April 2012 Volume 15 Number 2 - Educational Technology & Society

We mainly adopt the pattern language proposed by Fricke and Völter (2000). Their work of pedagogical patterns on
seminars is noted as a very successful pedagogical pattern language (Pedagogical Pattern Project, n.d.), which is
similar to the earlier one created by Alexander. Our pattern includes six sections (see Figure 3). The first section in
the middle top is the pattern name. The problem description is the core section of the pattern and is highlighted in
bold font in the second section. The third section used asterisks (*) to indicate the difficulty of the pattern
implementation. Each pattern is marked with one to five asterisks (from the easiest to the most difficult to enact).
The fourth section (below the ***) outlines the solution to the described problem as well as the consequences,
limitations, and drawbacks. The last section provides the examples on implementing the pattern. As in Fricke and
Völter’s patterns, references to other patterns in this language are highlighted in CAPITAL LETTERS.
RCKI principle-based pedagogical patterns
1. SPONTANEOUS PARTICIPATION
Students need to be given opportunities in a conducive environment to articulate their opinions, questions,
answers and comments spontaneously in a class lesson or activity. Students can view each other contributions
spontaneously as well.
*
Quick and lightweight tasks may provide better opportunities for motivating each student to contribute their own
ideas. Students realize that whatever they post or contribute can be seen by the whole class, so that they should be
responsible for their postings.
Examples from words/idioms/proverbs learning: The instructor can read out the words to the students, and
immediately students try to write them down and post them into the public board. The instructor or peers can give
instantaneous feedback. Students can help others to correct writing mistakes, and learn language skills from one
another by imitation.
Students can also be involved in contributing relevant or associated words around a central word or theme provided
by the instructor. They write down words or concepts associated with the central word or theme much like creating a
concept map.
2. MULTIMODAL EXPRESSION
It is often challenging for L2 learners or novice language learners to use or write characters or words to
express their own ideas because they do possess sufficient language capability.
*
With technology that supports multimodal forms of expression, the students can have an opportunity to choose
alternate ways to express themselves. Those students with low language proficiency can still contribute to group
work. Students, who are good at speaking, may know how to pronounce the word but without knowing how to write
it. In Chinese language learning, they are able to type out the Chinese words or directly write in Hanyu Pinyin. As
long as the content matches the topic, expressing ideas by drawing is also acceptable.
For example, after reading a piece of text, the instructor can ask students to generate a new ending for the story
based on their own interpretation of the original text. Students are also encouraged to draw animated pictures and
then provide a proper text description. This can encourage students to be engaged in the task as well as motivate
their peer groups to review and give comments for their work.
3. VOLUNTEERISM
Students may feel less motivated and show little initiative if they are not interested in the task assigned to
them. A task is decomposed into subtasks with which students can choose specific tasks to do, thus building up
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