[PN] Internet-Based Language Instruction (19 August 2004)

[waoe at mail.goo.ne.jp]

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Here is a proposal that has been accepted for consideration 
as a chapter in a book by the Asia-Pacific Association for
Computer-Assisted Language Learning entitled Internet-Based
Language Instruction: Pedagogies and Technologies.

Internet Audio Enhancements of Learning Management Systems
for English Language Education in Japan with Mentors Abroad

>From 16-20 February 2004 the author taught an intensive graduate school
course to English education majors at the national University of Tsukuba
entitled Online Education in Theory, Practice, and Applying the Internet to English Education. The Course Description and brainstorming diagram
can be viewed online at: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve/concepts.html
Synchronous and asynchronous Internet voice technologies (by Wimba and
HorizonLive, which recently merged), integrated into WebCT virtual
learning environments in Australia and the U.S., were accessed by the
instructor and students from the classroom in Japan. Online education
experts in the U.S., England, Malaysia and Brazil participated through
the Internet as mentors. This helped the students turn from skepticism
about online education to the realization of a global classroom.
Planning for Internet access throughout the course, with the
instructor's screen always visible so that students could easily
experience new technologies, the cooperation of participants at the
university and abroad, plus reliable networks and educational
technologies were arguably among the keys resulting in positive feedback
from the students. Learning Management Systems allow for much of the
course to be preserved as research data. There is, for example, student
feedback in English and Japanese, which the author can translate, and
voice BBS messages can be transcribed. Substantive discussions of online
pedagogy conducted through online media were evidently fascinating to
the mentors abroad as well as to the students of EFL pedagogy in Japan.
This chapter thus aims to show how certain practices of online pedagogy
and educator networking make the global classroom an accomplished fact.

Collegially, Steve McCarty
Professor, Osaka Jogakuin College, Japan
Online library: http://www.kagawa-jc.ac.jp/~steve_mc/epublist.html
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