Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

English as an International Language 103
Rene: Ohp! ((looking at Dante and smiling)) [Pokemon.
Teacher: And you have to tell me {why the –a- is sho:rt.
David: [Chancy. (.) I got it
Teacher: You need to li:sten. ((looking at David))
Rene: Cause the –c-
(1.0)
Rene: The –y-
(Rymes, 2004: 209)
As Rymes points out, while the teacher is comfortable carrying out the
routine of ‘little known-answers initiation questions’ (Rymes, 2004: 330),
she ignores the reference to the popular game, scolding David for his recognition
and reminding him he needs to listen. In the end, Rymes concedes
that it can be disconcerting for anyone to forego their expertise
status, but much could be gained if teachers would let learners be the
experts in areas of popular culture that the teachers are unfamiliar with.
A second obstacle to the use of technology in the L2 classroom is documented
by Turbill (2001) who began his research by trying to investigate
how teachers of young children are incorporating technology into their
early literacy classes. However, after fi nding very little use of technology
in early literacy classes, he changed his focus to studying why teachers
fi nd it diffi cult to incorporate technology into their literacy classrooms.
Working with one kindergarten classroom in Sydney, he and the classroom
teacher tried to incorporate the use of technology into the students’
two-hour Literacy Block. In the process Turbill encountered a variety of
obstacles including long wait periods for web pages to download into the
computer, old computers needing to be rebooted to work properly, about
half of the children not having computers at home and, hence, being unfamiliar
with how to operate a computer, insuffi cient number of computers,
and a large number of students in the classes.
While such practical concerns are disconcerting, when Turbill and the
classroom teacher did fi nally manage to get children to use the computer
for the reading programs, he found some signifi cant advantages in the use
of technology. For example, he regularly saw how as children become
more familiar with the storyline and visual texts of stories they were reading,
they begin ‘talking more about the characters, predicting what is
going to happen in the storyline and in the animations’ (Turbill, 2001: 269).
Turbill also found that as the children gain familiarity with the text and
the format of the activities, the teacher could leave them alone to work in
groups reading their favorite books. In the end, Turbill concludes that for
technology to be effectively used in the classroom, certain factors have to
exist. Teachers need the time and training to consider how to incorporate
technology into their language-learning activities. Teachers need to reconceptualize
their view of literacy and move beyond a ‘focus on learning to