.” At the time, I wrote in my learning log: “I
wrote another language blog post today, using one of Obama’s campaign videos,
and got really wrapped up in it, going into overtime, 3:31 total. As usual, its work, but I had fun doing
it.” Again, the language I have used
here indicates, to me, a flow experience. And my choice of this particular video was
very wrapped up, for me, in fashioning an “identity” (Klopfer, Osterweil &
Salen’s third ‘freedom’), as well as Gee’s (2005) concept of agency as “a real
sense of ownership over what they are doing.” (p. 6)
A
few weeks later I wrote: “Clearly my
identity was tied up in this post. I
have been avidly watching the election, hating the Republicans, and somewhat
less vigorously liking the Democrats, and I am sure I wrote this hoping that
someone might read this and I could convince them at least of understanding my
opinion here.”
My third blog post based on a video
is somewhat more instructive in examining how I didn’t do it that in how I
did. This is because I had made a
similar attempt previously, and learned from it. In this post I linked three song videos, each
song containing the word “อธิบาย”.
For each song, I made some comments, and concluded with the observations: “ผู้ชายก็ใช้คำว่า "ฉัน" บ่อย ๆ / ที่๒ อธิบายมีลวดลาย "ช่วยอธิบายให้ฉันเข้าใจหนอย" และ "อธิบายกับฉัน.” What I did not do is attempt to translate the
songs. In a previous post, which I never
published, I had tried to do this. I
wrote about this as follows: “I
have been working exactly 1 hour 12 minutes 49.61 seconds on translating a Thai
song for my new blog. Typing is still
quite slow for me, although I know the location of many / most characters
now. That was brain draining, but I feel
I’ve accomplished something.”
Later,
I wrote “I remember working on this and being able to both read and hear the
Thai very clearly. And I understood a
great many of the individual words. But
then looking at the way they were put together made just a little but overall
no sense to me. Google translate just
made it even more confusing trying to translate, as the pragmatic meanings
differed so greatly from the semantic. Ultimately
I gave up. I did not finish translating
the song, and I did not publish this particular blog post. The next time I wrote about songs I did not
attempt to translate them.”
Watching
video online as a language learning exercise can be done in many ways. Without the application of any technique, it
is one of the easiest and most passive activities to pursue, and in this regard
it is clearly fun and often engaging.
Being able to understand the language in a video, often with the help of
contextual clues is additionally rewarding.
But, in order to use video to truly make progress in language learning,
in order to push the boundaries of one’s ability, technique has to be applied.
Feelings
of Improvement / Noticing
In several cases
in my learning log I made note of noticing: noticing new (aspects of) language
within the activity I was doing, noticing forms, and noticing improvement in my
ability. In my second month of study I wrote: “I have been looking at
minimal pairs in order to learn some spellings and tones of common words, then
on to the tone quiz. I can now figure
out almost all of the tones according to the rules without having to refer to
them and this feels like improvement.” With
regard to Ellis’s language learning principles, clearly I had done the work to
develop rule based competence (first principle), maintaining a focus on form
(third principle), and while not neglecting explicit knowledge, developing
implicit knowledge (fourth principle).
Because this tone quiz activity works by endlessly providing another
single syllable word to look at and decipher the tone, it has clear goals and
actionable next steps (McGonigal’s third ‘mechanism’).
About
one month into my study, and after an afternoon of chatting extensively, I had
noted “It was fun, and I found I am able to recognize and produce language much
faster.” A few days later I wrote: “I’m almost surprised at how fluent my
reading has become …my spoken Thai, and listening have improved as well. A friend
even commented last week.” Clearly, I
was noticing a lot of improvement in my abilities. Two weeks later, with regard to noticing
language used in chat, I wrote: “I am
noticing a lot of unconventional spellings, a lot of truncation of sentences,
and I’m recognizing a LOT more spellings and words, to the point where I often
don’t have to use Google translate anymore at all.” However, aside from truncation of sentences –
missing subjects and contraction of words – I do not recall noticing new
grammatical constructions during chat.
However, I certainly do recall noticing and taking interest in
structures I saw both on www.thai-language.com
and www.thairecordings.com.
What
I recognized most clearly was the positive effect my online activity had on my
ability to communicate in Thai offline.
This is expressed in the quote above, as well as in the following
statement, written towards the end of my study:
“I went out to take care of an errand yesterday and the young woman at
the store complemented me on how good my Thai was.”
Positive
Feelings
I have cited
numerous instances of positive feelings in the above sections. Like the language learners surveyed, I too
felt less worried about making mistakes when chatting than in person, as
noted. However, I clearly felt, much of
the time (but definitely least of all when chatting), that my online activity
was indeed very much like studying, more than playing. And, while I thoroughly agree that the online
environment is a very good medium for learning Thai, overall, I feel I would
have learned more had I invested an equal period of time in a
communication-based Thai language classroom.
Nonetheless, I made a large number
of overwhelmingly positive comments in my learning log. At the outset of my study, I remarked “deciding
on and engaging in this pursuit has made me really optimistic about learning
Thai – especially in the ways I know I need to learn: nailing down tones correctly, and expanding
my vocabulary.” What stands out in this
comment is its relation to agency – the freedom to direct my activity as I
wish, and agency’s direct ability to cause positive affect, as well as my own
knowledge of where I need to focus – my personal “built-in syllabus.” In the second month of my study I
commented: “I have had a wonderful day
online. The time flew. I created two blog entries for แบลกๆ,
and I really didn’t notice the time passing.” Clearly, the predominant feeling on this day
was one of flow experience.
Even on days
when I was less keen on my online Thai activity, I maintained an appreciation
for the agency integral to my activity.
I wrote: “I hardly lose track of
time or get thoroughly absorbed. I do
however, enjoy the sense of doing whatever I want to do at the moment. But I’m also feeling I need to expand my
choices– blog posts, thai-language.com, chatting (not always available), and Google
translate just are not a wide enough range of choices anymore.” Agency here is not merely a matter of “doing
whatever I want to do at the moment,” but also a sense of knowing what I want
to do, which comes from knowing what I need to do. This aspect of a learner’s being able to access
his or her own “built-in syllabus” and make use of that contribute greatly to
agency, and thus, to both learner autonomy and motivation.
Negative
Feelings / Difficulties
On some days the time simply did not
pass by simply or enjoyably. Rather, it
really felt like work. About a month
into my study I wrote: “After two hours
it’s starting to feel like, oh, I HAVE to do another hour.”
At
other times, rather than an overall feeling of malaise, it was specific things
which annoyed me: “into one hour ten
minutes of the tone checker quiz on thai-language.com, and two things are
annoying me. One is the frequency with
which the word การณ์ / gaan / event; cause;
reason; root; characteristics comes up – it seems I’ve seen it at least 10
times this hour, and many times yesterday.
The other is one woman’s voice, which is so grating, so awful, it is
exactly the type of voice which makes me think of Thai as a horrible sounding
language”
In
addition to system glitches and particular voices, Google translate gave me
regular frustration: “Meanings in
translation seem to become nebulous, and that is not gratifying. Google translate really is a disaster, a
mechanism which if used wrongly, without many grains of salt, just adds fire to
the occasional feeling that Thai simply is not appropriate for actually
communicating, that it just does not function as a language the way English
does,” and “Worked on that song a bit more today, Google translate really does
provide a lot of s#!t at times and it can be really demotivating to be
confronted with a bunch of otherwise simple looking language that just doesn’t
make much sense.”
At
other times, however, it was the internet itself which caused frustration, and
this pause allowed me some appreciation of Google translate. “The internet is still so slow right now, I
can’t even bother. What’s the use
without Google translate?” This comment points, again, to the important JIT
function Google translate provided me throughout much of my activity.
As
other Thai language learners mentioned regarding their experiences with
Thai-only websites, I too felt a huge degree of difficulty when sites were only
in Thai. At one point I tried changing
my Facebook settings to Thai, and as a result commented: “I tried changing the settings to Thai
language, but I can’t deal with this.” Dealing
in a Thai only online environment was clearly outside my personal ZPD. Even towards the end of my study I wrote “any
material created for Thai native speakers is almost entirely beyond me –
despite being serious about my studies, trying to wade through even a few
sentences is simply the antithesis of fun.”
Finally,
towards the end of my period of online activity, I felt I had really reached my
limit in spending time online. I
wrote: “I reached a complete internet /
computer interface burnout stage yesterday after about 2 hours. I think I am just not sufficiently computer
oriented to spend more than 2 or 3 hours per day at the computer,” As I read this, I think back to my original
prediction of possibly spending up to ten hours in a day online, and I realize
now how completely this possibility does not match my personality profile.
Outliers
A few comments I made in my learning log fell outside any
of the above categories. The first is
regarding the differences between learning Thai and English online. I wrote the following: “I’ve also realized there must be some
significant differences between trying to learn Thai and trying to learn
English online. 1. Most sites dedicated to learning Thai online
feature a LOT of English instruction / explanation / etc. Except perhaps for some specialized sites
created by Thais, I don’t think the same will be true of sites for learning
English. … For those
learning English, most of the sites I’ve seen feature copious verbiage explaining
intricacies of vocabulary and grammar (even very low level grammar) IN
ENGLISH! It must be thoroughly
frustrating for the non-native learner (especially one who uses a different
alphabet).” I realize that I made this
statement while considering only sites for the directed study of English
written in English. While I am
not aware of any such sites with the major portion of explanation given in
Thai, I do know that they exist in Spanish, French or German.
The second comment concerns one last unmentioned factor
in my motivation to return again and again to www.its4thai.com: “the fact that I
have paid for it and that I have a ‘use by’ date attached to it as well, and a
finite number of lessons to finish – at this point about ¼ of them remaining,
make me feel obligated.” In this sense,
clearly there is value in paying for something rather than getting it for free
– even if there exists the possibility of getting two comparable things, one
free and one not.
