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Enhancing EFL Interaction in a Blended Learning Community of F2F Speaking Class and Student-Run Online Radio for EFL Intercation

Khairuddin

Introduction

To acquire a second or foreign language is to achieve communicative competence in

that language. Communicative competence which is a complex ability involving a lot of

aspects in interplay is even more complex in its acquiring process itself involving discourse

content, morphosyntax and lexis, discourse and information structuring, and the sound system

and prosody, as well as appropriate registers and pragmalinguistic features. The present

article discusses the complexity and acquisition of communicative competence through one

particular view point of sociocultural perspectives. It also discusses as its conclusion the

implication of sociocultural perspectives to classroom and school practices for consideration.

In addition, the writer discusses the principles of interaction and meaning negotiation in

second language learning. In the last part, yhe writer discussess about the concept of ICT

based language learning and its developmen in blended learning strategy.

SLA and Oral Communicative Competence

The end or destined goal of second or foreign language learning is communicative

competence. It is the ability to function in a truly communicative setting—that is, in a

dynamic exchange in which linguistic competence must adapt itself to the total informational

input, both linguistic and paralinguistic, of one or more interlocutors. Success in

communicative tasks depends largely on the individual’s willingness to express himself in the

foreign language, on his resourcefulness in making use of the lexical and syntactical items

which he has at his command, and on his knowledge of the paralinguistic and kinetic features

of the language—intonation, facial expression, gestures, and so on—which contribute to

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communication [Savignon 1977:8-9]. A discipline that describes and explains communicative

competence is Second Language Acquisition (SLA). SLA, although cannot be easily defined,

can be generally understood as the description and explanation of the learner’s linguistic or

communicative competence which is acquired either in a naturalistic or an instructional

setting (Ellis 1994:15). It is a discipline which studies the underlying theory or principles of a

subset of general human learning, involves cognitive variations, is closely related to one’s

personality type, is interwoven with second culture learning, and involves interference, the

creation of new linguistic systems, and the learning of discourse and communicative

functions of language (Brown 2000). Thus, good understanding of SLA process is

substantially needed in order to effectively develop communicative competence in a second

or foreign language.

Learning a second or foreign language speaking ability or oral communication, an

aspect of communicative competence which is a very important language skill for

international communication in the modern era, is a complex and cognitively demanding

undertaking and process. Oral communication which means negotiating intended meanings

and adjusting one’s speech to produce the desired effect on the listener (O’Malley & Pierce

1996), is a non-discrete, integrated skill that requires knowledge of aspects of language (such

as grammatical rules and phonemic rules), production skills (such as rhythm, intonation, and

vowel-to-vowel linking), and sociolinguistic or pragmatic points (such as how to take turn

politely, respond to a compliment, or show that one has understood) (Hughes, 2001). It

requires the learners to simultaneously attend to content, morphosyntax and lexis, discourse

and information structuring, and the sound system and prosody, as well as appropriate

registers and pragmalinguistic features (Tarone 2005). To have a successful communication,

in addition, learners need to adjust a large number of matters to do with culture, social

interaction, and the politeness in the target language (McCarthy & O’Keeffe 2004). Thus,

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speaking in a second or foreign language requires fluency, accuracy, and sufficient

lexicogrammatical repertoire for meaningful communication, as well as understanding

cultural, social, and political factors to speak appropriately in the new language.

Sociocultural Perspectives of Language Learning

One concept on the development of communicative competence that has increasingly

gained more impact on SLA over relatively recent years is sociocultural theorizing (Zuengler

& Miller 2006). According to Zuengler at. al. (2006), sosiocultural perspectives on language

and learning view language use in real-world situations as fundamental, not ancillary, to

learning. Several main sociocultural perspectives are Vigotskian sociocultural theory,

language socialization, learning as changing participation in situated practices, and Bakhtin

dialogic perspective (ibid.)

Vigotskyan sociocultural theory is often positioned as the primary theoretical

framework in learning theory (Smith 1991). Like traditional cognitive approaches to

learning, Vigotskian sociocultural theory is fundamentally concerned with understanding the

development of cognitive processes. However, the social dimension of consciousness (all

mental processes) is primary in time and fact, while the individual dimension of

consciousness is derivative and secondary (Vigotsky in Smith 1991). Although Vigotskyan

sociocultural theory does not deny a role for biological constraints, development does not

proceed as the unfolding of inborn capacities, but as the transformation of innate capacities

once they intertwine with socioculturally constructed mediational means (Lantolf & Pavlenko

1995).

In relation to language learning, Vigotsky believes that that learners’ linguistic

development occurs in the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The ZPD conceives the

understanding that when learners appropriate mediational means, such as language, made

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available as they interact in socioculturally meaningful activities, these learners gain control

over their own mental activity and can begin to function independently ( Zuengler & Miller,

2006). An individual can accomplish better linguistic development when working with

collaboration with others rather than what she or he could have accomplished without

collaboration with others (Zuengler & Miller 2006).

Language socialization is closely identified with Vigotskyan sociocultural approaches

to learning ((Watson-Gego 2004). The theory emerges from anthropology with an interest in

understanding the development of socially and culturally competent members of society. The

concept of language socialization perceives that the development of intelligence and

knowledge is facilitated to an extent by children’s communication with others, and emphasize

that sociocultural information that is generally encoded in the organization of conversational

discourse (Odd & Schefflin 1986). As such, language socialization believes that there are

interconnectedness processes of linguistic and cultural learning in discourse practices,

interactional routines, and participation structures and roles. Whether at home, in the

classroom, at work, or in any number of other environments, language learners are embedded

in and learn to become competent participants in culturally, socially, and politically shaped

communicative contexts. The linguistic forms used in these contexts and their social

significance affect how learners come to understand and use language (Zuengler & Miller

2006).

Another sociocultural perspective of language is the concept of community of practice

and legitimate peripheral participation. This perspective perceives that knowledge is not

something that is incrementally stored in an individual’s mind; however, it is to be

understood relationally, as located in the evolving relationships between people and the

settings in which they conduct their activities (Lave and Wanger 1991). Lave and Wanger

believe Individuals do not simply receive, internalize and construct knowledge in their minds

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but enact it as persons-in-the-world participating in the practices of a sociocultural

community. Accordingly, learning is an intrinsic and inseparable aspect of any social

practice, not the goal to be achieved, and it occurs when people engage in joint activity in a

community of practice (CoP), with or without teaching (Lave & Wanger 1991). Although

modes of participation in different CoPs may vary considerably, there are three defining

characteristics of a community of practice which can be identified: mutual engagement, joint

activity involving a collective process of negotiation, and shared repertoires (Wanger 1998).

Related to the concept of changing participation in a community of practice, the

concept of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) is used as a descriptor of engagement in

social practice that entails learning as an integral constituent (Lave 1998). LPP describes a

process in which newcomers acquire the skills to perform by actually engaging in the practice

in attenuated ways and move toward full participation by mastering the knowledge and skills

critical for that particular CoP. Thus, treating as LPP means that learning is seen as itself an

evolving form of membership. Individuals develop identities of mastery as they change in

how they participate in a CoP through the multiple social relations and roles they experience

(Lave & Wanger 1991).

The last sociocultural perspective of learning covered in this article is Bakhtin

dialogic perspective. Bakhtin dialogic perspective stresses the sociality of intellectual

processes and believes that language, for the individual consciousness, lies on the border

between oneself and the other (1981). Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism entails the mutual

participation of speakers and hearers in the constructions of utterances and the connectedness

of all utterances to past and future expressions. Thus, the linguistic resources we use and

learn can never be seen as merely part of a neutral and impersonal language; rather Bakhtin

viewed our use of language as an appropriation of words that at one time exist(ed.) in other

people’s mouth before we make them our own (Bakhtin 1981:293-294). Hall (2002) explains

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that in this view, an utterance can only be understood fully by considering its history of use

by other people, in other places for other reasons. Within this framework, Toohey (2000)

describes language learning as a process in which learners try on other people’s utterances;

they take words from other people’s mouths; they appropriate these utterances and gradually

(but not without conflict) these utterances come to serve their needs and relay their meanings.

Interaction, Negotiation of Meaning, and Language learning

The dynamics of interaction have been studied in most detail by Teresa Pica and her

colleagues (Pica 1987, 1992; Pica & Doughty 1985; Pica, Young & Doughty 1987). This

research which focuses on opportunities for learners to carry out repair strategies following

communicative problems, has revealed various conditions that favor or disfavor such

interactional modifications and has shown how it benefits comprehension. According to Pica

(1987), “What enable learners to move beyond their current interlanguage receptive and

expressive capacities when they need to understand unfamiliar linguistic input or when

required to produce a comprehensible message are opportunities to modify and restructure

their interaction with their interlocutor until mutual comprehension is rached”.

By resolving communicative problems through the use of interactional modifications

(requests for clarification or confirmation, comprehension checks, recasts, and other such

repairing moves), the learner obtains comprehensible input or makes new input available for

learning. Research has shown how learners actively work on the language to increase their

knowledge and proficiency.

Repair in interlanguage talk, might help to place repairing in the overall context of

interactional language use. First, repair work and adjustments can of various kinds can be

used to express convergence of perspectives among participants or to seek closure on a

problem (Ruddock 1991), not necessarily to make something incomprehensible. George Yule

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(1990) found that more-proficient interlocutors sometimes simply decide to give up on

certain problematic items in a task and move on. Therefore, repair may have results other

than increased comprehension, through increased comprehension can reasonably be regarded

as its chief aim.

Second, the preponderance of repair (in the highly visible form of interactional

modifications) may be the result of the type of discourse investigated. The activities of

communication tasks in which participants (often a native speaker and a nonnative speaker)

need to exchange information leads to interaction that is usually both assymetrical and

unequal, an environment in which explicit repair, with imbalances tends to be salient. A

similar focus on repair can be seen in the analysis by Michel Moerman (1988) of interaction

among native speakers of Thai. He concludes that “repair is of central importance to the

organization of conversation”. Indeed, ethnomethodological analyses of repair and related

matters in conversation indicate a strong preference for self-repair and an avoidance of overt

reactive repair, that is, repair that follows communication problems (Heritage 1984).

Third, the interactional activity of repairing must be placed in its social context.

Repairing, an attempt to achieve mutual understanding in the face of problems is one set of

actions among many that that manifest orientation toward mutual engagement (inter-

subjectivity) and symmetry. Repairing occurs in response to the perception of those troubles.

But since troubles should be avoided in the first place, it makes sense to focus attention also

on other mechanisms for achieving mutual understanding and intersubjectivity. It makes no

sense, from a discourse-analytical or a pedagogical perspective, to assign special status to an

activity that is undertaken only when other, more-preferred activities have been successful.

To use an analogy, ice-skaters are judged more on how they skate than on how they pick

themselves up after falling on the ice.

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Success in interaction—that is, the achievement of mutual understanding,

contingency, and intersubjectivity—is dependant on the skillful use of all relevant social and

linguistic resources, including contextualization cues and those that create contingency.

These resources can be divided into three categories (van Lier 2002).

Proactive (planning, predicting) Opening sequences (By the way; do you know what?) Cataphora (Now; Listen to this) Grounders and preparers (OK, three points I wanna make) Strategic moves (let me give you an example) Concurrent (making signals during own’s or another person’s turn) Back channels (Uhuh; Hm) Gaze (eye contact, looking away) Turnover signals (let me finish; What do you think?) Empathy markers (Oh; Wow; Really) Reactive (summarizing, rephrasing, wrapping up) Repair and correction (Do you mean..? Actually it’s..) Demonstrations of understanding (Oh; I see) Gists and upshots (So; In a nutshell; what you’re saying is)

The relation between interaction and learning are not explained by this list or, indeed any

other that might be devised. But at the very least the analysis shows that the concept of

negotiation may need to be expanded from Pica’s definition: “When a listener signals to a

speaker that the speaker’s message is not clear, and listener and speaker wor interactively to

resolve this impasse” (1992). Negotiation includes the proactive and concurrent resources for

utterance design, as well as reactive resources other than repair. Repair is thus the only one

among many forms of negotiation of meaning.

A fourth and final considerations goes to the very foundations of learning and its

relation to the environment. Almost all the work in applied linguistics that addresses the role

of input and interaction assumes an input-output model of communication and learning (Ellis

1994). This model is based on a view of language use as the transfer of linguistic matter from

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one person to another and largely ignores issues of reciprocity and contingency. Being

basically a transmission model (as words like input and out put indicate), it does not address

learning as transformation and language learning as grammaticalization. It is likely that the

true role of interaction in learning and the true sense of what Vygotsky meant by the zone of

proximal development can be revealed only through an organic or ecological approach

(Gibson 1979; Bowers and Flinders 1990). In such an approach, notions like contingency and

symmetry will be central, and overt acts of repairing will be epiphenomenal (Marcus &

Zajonc 1985; Graumann 1990; Platt & Brooks 1994). Linguistic matter in the environment, to

the extent that the learner has access to it (Van Lier1996), provides affordances to the active

and perceptive learner. Whether or not such affordances are packaged as repair sequences is

likely to be a minor issue.

Interaction is particularly beneficial for learning when it is contingent. Symmetrical

interaction is naturally contingent in a variety of ways, but asymmetrical interaction is

deficient in contingency. Unequal discourse partners tend to find it more difficult to orient

their interaction toward symmetry; as a result their interactions often look like IRF (initiation,

response, feedback) sequences or interviews where one of the partners takes a controlling

role.

Language learning depends on the access learners have to relevant language material

(affordances) in the environment and on internal conditions like motivation. Social

interaction is the prime external condition to ensure access and learners’ active engagement.

Contingent interaction provides an intrinsic motivation for listening (Sacks, Schgloff, &

Jefferson 1975). Learners’ natural learning processes, through the desire to understand and be

understood, synchronize with efficient perception and focusing. Learners will be vigilant

toward linguistic features and will make an effort to be pragmatically precise yet ambiguous

where ambiguity is needed. Grammaticalization is thus a natural by-product of contingent

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interaction. To put this idea in the strongest possible (though of course hypothetical) terms:

the organic, self-regulating process of contingent interaction is a necessary and sufficient

condition for language development to occur.

There are physical and institutional constraints that tend to minimize the possibilities

for meaningful interaction between teachers and students. In Gidden’s structuration theory,

constraints ideally direct and guide, facilitating the deployment of resources. But in a

defective institution (definable as one in which constraints and resources are out of balance),

constraints may obstruct the very purposes for which they were brought into being. Against

constraint of this second type, the teacher must marshal all the resources, meager though they

often appear to be, that are available to provide learning opportunities to students. As the

history of educational reform movements shows, large scale reforms tend to achieve little

transformation of the status quo. But grassroots, bottom-up innovations, usually based on

individual initiative, can produce dramatic results, albeit at the local level only.

Marshaling available resources to promote rich and varied interaction with and among

students must be the individual responsibility of every teacher. For teacher development this

responsibility means the promotion of pedagogical thoughtfulness or tact, a mindful,

understanding orientation in dealings with students and an ability to act wisely. Many

teachers have responded to calls for more interactive and responsive ways of teaching by

reducing their teacher-fronted activities and increasing leaner-learner interaction through

cooperative learning and task-based learning. In current jargon, they have become a guide on

the side instead of a sage in the stage.

However, before we swing the pendulum from teacher-centered entirely to teacher-

peripheral, it may be worth reflecting on what the optimal roles of a teacher should be.

Learners need, in addition to peer interaction, direct interaction with the teacher, provided it

is quality interaction. If we ask learners, many will say that they want lectures, explanations

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and other forms of explicit teacher guidance. And we should neglect the universal power of

stories (Egan 1986).

The answer to a disproportionate of highly controlling and depersonalized teacher talk

is not to minimize all teacher talk per se but to find ways to modify it in more contingent

directions. In addition, teacher-;earner interaction, such as initiation, respond and feedback,

that is designed for scaffolding learner’s language use (cognitively or socially)must contain

within it the seeds of handover (Bruner 1983), that is, the teacher must continually be on the

lookout for signs that learners are ready to be more autonomous language users.

The classroom must regularly provide learners with opportunities to engage in

symmetrical interactions, since such interactions immerse learners in contextualized and

contingent talk, and since these interactions are intrinsically motivating and attention

focusing. Symmetrical interactions are most easily achieved when the interlocutors are equal

in status and proficiency, but equality is not always essential. Research also suggests that

inequality in proficiency can be counterbalanced by having the less proficient speaker carry

the main burden of information transfer.

Blended Learning

Latest development of language learning theory of sociocultural perspectives and

technology has brought language education and language education research to the whole

new level of playing field in blended or hybrid learning theory where the two worlds meet

like they have never done before. Blended learning theory has begun to turf or fill up

significant gaps in ELT issues. Firstly, in the instructional activities, blended theory which

makes optimal use of technology has drawn significant links between classroom-based

instruction and activities with more dynamic and natural social constructionist principles

(Jung Jung 2008). Besides acquiring knowledge in a guided classroom setting, students can

also experience learning as negotiation and changing of participation in a situated community

of practice. Secondly, as the result of seeing technology not as tool but as (part of) pedagogy ,

the attitudes of “we are us and they are them” between face-to-face instruction and online

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learning have melted down. Technology related educational research orientation has shifted

from emphasis or focus on differentiating and comparing the impact between traditional

instruction and online learning, to incorporating and combining and maximizing the

effectiveness and potentials of both environments to benefit the students’ learning

achievement and expand learning theory (Garrison & Vaugham 2008 p. x in Martins 2011).

Blended or hybrid instruction has given effective impact in enhancing language

learning achievement for many types of learners from at-risk learners, low-level learners of

K12 to students in graduate studies (Navehebrahim and Ghani 2011). Hybrid instruction

refers to a carefully planned blend of traditional classroom instruction of both traditional

classroom instruction and online learning activities and represents an innovative curricular

facet that takes into account recent trends in foreign language education such as student-

centered, engaged, and active learning, enhanced proficiency, and computer-assisted

language learning (ibid.) Both environments of F2F instruction and online activities present

adaptive complex systems (Jung Jung et al. 2008) in hybrid learning. Distinct patterns of

leadership exist in the two environments. Leadership usually centers around the teacher in the

F2F classes. Classroom interactive dynamics are essentially centered on the teacher who in

general controls the turn-taking dynamics, meanwhile in online activities leadership is more

decentralized; there is a greater participation of learners in online classes (ibid.) Blended

learning can be used to enhance EFL learners’ learning outcome in content subject instruction

of English literature (Kraemer 2008). Pimberton (2005) designed and applied technological

support systems for language learning using the facilities of interactive television in hybrid

learning environment. Susanto (2010) developed hybrid learning community for scaffolding

an EFL effective writing class. Olivier (2011) used blended learning for accommodating and

promoting multilingualism.

Conclusion

SLA and communicative competence development are a complex and cognitively

demanding processes involving a vast array of interconnected aspects of language, production

skills, social interaction, and culture. Various sociocultural understanding of language

learning offers much different recommendations for improving language learning and

developing communicative competence. Unlike the traditional cognitive perspectives which

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focus more on individual cognition, sociocultural perspective focus more on social cognition.

These sociocultural perspectives in general, see learning in concert as social, participatory,

relational and interactive. For language teachers and as one himself who are concerned with

the oral communicative competence of our students, the writer suggests we bring

sociocultural atmospheres of language learning into every stages of learning. We should

examine classroom interactions or discourse patterns with an eye toward identifying those

that facilitate student participation. As language educators we should consider how the

practices of schools relate to those outside of school; how schools and classroom themselves

are organized into communities of practice; what kinds of participation are made accessible

to students; how we could provide teacher’s or experts’ guided or scaffolding assistance that

can move students along within their zone of proximal development; how we could increase

the effectiveness of goal oriented dialogue between peers to mediate learning; and how we

could apply approaches to language assessment that is dialogic and contextually sensitive. In

relation to interaction, language learning opportuninties should regularly engage learners in

symmetrical interactions, contextualized and contingent talk, and also involve more

proficient speakers too where the interlocutors are equal in status and proficiency.

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BLENDED LEARNING

Zone of Proximal Development, Community of Practice

Interaction

Meaning Negotiation

IMPROVED SPEAKING ABILITY

OUTLINE OF THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

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