Digital Transmission of Language and Culture: Rethinking Pedagogical Models for E-learning

1. Digital Transmission of Language and Culture:Rethinking Pedagogical Models for E-learning D. Victoria Rau & Meng-Chien Yang Providence University

2. Web-based interactive language learning materials • Southeast Asian languages: Henry & Zerwekh’s (2002) SEAsite (www.seasite.niu.edu) • Indonesian: Hoven’s (2003) MMInteraktif • Tagalog: McFarland’s (2006) CAI program for teaching Filipino

3. CALL and endangered languages • Ward & van Genabith’s (2003) working example of Nawat courseware, an endangered Uto-Aztecan language of El Salvador • Rau & Yang’s (2005-2007) Digital Archiving Yami Language Documentation, an endangered Austronesian language on Orchid Island

4. Developing a pedagogical e-learning model • Scollon & Scollon’s (2004) ethnographic nexus analysis • Three central tasks: engagement, navigation, and change • E-learning pedagogy • (1) the pedagogies of the e-learning, • (2) planning for e-learning • (3) e-learning implementation

5. Context • Austronesian Linguistics Seminar at Providence University since 1999 • Participants in Yami e-learning

6. University students E-learning Developers Learners Content Providers E-learning Website Community Members University Researchers

7. Significant cycles of discourse • (1) how the participants came to be placed at a particular moment and in a particular way to carry out a particular action; • (2) what aspects of the place were central or foregrounded as crucial to the action on which we were focusing and what aspects were backgrounded; • (3) what discourses in that place were central or foregrounded as crucial to the action on which we were focusing and what discourses were backgrounded; • (4) what discourses were ‘invisible’ in that action because they had become submerged in practices; • (5) what the history of a particular object was as a mediational means for that action; • (6) what the history of a particular concept was as a mediational means for that action.

8. Two significant cycles of discourse • (1) Classroom interactions • (2) Developer meetings

9. Classroom interactions • Language learning activities • Students’ homework assignment • Videotaping • Featuring the formal (instructor-led), technology-based, convivial, and directive-oriented ends of the learning.

10. Developer meetings • Two activities which brought changes to the relationship of the team. • (1) Co-teaching of a course on “Technology and Second Language Learning” • (2) Holding a workshop on Revitalizing Yami on Orchid Island

11. Changes • (1) what the key points were in the cycle where there was a change or a transformation (resemiotization) and what was happening in the intervals between those points as anticipations of (or reflections upon) those changes; • (2) what the material-physical timescales were on which those cycles operated and how those were constructed discursively by the participants; • (3) how those elements had just come together at just that moment to produce that particular action; • (4) whether the action under examination was a point at which resemiotization or semiotic transformation occurred; • (5) what the narrowest and widest timescales were on which that action depended.

12. The collaborative teaching experience led the PI to take two actions: • Transform her language pedagogy from more people-based to more technology-based and accelerate the process of developing the e-learning materials • Test the acquisition order of Yami morphology

13. The workshop led to three major actions taken by the co-PI: • to design the e-learning model based on his interviews with the instructors and the learners; • to organize a group of undergraduate computer science majors to work on an animation project for the e-learning; • to suggest the developers use the e-learning materials to study Yami for a year and pass the proficiency exam

14. The role of E-learning for an endangered language • An application of digital archiving and documentation • A tool for teaching an endangered language • An attempt to preserve an endangered language

15. Proposed Learning model for an endangered language

16. Six components in the model • Individual: The learners are the focus of the whole learning process. • Information: The whole documented materials related to the Yami language, including texts, recordings, video etc., provide the sources of information. • Cultural Practice: The learning is linked to unique Yami cultural items. • Social: As the learning process involves interactions with tutors and peers, the learning process can be described as collaborating or mutually beneficial activities. • Experience: The learners’ on-site experience will enhance their learning strategies and increase their Yami language proficiency. • Documenting and annotating: The learning is integrated into the process of documenting and annotating the Yami language.

17. Planning for E-learning • Collection of learning materials for the Yami language • Design of learning activities • Production of online materials

18. Developing the e-learning course • Analyze the learning goal of the learners and describe the characteristics of the learning activities. • Use the proposed model to highlight key components of the learning activities and map these highlighted components to a pedagogical template. • Use this pedagogical template to organize the learning materials and learning activities. The outcome of this step is a set of e-learning courses. • Refine the contextual links of these e-learning courses and provide specific information to these courses.

19. Introduction to Austronesian languages: Yami language • Course Characteristics: • Basic Yami structure • Yami lessons following a mixed grammatical and functional syllabus • Course instructor and Yami instructor give examples and lead the learning activities

20. Proposed model for the Course (grey circles vs. blue circles)

21. E-learning Implementation • The Yami language materials collected to build the e-learning platform include: • Yami language course materials by Rau et al. (2005), • sound tracks of each utterance in the forty lessons, • images and video clips collected by three Yami staff members (i.e. Dong and two recruited community members).

22. Current Components in e-learning platform • the Yami course materials, classified into three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced; in each lesson, the materials include the Yami text, Chinese and English translation, word analysis, grammar, learning activities, and exercises, • the Yami dictionary, organized in alphabetic order, • the system setting tool which includes the interface setting, the learning log setting, and the web display setting, • the online learning activities which students can use to practice on their own, • the virtual learning group which allows the students to email their learning logs to their own mailbox and the teacher’s mailbox.

23. Conclusion • The process of developing the e-learning program for Yami • The six components in e-learning design for endangered languages

24. Thank You