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Reconstructing the teaching of language: a view 

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Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1999 

Reconstructing the Teaching of Language: 

a view informed by the problems of 

traditional literacy in a digital age 

RONALD SOETAERT & BART BONAMIE 

University of Ghent, Belgium 

ABSTRACT In the authors’ work at the University of Ghent they focus on the 

problem of cultural literacy in a digital age. In the first part of this article they 

confront the reader with recent complaints about our postmodern culture, 

mainly inspired by a back-to-basics movement. In the second part they 

consider or ‘problematise’ literacy in a postmodern and post-print society. In 

the third part they focus on ‘language and literature’ in a digital age – 

questioning the profession of language and literature teachers today. In the 

fourth part they try to describe how digital screens change our attitude 

towards books, culture and education in general, and writing and reading in 

particular. Changes in technology influence how we consider literacy in 

general and our ideas about learning and teaching in particular. In the fifth 

part they describe different new roles for teachers which have been influenced 

and even created by the digital revolution. From their educational viewpoint, 

the authors suggest a new kind of literacy is needed, starting from the fact 

that literacy is always constructed – situated – in a particular context. The 

discussion about the progress or the decline of our literacy should be situated 

in a historical, contextual framework. A historical perspective teaches us that 

literacy is a process rather than a product. When we know where our 

concepts of literacy come from, and how they are embedded in a cultural 

context, we will be able to understand how it evolves. Only such an 

understanding can provide an adequate basis for discussing the issues of 

language teaching and teacher training with new technologies and media. 

Complaining, Blaming, Curing 

Complaining 

Comparatively few people today – in Western societies – are considered 

illiterate. Yet ‘cultural’ literacy is considered a major problem in our 

contemporary society (Soetaert & Top, 1996). At universities, in schools, in 

bars, in newspapers, magazines and talk shows people are complaining 

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Ronald Soetaert & Bart Bonamie 

about the decline of cultural literacy. In particular, people working in 

literary circles and the artistic world – in general, people sharing good taste 

– are complaining that high culture no longer counts and no longer affects 

society. All of this is part of the ‘culture of complaint’, probably also the 

typical complaint discourse of getting older. 

The complaints are also inspired by ‘taste’. A quick glance at several 

books and articles reveals that we really can differ in taste. Good taste in 

some recent ‘complaint books’ is described as a manifestation of human 

sensibility toward the world. And good taste is said to be in danger today. 

Browsing through a bestseller by Alan Bloom (1987), we find ample 

illustrations of the way the discourse of complaint works. About the good 

old teacher: ‘The old teachers who loved Shakespeare or Austen or Donne, 

and whose only reward for teaching was the perpetuation of their taste, have 

all but disappeared’ (Bloom, 1987, p. 65). About the ‘classical’: ‘Classical 

music is now a special taste, like Greek language or pre-Columbian 

archaeology, not a common culture of reciprocal communication and 

psychological shorthand’ (Bloom, 1987, p. 68). The central idea was 

summarised by Postman (1985) in his Amusing Ourselves to Death – 

another best-selling book – and the ideas are echoes from Bloom’s 

lamentation: ‘But, in the meantime, any notion of the serious life of leisure, 

as well as men’s taste and capacity to love it had disappeared. Leisure 

became entertainment’ (Bloom, 1987, p. 78). 

Blaming 

Who is to blame? There are a lot of possible scapegoats: postmodernism, 

capitalism, the commercial market, intellectuals, education in 

general/teachers in particular, (the disappearance of) the nuclear family/the 

nation, academia, (over)specialised discourse at the university and art 

criticism, art itself, critical theory, etc. And all these blameworthy 

institutions, people, disciplines and philosophies are deeply intertwined, 

forming an institutional network. 

Of course, education is always the major scapegoat: inadequately 

trained teachers, for some; an irrelevant curriculum, for others; a trivial 

curriculum; a trivial methodology obsessed by short-sighted aims. And, of 

course, among the usual suspects, the media are very often mentioned: 

mindless TV and subcultures with CDs, computers, computer games, etc. 

Bloom summarised his complaint in a direct attack on youth culture: ‘But as 

long as they have the Walkman on, they cannot hear what the great 

tradition has to say. And, after its prolonged use, when they take it off, they 

find that they are deaf’ (Bloom, 1987, p. 81). Let us replace the Walkman by 

the computer and we can imagine what Bloom would have suggested: young 

people have gone blind once they finally look up from the screen. Blind at 

least to the beauty of traditional cultural heritage. 

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Curing 

RECONSTRUCTING LANGUAGE TEACHING 

These laments are accompanied by a litany of cures. Arguing against 

postmodern and progressive educational philosophy, E. D. Hirsch (1988) 

stresses the importance of ‘our’ cultural heritage for education. He 

introduces the concept of ‘cultural literacy’ as an essential basis for learning 

and complains about the fact that in our contemporary education we have 

overstressed skills – and have too much naive faith in our students’ 

competence to learn general knowledge and skills based on a few examples 

of good practice, a few experiences (the founding father of this model is 

John Dewey). Skills – according to Hirsch – cannot be taught separately 

from knowledge. And Hirsch created a list. A descriptive and prescriptive list 

of the knowledge shared by literate people (American, in the case of Hirsch, 

who also stresses the importance of a national perspective on cultural 

literacy). So the cure for Hirsch is a simple remedy: we have to teach again 

traditional ‘myths and facts’, described as ‘the oxygen of social intercourse’ 

(Hirsch, 1988, p. xii). Cultural literacy – according to back-to-basics – creates 

a common ground for discussion, a shared knowledge. We want to argue 

that such a quick fix is impossible – and is inadequate for the complex 

problems we are confronted with. 

Stimulated by the back-to-basics movement, there have been lots of 

activities focused on the development of literacy and numeracy. However, 

these initiatives have very often been focused on traditional forms of 

literacy, and even have been critical of recent developments in media and 

digital literacy. The modern and postmodern forms of literacy were even 

represented as ‘enemies’ of traditional literacy. 

‘Problematising’ 

Post-times 

A lot of trends in our Western society can be characterised by the prefix 

‘post-‘. Postmodern philosophers describe postmodernism as the loss of 

belief in ‘grand narratives’ and the consequent disintegration of 

communication into ‘language games’ (Lyotard, 1979). Economists describe 

our post-industrial society as a culture in which manpower has been 

replaced by information and automatisation, from ‘manufacturing’ to 

‘mentofacturing’, for which we need a new job class of ‘symbolic-analytic 

workers’. The world system of nation states is being transformed by the 

growing globalisation with important consequences, not only in terms of 

economy and commerce but also in the realms of culture and education. As 

a consequence of globalisation, modern national education can no longer be 

limited to cultural chauvinism. Of course, this will influence language 

teaching. 

The new media are likewise transforming cultures and politics. Time 

and space are compressed; new global networks create new identities; 

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‘network’ has become the dominant metaphor of our times. And these new 

media are described as post-print. Indeed, changes in technology trigger 

changes in literacy. 

A dominant recurring metaphor is the border/boundary metaphor. In 

the field of education, the lack of consensus about what should be in the 

curriculum or be taught, is mirrored by a series of ‘border conflicts’ or 

‘border blurrings’. A glance (in fact an Internet search) on the ‘titles’ of 

recent conferences and titles of books and articles, shows us how many 

‘border blurrings’ are high on the agenda: between teacher/professor & 

pupil/student, between elite and popular cultures, between arts/media, 

between consumer and producer, between textual and audio/visual, between 

‘real’ and ‘virtual’…. 

Our Language Teaching On-Line (LTOL) project focused on how the 

concept of literacy has been changed by these border blurrings. 

Problematising Literacy 

What is happening to literacy? Literacy will be deeply influenced by a few 

major shifts: an international, global and multicultural shift in our economy, 

politics and culture; a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary shift in the 

academic world; a technological shift in all that we do, how we work, play 

and teach …. Because of all these shifts, we are faced with very complex 

problems. We cannot work within the traditional categories. The content will 

be questioned or ‘problematised’ and so we need new ways of reconfiguring 

literacy. 

From a historical perspective, we learn how our definitions of literacy 

change over the years, inspired by the information and communication 

needs of a particular society. From this perspective, we learn how the print 

culture constructed a kind of literacy in the past, and how computer 

technology deeply problematises the concept of literacy. More than ever, we 

are confronted today with multiliteracies – but more and more the 

digitalisation of all communication and information unites all these literacies 

on the computer screen. 

Problematising Technology/Media 

Today, our attitude toward technology is very often inspired by nostalgia for 

the print culture in general and even the smell and looks of books, paper, 

pens, etc. This nostalgia at the turn of the Millennium makes us worry about 

recent technological evolutions. The technological revolution is said to make 

children blind to our print-based cultural heritage. But we should not take 

technology on board blindly, we should open our eyes to the fact that 

technology creates culture. We should realise that the media in which we 

are socialised very often make us blind to the cultural characteristics of their 

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technology. We hardly realise that even books can be considered as tools, as 

a kind of technology. The first thing we have to do is look back at the 

development of the printing press and redescribe the book as a tool or as a 

teaching machine (McLuhan, 1964). Indeed, the invention of the printing 

press confronted the public with similar questions and doubts we have 

today: could a book be an ideal tool for learning? Could students trained in 

silent reading measure up to the skills of the past: a period of orality, a 

period of slow reading? (McLuhan, 1964). We should realise that books and 

reading/writing created a particular ‘situated’ literacy, constructing at the 

same time modern academic scholarship and modern science. Schools, 

universities and libraries as we know them today were institutionalised. The 

invention and the development of books are also linked to the construction 

of nationalism, the appearances of national libraries and museums, literary 

canons, national histories, the ‘emergence’ of classes, capitalism, secularism, 

colonialism, individualism, copyright, etc. Democracy created mass literacy. 

The industrial revolution and printing shaped modernism in such a way that 

it looked like a ‘natural space’ we are living in. Changing these tools creates 

a feeling of nostalgia. And new tools create new emotions, new biases, new 

feelings of naturalness (Ong, 1982). There is a fatal attraction of nostalgia, 

and the usual suspect is technology. 

We have to move away from technophobia (certainly in the humanities, 

languages, social sciences) and try to become technophilic. One possible way 

to do that is to redefine the relation between technology – tools – and 

creativity, to redefine the borders between technology and art. 

From a traditional perspective, there is a gap between the two; from a 

postmodern perspective both can be connected. It is precisely in the digital 

world that the borders between art and technology have been blurred. 

Becoming an artist in the digital age implies very often some form of 

technological competence. Probably the separation between technological 

competence and any other expertise or discipline will become more and 

more vague. 

In our project we focused on two obsessions in education: the crisis in 

cultural literacy and the power of computers. Some conservative 

educationalists ignore computers; they consider modern technology to be 

the prime suspect in their complaints about the crisis in modern times (the 

literacy debates in the 1980s). Some progressive thinkers introduce the 

computer as a solution to this crisis. 

But we should also dissociate ourselves from utopian thoughts: 

‘Political utopias are a form of nostalgia for an imagined past projected on 

the future as a wish’ (Otterspeer, cited in Ignatieff, 1991, p. 43). Technology 

will not lead us to paradise but (hopefully) not to hell either. 

We would like to defend a common-sense thought: technology is not 

bad or good in itself, it is the way we use technology that determines the 

value. But we cannot escape technology, there is no happy ending, literacy 

cannot be completed ‘because there is nothing to complete, there is only a 

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web of relations to be rewoven, a web which time lengthens every day’ 

(Rorty, 1989, pp. 42–43). 

Media Literacy 

We are all confronted with the ubiquity of media in our society. Mass media 

create a window on the world; more and more we have to recognise that 

media also construct our image of this world. Education must meet the 

challenge of introducing students to a new kind of media literacy. This is 

one of the most serious challenges as we enter the twenty-first century. This 

‘new kind’ of literacy should include visual and audio literacy. Inevitably, 

this implies a different kind of print or textual literacy. To broaden the 

concept of literacy implies – for some – a dilution of our skills in textual 

literacy. 

The plea for taking mass media seriously is about more than radio, 

television, film … the Internet (primarily via the World Wide Web) has 

changed the landscape of mass media. There is a major difference: the 

political pressure to take the technological revolution seriously in education 

is greater than ever, since it is prompted by the importance of this 

revolution for the economy. 

More and more communication and information is presented in a 

digital environment so we should be aware of the fact that citizens who 

cannot participate in cyberspace will be functionally illiterate. We are 

becoming aware that those who tend to lag behind in technology will be the 

have-nots of the future. Not having access to the Internet will create a gap. 

The network reorganises our power relationships (Castells, 1996; 

Castells et al, 1999). We have to make vision statements in which we 

envision a future culture and pedagogy. Apart from theorising, we also have 

to create ‘practice’. Teaching new skills will be a prerequisite. 

From the perspective of ‘knowledge’, we should stress the importance 

of understanding: 

o the role of information and communications technology (ICT) for society 

(production, control, reception of information); 

o the role of ICT for policy making and entertainment (the creation of a 

public sphere); 

o the role of ICT for different institutions (school, library, mass media ...) 

and disciplines (science, art, humanities ...); 

o the role of ICT for individuals (personal, professional). 

And all this implies a deep understanding of how individuals and institutions 

manipulate information, how new discourses and rhetoric emerge, how tools 

create information and of course we need to evaluate all these 

transformations. 

Looking at literacy more broadly implies taking into account the 

‘knowledge work’ we have to perform. This kind of work implies a more 

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complex kind of literacy. In this phase of the process we tend to 

conceptualise these skills as being additional, but they are rapidly becoming 

elementary in our society (as rudimentary as the print-based skills). Indeed, 

the skills and the ability to use computers to improve learning, productivity 

and performance have become as fundamental as more traditional skills. Yet, 

we want to stress the importance of relating digital literacies with traditional 

literacies but then we should reconceptualise the print-based literacy not as 

‘natural’ skills but as part of a culturally constructed literacy. 

We need to review our understanding of literacy skills for today’s 

students. Indeed, they will be working in a different workplace – in a new 

digital world. Just as students of the past needed support in learning the 

essential skills of functional literacy (pen, paper and books), students of 

today need to learn how to manage computers (word processors, databases, 

the Internet). 

Language plays an important role in this literacy revolution. So we can 

summarise the problem by asking three simple questions: 

o How do new genres change our definitions of literacy? 

o How are language and language teaching altered by the digital 

revolution? 

o How do teachers behave during these revolutionary times? 

In the next two parts of this article we focus on language and literature 

(teaching) and the role of teachers in the digital world. 

Language and Literature in a Digital Age 

What happens to language and culture on the computer screen? How do 

computers change our literacy? How have language learning and teaching 

been influenced by digitalisation? 

Before dealing with these questions, we would like to ask a 

fundamental question: how did our discipline change? The recent digital 

revolution should be embedded in what already happens in our discipline: 

the study of language and literature. 

Our view is inspired by a simple question: are we only going to use the 

Internet to teach culture in a traditional way or can we capitalise on its 

potential to give students access to new kinds of culture(s)? 

Problematising Our Profession 

Our profession – language and literature teaching – is in crisis, at least 

described from a traditional perspective or compared – as in back-to-basics – 

with an ideal and probably idealised past. We share these troubled times 

with other disciplines, because this crisis is embedded in a complex 

postmodern culture and is part of economical, social and political 

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developments. Very often, anxiety in a culture is caused by a fundamental 

technological change. 

In education, too, we are confronted with some major changes: 

democracy has changed education, even classrooms have become more 

democratic owing to a learner-centred perspective. Efforts to create national 

and international standards have proved to be very complex and probably 

ineffective. 

But why are language and literature in particular under such heavy 

pressure? Because the core of the discipline – books, literature, the literary 

canon, traditional writing and reading – is under heavy attack: ‘Perhaps the 

real question for literary study now is not whether our students will be 

reading Great Traditional Books or Relevant Modern ones in the future, but 

whether they will be reading books at all’ (Lanham, 1993, p. 3). Indeed, it is 

not surprising that ‘we should demonstrate more than the usual anxiety at 

the advent of emerging technologies. In our weakened state, what will these 

technologies do in English? To text? To books? To research? To teaching?’ 

(Moran, 1998, p. 203). 

Piling up information is not the ideal easy solution for the complex 

problems in cultural literacy, rather it is part of the problem. Hirsch’s list 

consists of the core knowledge possessed by the common reader. We would 

like to add that Hirsch assumes the select ‘common reader’ of elitist 

knowledge. But how will we decide what exactly will be included and 

excluded from the list? Whose list are we defending? What exactly do we 

mean by the common reader? What exactly do we mean when we say 

‘cultural literacy’? Is there a list that is not cultural at all? 

Hirsch’s list is a myth from the past (in which the ‘list’ and the 

‘common reader’ are presented as natural phenomena, not as cultural 

constructions). Learning the appropriate cultural literacy was an opportunity 

for people belonging to a certain class, or people wanting to become a 

member of that particular class. A past in which the literary canon was the 

king’s road to all teaching – language teaching in particular. 

In back-to-basics there is a deep nostalgia for the return of ‘the 

Arbiter’: ‘he who knows what’s good and why, and can place every form of 

cultural expression in its natural order’ (Bérubé, 1998, p. 93 citing Bloom, 

1994). Elitist discourse may reduce all popular or alternative culture 

because the arbiters of this elitist discourse do not participate in the 

discourse of those communities. But the new networks and communities 

also create a productive discourse: a space for creating a new culture and a 

new elite or probably new elites. 

Problematising Art/Technology 

The critical reception of art very often creates a dualistic art/artefact 

distinction between high and low. When we focus on ‘taste’, we realise that 

130



the boundaries between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are historically constructed by an 

institutional cultural network. 

Today we are witnessing a deconstruction of the conventional 

classification of art into high and low, fine and applied. The concept of ‘true’ 

art was often used as a kind of ‘litmus test of the level of civilisation a group 

of people had supposedly achieved’ (Philips & Steiner, 1999, p. 7). We 

realise that perceptions of objects of art change over time and today we 

problematise ‘the slippery line that divides art from artefact from 

commodity’ (Philips & Steiner, 1999, p. 15). Media play an important role in 

this transformation of art, in this blurring of traditional borders. 

Problematising Language Teaching 

Technological changes have been in the air for many years but they rarely 

impress language and literature teachers, who – in general – have been 

boasting about their indifference to technology. But today technology is 

pushing us. Society expects us to prepare our students for the job market. 

Language teachers are expected to train students and are obliged to 

reflect upon ‘what they need to know and what they need to be able to do, 

with respect to things that are in our domain – and our domain is the 

domain of textuality’ (Scholes, 1998, p. 65). They need to be literate in a 

traditional sense (reading, writing, listening, speaking) but also ‘across a 

various and complex network of different kinds of writing and various media 

of communication’ (Scholes, 1998, p. 130). Society is looking for productive 

fields of knowledge and study, for skills that matter in the new economy 

(post-industrial). Language teaching is obliged to ‘instrumentalise’, to 

present justification for what is being taught. 

So, language teachers have to regain their prestige not only by 

referring to the past but by suggesting an agenda for the future. Today, 

teachers are obliged to pay attention to ‘rhetorical techniques of 

interpretation that can be applied to a variety of cultural texts’ (Bérubé, 

1998, p. 25). We must learn ‘to build departments whose interests and 

objectives are less at odds with their immediate public responsibilities’ 

(Bérubé, 1998, p. 111). Very often language departments at universities tell 

their students they will learn to become ‘independent thinkers who will 

fearlessly question the established beliefs and institutions of their society – 

but that, additionally, they will acquire the skills that will qualify them for 

the profession. If you study English, you will learn how to see through 

corporate capitalism while qualifying for a job at IBM!’ (Graff, cited in 

Bérubé, 1998, pp. 144–145). The link between these two ‘promises’ should 

be less mysterious. The missing link can be found by taking the digital 

revolution as seriously as a cultural revolution. 

We suggest that new disciplines such as cultural studies and discourse 

analysis can help us in reconstructing our profession (Soetaert & Van 

Kranenburg, 1998). In this search for a new prestige, it is necessary to come 

131



up with convincing rationales, rationales that also can convince the general 

public. We would like to stress the fact that the study of languages and 

culture in particular can teach us a kind of critical literacy towards new 

media. 

Apart from the fact that the new media will have deep implications for 

artistic expression, we can also experience how in art and language the 

expressions of the future are explored and constructed. The cultural 

heritage will be influenced by these new interfaces: ‘Hypertext is invading 

the traditional realms of content provision in data, text, sound, and video. It 

is changing the rules of space-based storage, distribution, and delivery of 

books, records, tapes, video and film’ (De Kerckhove, 1997, p. xxviii). 

Digitalisation has dematerialised traditional memory-support devices such as 

books, tapes and records … Indeed, we are witnessing a major shift in 

culture, from memory-based to intelligence-based production: ‘We are 

moving from the era of ‘replay’ to that of ‘remake’. We are developing 

computer-assisted cognitive habits and computer-assisted forms of 

collaboration – new forms, in fact, of connectedness’ (De Kerckhove, 1997, 

p. xxix). 

How will technology transform content? Or enhance a transformation 

that has already started? As the new media are reinventing culture, they also 

reinvent the ‘disciplines’ we are teaching, the institutions in which we are 

teaching, the way in which we are learning. Indeed, new media are more 

about access and connectedness; new media are also content-driven. 

In producing information, we all share the digital code (1s and 0s). 

Because all these 1s and 0s can be changed, fixed ‘truth’ has been 

problematised. The results are contingent, transformable and situated truths. 

So, the arts and humanities become a province of rhetoric: ‘Rhetoric 

becomes … a general theory for all the arts, and, as well, the structure for a 

central curriculum in the arts and letters’ (Lanham, 1993, p. 16). For 

Lanham, languages are leading the dance; that ‘the arts, and the theoretical 

debate that tags along after them, have done the leading, and digitisation 

has emerged as their condign embodiment’ (Lanham, 1993, p. 51). ‘Leading 

the dance’ is a nice compliment for language teachers, but leadership asks 

for a vision. 

Teaching Languages and Literature in a Digital Age 

Book and Screen 

It is difficult to make prophecies but we cannot deny or escape the fact that 

new technologies affect the way we use language, and how new genres and 

discourses are emerging. From this perspective, it is tempting to start 

thinking about what is happening with reading and writing because 

computers have a major impact on these skills. 

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What have we learned so far? Before addressing this question for 

future scenarios, we would like to link some recent ideas with ideas from the 

past. 

If we are indeed witnessing a revolution comparable to the Gutenberg 

revolution, we should also be able to learn something from the past. We 

find, for example, that transformations in thinking, reading and writing do 

not occur overnight. We are talking about hundreds of years of evolution, 

the results of which we consider today as ‘natural’. When printing had been 

invented by the end of the fifteenth century, people at first were hardly 

aware of what kind of cultural breach this was about to entail. It took a 

while before people realised what shifts the art of printing was causing. 

As we know, in the beginning was the Word. And then writing came, 

then printing, and then the computer. All these media changed our views of 

culture and of literacy. By means of writing and later printing, memory was 

externalised: writing and books were mnemonic devices outside the brain. 

And writing and print – words in images – allow manipulation. With the 

arrival of the computer, all this escalates; it can all be done faster, and it 

becomes different. 

The effect of our new revolution – similar to Gutenberg – is only 

slowly coming on. But one thing is already plain for everyone to see: the 

screen, and not the book, is the medium. If McLuhan (1964) was right in 

stating that the medium is the message, then we can wonder how new media 

are changing our messages. 

Writing and Reading on the Screen 

Let’s start our story of computers from the moment screens were being used 

as word processors. Writing on a screen allows us to quickly shape and 

record our thoughts; the electronic text is immediately available, and offers a 

handy tool for manipulation and interaction. In addition, joint writing and 

communicating about texts becomes easier. And other texts – entire libraries 

– are available on-line today. Intertextuality was reinvented on the screen. 

Today, printed and electronic texts are confronted with each other, as two 

ways of dealing with information. But what exactly happens when a text 

comes on screen, and is revised and saved? Our dearly beloved literacy 

winds up in a machine that transforms text into hypertext. How did 

hypertext come about? 

Hypertext 

The possibilities of the computer were the stuff of dreams for Ted Nelson. 

Nelson (1987, 1990a, 1990b) was one of the first to be fascinated by the 

invention of an all-encompassing system of writing, reading and information, 

a machine of literacy. In 1960, Nelson wrote an essay and built up a 

133



traditional card system which, however, failed to satisfy him in several 

respects. He decided to take a course in programming to develop a system 

that not only brought order to information but was also able to link that 

information – and texts – on various levels and in various ways. In fact, the 

World Wide Web has gone on fulfilling this hypertextual dream Ted Nelson 

introduced so long ago. To be sure, the new genre has been criticised by 

adherents of a more traditional literacy and is characterised as ‘another 

domain of the postmodern theme park. Gentle readers, welcome to 

Literacyland!’ (Moulthrop, 1991). Yet, it is interesting to stress the fact that 

Ted Nelson sees the history of writing as an epic of recovery. His grand hope 

was ‘a return to literacy, a cure for television stupor, a new Renaissance of 

ideas and generalist understanding, a grand posterity that does not lose the 

details which are the final substance of everything’ (Nelson, 1990b, p. 4). 

But from the very beginning, hypertext also promised to be a different 

genre for writing and reading. What did the genre promise? 

Reading Print and Hypertext 

Print culture constructed a kind of passive reading; it created ‘closed’ and 

‘completed’ texts and introduced the idea of ‘proper reading’. These ideas 

were taken up by the New Critics – from the structuralist movement – who 

deconstruct the meaning of a text by ‘close reading’: a careful analysis of the 

words, which is isolated from the actual world. In such a closed system, 

meaning could indeed be interpreted by analysing the parts of the structure. 

For a long time, this perspective deeply influenced how reading (and 

literature) was taught, how ideal reading was described. 

In more modern reading theories, texts are no longer seen as closed 

systems because they offer readers open endings and insecure links. Apart 

from these textual characteristics, meaning also intersects with individual 

readers’ experiences. This is stressed in reader response theory and 

reception theory. By stressing a more active and open way of reading, these 

reading theories were preparing us for the emergence of hypertext reading. 

Indeed, hypertext creates a different kind of reading that is less 

submissive and passive, and also less ‘complete’ and less ‘closed’. 

In such an open system, meaning becomes a perspective in a dynamic 

structure. In hypertexts we are confronted with lots of links; a total and 

absolute experience is not possible. 

Of course, what is said about reading is true for writing as well. In 

traditional teaching the essay was considered a major genre in the writing 

curriculum, certainly in academia. From a communicative approach, 

criticism against the essay was based on the fact that such writing had 

nothing to do with the real world. The communicative approach was 

obsessed by creating ‘real communicative settings’ which would stimulate 

real writing. The problem was that writing was not popular at all outside 

academia, art and other professional environments. Today we can welcome 

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cyberspace as such a communicative setting. Indeed, new genres are 

emerging in a digital environment. In these environments writing has 

become functional and popular again. But writing in cyberspace is different 

and lots of new genres are emerging (emails, email lists, web pages, real-time 

writing in multiple user domains, etc.). In the near future, it seems most of 

our writing will be done in networked environments. Inevitably, new genres 

and new kinds of discourses will be developed. 

Writers of hypertexts are confronted with new complexities. How do 

they link their ideas and thoughts? When nodes are linked, we should be 

aware that different links could be suggested. How do we entice our readers 

to follow them? And if you let them wander freely, how do you know what 

they are reading? We are confronted with a writing without a beginning or 

an end – at least, such boundaries are not defined by a writer. The reader 

decides when and where to begin. We need a new rhetoric and a new 

definition of reading and writing. Very often, we transfer a text from one 

medium (print) to another (computer screen), violating the rhetoric and the 

genre. So the linear structure of the printed text gets transformed into 

something different on the screen. 

If we analyse the rhetoric describing hypertext, we are confronted with 

a real revolution: hypertext as a new genre to free the writer and the reader 

from the linear constraints of the printed page and the book, freeing readers 

to become writers too … Hypertext also blurs the division between speaking 

and writing or at least problematises the differences between genres. 

Hypermedia further problematises the difference between word and sound 

and image … Indeed, the increasing user-friendliness found in programs that 

can manipulate audio-visual content and the growing preference for screens 

over print will make hypermedia the dominant cultural genre. On a more 

philosophical level, hypertext frees print from traditional linearity, it frees us 

from ‘either/or’ positions and invites us to consider new ways of thinking, 

arguing, writing … So, some argue, it comes closer to how the mind works – 

closer to how we really think, with associations, jumping to conclusions and 

across boundaries. Hypertext is said to foster ‘a literacy that is prompted by 

jumps of intuition and association’ (Heim, 1987, p. 30). 

Link with the Past 

Although hypertext is introduced as a revolutionary genre, it is also possible 

to link some of the central concepts with older ideas, where ‘old’ implies BH: 

Before Hypertext. The hypertext philosophy can be linked with recent 

constructivist ideas about education in which knowledge is described as a 

construct that comes about as something growing within a community, by 

means of dialogue, as the result of negotiations. When we are talking about 

texts, this implies that a text acquires its meaning as part of a tradition. The 

text starts functioning within a network of other texts. Indeed, the new 

media stimulate an active approach to knowledge. In doing so, the 

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developers of hypermedia – consciously or unconsciously – join modern 

educational insights that seek to draw attention to the process of learning 

rather than the mere transfer of products. Technological innovation 

introduces the computer as a supporting processor. 

For quite a while, literary theory and philosophy seem to have been 

mentally paving the way for technology. Hypermedia can be read as a literal 

application of recent postmodern philosophical ideas (Delany & Landow, 

1991; Landow, 1992; Lanham, 1993). 

Within literature itself, there are several texts that, by paradoxical 

experimentation, try to step outside the book. Inevitably, one thinks of 

Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and Joyce’s Ulysses and Finnegan’s Wake. But 

(post)modern literary history is full of examples: Cortázar (who invites 

readers to start anywhere in his novel), Queneau (who wrote a sort of sonnet 

machine), Burroughs (with his ‘cut up’ technique), Borges (the story as ‘a 

network of possibilities’), Calvino (his ambition for writing a ‘hypernovel’ or 

his description of the modern novel as ‘a big network’). Today, a lot of 

literature is being described as hypertexts avant la lettre and postmodern 

literature has been characterised as a node in a multidimensional network. 

Anthologies 

One of the most important problems in the teaching of literature today can 

be brought into focus by pointing to the fact that teachers and pupils sitting 

together in the same classroom participate in separate cultural and social 

networks. Each kind of literacy tends to be locked up in such a web. The 

question for modern teaching is: how can we link these networks? And 

which links count as ‘literacy’? 

In an educational research project conducted from 1993 to 1996 at the 

University of Ghent, we approached this problem starting with canonical 

European texts like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Cervantes’s Don Quixote. 

Many readers were initiated into literary culture by these classical stories 

(often in adapted forms: children’s versions, film versions or cartoons). They 

are stories that, in addition, stand at the beginning of our novelistic 

tradition, and that are used within Western culture to communicate 

something about that culture (Cervantes, Defoe, Shakespeare, and the Bible 

are likely to be the four most often quoted names). Hypertext and 

hypermedia allowed us to create networks in which users can browse and in 

doing so, they learn to deal with information from various perspectives (an 

interdisciplinary approach); they learn to see the canon as a historical 

construction; and they acquire an insight into the dynamic character of 

literature by observing all the possible corrections and adaptations. The 

project web site is at: http://dewey.rug.ac.be/NewFriday/ 

FridayNewHome.html 

Composing a similar collection of texts and images in the form of a 

printed anthology would be an impossible venture, because of the bulk and 

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heterogeneity of materials. The computer comes to the teacher’s aid in 

making a lively and more or less living anthology in which it is easier for 

him or her to call upon or add new materials that cater to questions from 

the students, that deal with new social themes, or that link up with new 

genres. 

No wonder a rigid canon is the result of printing, where reactions to 

corrections can only be slow. A hypertext or hypermedia application, 

therefore, ties in more closely with recent visions on the construction of 

canons as developed in literary theory. And of course, artefacts are changing 

too. 

Technological, Artistic Leaps 

Walter Benjamin (1968) observed that in the history of every art form it is 

repeatedly possible to find periods when artists develop aspirations that in 

principle can only be realised by a change in the medium itself. This implies 

an innovation in the form of a technical leap that eventually produces a new 

art form: photography, film or video, for instance. 

Literature, too, will change as the written word mutates into an 

electronic text. Electronic reading and writing are direct answers to the 

limits of the printed book. Meanwhile, modern art forms have started 

interacting: literature with movies, photography, video, music, etc. That does 

not mean everything will disappear, but there is no doubt a lot will be 

changed. And we cannot but be curious about the exciting attempts to 

create new genres with new media. Within these new genres, too, limits will 

arise with which authors will have to struggle. 

What will such a new genre look like? 

Although it is impossible to predict, it seems likely that the new genres 

will be closer to a postmodern, post-print society in which information comes 

at us simultaneously, discontinuously and dynamically. 

Word, Image, Sound 

In fact we should also problematise what we have been doing in this article: 

although there are four skills, we have overstressed writing and reading and 

neglected speaking and listening. We have overstressed the changes in 

written literacy, compared with oral, visual, tangible literacy …. Inevitably, we 

are children of an older literacy (mainly focused on written discourse), but 

hypertext is easily transformed into multimedia by linking word, image and 

sound and by blurring the traditional boundaries between separate media 

cultures. 

The introduction of new technologies and new media may force us to 

reconsider and problematise many long-standing, deeply entrenched theories 

about the writing process. Also our ideas of ‘writing’ can change 

fundamentally because writing an essay, for example, can consist of more 

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than words; images, graphics and sounds can play an important role. New 

interface design will change the writing space. Today, this interaction is 

mainly text based. 

Indeed, historically, the interactive role was fulfilled by spoken 

language, whereas written language was a better medium for reflection, 

ongoing interpretation and evaluation. Printed texts could be read over and 

over again. The literary canon and the whole critical tradition built around it 

were a direct result of the invention of book printing, which created a 

revolution in the production and reception of knowledge, in the way we 

organise society and the way we use our brains. 

It is possible that multimedia free us from a particular form of written 

literacy. So in fact hypermedia could bring together on the screen what the 

printing press has separated. Joining an electronic community, in which 

audio and visual aspects become as important as written words and in which 

design plays a central role, confronts us with a fundamental question: What 

do we win? Or what do we lose? 

In any case, we have a moral obligation to prepare children to critically 

interpret and evaluate visual and audio information from our dominant 

culture, and to provide critical interpretative models to deal with visual 

information. Indeed, very often in traditional education: ‘Our visual 

acculturation starting with Sesame Street usually stops at the classroom 

door’ (LaSpina, 1998, p. xiv). We can only hope to avoid the same 

happening with modern technology. It is a complex process because we are 

in the middle of a revolution, creating new genres and products; our whole 

work is ‘under development’ or ‘work in progress’. 

Methodology 

As far as the teaching of languages is concerned, back-to-basics can be 

characterised by the fact that grammar and literature are at the core of our 

subject. In fact, in modern languages the curriculum and the methodology 

of Latin and Greek were imitated: studying grammar and vocabulary in 

order to read/translate the classical texts. Such a classical education was 

essential to become a member of the cultural elite. Very often language 

teaching was part of the construction of a national identity. It focused on the 

standard language and the literary canon. 

As part of a general progressive reform of education, the 

communicative approach to language teaching was introduced. Content – 

and certainly literature – was considered less important. Skills were at the 

core of the methodology; the aim was to use language in ‘real 

communicative settings’. The approach stressed learner-centredness and 

motivation. 

As we have noted, back-to-basics criticism was based on the idea that 

our culture could be characterised by a general amnesia. The weak point in 

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the communicative approach was considered to be the lack of content, the 

lack of a shared cultural grammar. 

Today we are aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the 

communicative approach, so the debate between traditional or 

communicative approach is no longer so engaging. However, we are also 

confronted with lots of new ideas, concepts and approaches which cannot be 

described as a new unified paradigm. 

Possibly this trend can be described – for language teaching – as a 

‘post-communicative’ approach. By adding the prefix ‘post’ we stress the idea 

that older discussions between traditional and communicative theories are 

outdated. But there is one thing we need to stress: that the discussion about 

content – cultural literacy – is still very high on the agenda. In back-tobasics, 

content was narrowed down to traditional cultural content. In the 

communicative approach, content was neglected because communication 

was the buzz word. Today, interaction is the new buzzword, and again 

content is minimised. The main challenge facing education today is that we 

need a radical way of conceiving text and of reconfiguring discourse and 

content. Essentially, we need a new way of organising knowledge. 

One recent methodological trend, content-based language teaching 

(CBLT), emphasises the fact that language does not consist of ‘empty skills’ 

but is a medium for content, and content is a resource for learning 

language. But again, we have become aware that we live in ‘a domain of 

subject-dependent knowledge and subject-dependent reality …. We literally 

create the world in which we live by living it’ (Maturana, 1978, pp. 60–61). 

CBLT will be influenced by the use of the computer. Teachers will be more 

or less obliged to use the Internet. And the Internet will transform our 

teaching and movement towards a new educational paradigm. 

Some people are worried about this inevitable evolution. They are 

deeply concerned with a basic question: ‘How do I fit the Internet into my 

pedagogical goals for my students?’ Probably we will be obliged to rephrase 

this question: how do I change my teaching to fit the Internet? 

We may also be obliged to rephrase our definition of language 

immersion, of CBLT. Again, the digital environment itself changes the space 

in which we teach; it creates a space in which we can learn a language in 

real interaction, using the real language in real communicative situations. 

CALL (computer-assisted language learning), TELL (technologyenhanced 

language learning) and TILL (technology-integrated language 

learning) all refer the role of ICT in language learning and teaching. They 

show that technology is more than an ‘add-on’ and probably TILL is the best 

acronym – implying that computers are integrated in our culture. So 

probably the C of computer and T of technology will disappear in all these 

acronyms. After all, we do not talk about BALL, BELL and BILL, referring 

to books-assisted language learning, etc. 

We have tried to show that technology affects human communication 

and culture in a very fundamental way. The problem is: ‘What we’ve lacked 

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is an intellectual culture able to transform its own premises as fast as our 

technologies are transforming us’ (Brockman, 1995). 

More and more educators realise that they have to face the challenge 

of integrating information technology tools in teaching and learning, and in 

managing educational institutions. Indeed, these tools extend learning 

outside the institutions as schools and classrooms. Teachers realise they 

have to change their roles. In the next part we will try to problematise these 

new roles. 

New Roles for Teachers 

Technology to Prepare Teachers 

In addition to language and technology, our LTOL project also focused on 

teacher training. From a technological perspective, there is a growing 

consensus – based on research – that teacher training is the key process in 

the successful incorporation of technology into the curriculum. Research 

also shows us that very often teachers teach the same way in which they 

were taught themselves. So, the best moment to introduce (student) teachers 

to technology is the moment they are being taught to become teachers, the 

moment they are socialised in their new professional role. We also know 

that there is a difference between preparing teachers to use technology and 

using technology to prepare teachers (Harrington, 1991). 

Role-changing 

Today, there is a tendency towards self-directed, autonomous, lifelong 

learning, emphasising the fact that meaning is constructed individually and 

socially. As the methodology, the curriculum, the students and the school 

are changing, so too is the role of the teacher. 

Teachers no longer control everything that happens in the classroom; 

their main function is to help the learners develop their autonomy. This is 

best done by helping them to choose appropriate and adequate learning 

materials, and by explaining learning strategies and techniques. This general 

constructive approach to teaching is also deeply influenced by the 

introduction of new technology. Teachers will have to be more responsive to 

the new characteristics of an on-line computer environment. The new 

teaching methods are complex and labour-intensive. Indeed, the shifting 

functions pose complex challenges to teachers. A new paradigm creates new 

roles for teachers. We selected four major roles (focusing on the relation 

with new technology). These are now briefly described. 

Coach, Facilitator. The introduction of a more constructive approach often 

precipitates a fundamental change in the forms of interaction between 

teachers and students, and among students themselves. There is also a 

140



gradual shift in the teacher’s role: from a lecturer and purveyor of 

information towards a coach/facilitator, providing structure and supporting 

students’ performances and reflection. Some of the theoretical concepts 

developed from a constructivist perspective appear to follow concepts 

developed in on-line educational practice and theory (or vice versa). So the 

role of coach or facilitator is also inspired by the new on-line learning 

spaces. 

Teamwork, Collaboration. Teamwork is one of the major buzzwords in the 

discourse of employers today. Job advertisements are calling for employees 

who can manage information, adapt flexibly and creatively to changing 

requirements, and work together in a team. 

The introduction of new technologies may render the standard course 

lecture obsolete, and force teachers to take up a new role that is less 

individualistic. Future courses may be designed by a team of educationalists, 

subject specialists and technology experts. So teamwork will also be 

essential for developments in ICT. 

But ICT will also influence the communication in a team. Through ICT, 

‘professional networks’ can be created for diverse reasons: discussing shared 

problems, asking for advice, giving access to job opportunities and so on. 

ICT can be introduced from two major perspectives: synchronous 

collaboration (e.g. meetings, phone calls, teleconferences, etc.) and 

asynchronous collaboration (e.g. email). In our project, we mainly focused 

on asynchronous collaboration (between the partners and in teacher training 

with students). The advantages of this kind of communication are obvious: 

participants are able to join the team based on their own schedule, 

motivated by their own interests; participants are able to reflect before 

communication and after receiving communications; and there is a record of 

the proceedings. In general, ICT has the potential to improve 

communication on certain levels. But we should not deny the drawbacks: 

extra workloads and new power structures and communication rules 

emerge. Moderating a discussion group and coaching a team in cyberspace 

are as difficult in cyberspace as in the real world. In a new communication 

space, new roles and skills emerge. 

Reflective Practitioner, Teacher-as-researcher. The concept of the ‘reflective 

practitioner’ was developed by Schön (1983) who introduced a practice 

inspired by reflection as an ongoing process of professional development 

and as part of lifelong learning. Other researchers have problematised the 

distinction between ‘learning in practice’ and ‘learning in an intellectual 

sense’ (see Lave & Wenger, 1991). Indeed, in applied fields there can be no 

such thing as neutral objectivity. The direct, culturally unmediated 

apprehension of reality is impossible. Researchers construct and so interpret 

reality. 

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These constructions are very often co-constructed, they arise as 

products of negotiation among participants. The distinctions between 

theoreticians and practitioners, and researchers and teachers thus become 

rather vague. Practitioners (teachers) also operate from theories about 

education, society, and language teaching, even if they do not directly refer 

to those theories. Although we could call them implicit theories with a small 

T (compared with explicit theories with a capital T), they are also deeply 

theoretical. 

In this sense, teachers can be compared with anthropologists: 

The educator as anthropologist must work to understand which cultural 

materials are relevant to intellectual development. Then he or she needs 

to understand which trends are taking place in our culture. Meaningful 

intervention must take the form of working with these trends. (Papert, 

1980, p. 32) 

More and more teachers, encouraged by teacher educators, are reflecting on 

their practice in a more systematic way. They are invited to become 

researchers or at least ‘readers’ of research. As Good (1989, p. 35) states: 

‘Professionals or teachers who are too busy to read are not professionals’. 

Very often the teacher feels he or she is just a mere object of research 

instead of a subject, an agent who takes part in the process of teaching. By 

introducing the principle of ‘teacher-as-researcher’ and applying more 

qualitative research methodologies, teachers can be involved in the research 

process – ‘by conducting and reporting real educational inquiries in real 

instructional settings’ (Harste, 1992, p. xii). 

By introducing action research, teachers and teacher trainees become 

involved in the process of data collecting, interpretation and evaluation of 

their lessons (Somekh, 1999). Teachers will also be called upon to generate 

hypotheses and test out suggested improvements: ‘It was no longer simply a 

matter of producing materials for teachers to test in classrooms. It was also 

a matter of fostering the development of teachers’ capacities for selfreflection’ 

(Elliott, 1991, p. 19). 

The concept of ‘self-reflection’ was problematised because ‘self’ sounds 

too individualistic and because reflection is embedded in a social context. 

Teachers become part of a community and share information, knowledge 

and resources by participating in this community. Joint practice and 

reflection play a central role in becoming a teacher. If we stress the 

essentially social character of learning for pupils, we should introduce the 

same principle in teacher training. Socially situated theories of learning, 

which recognise the way in which knowledge is created and transformed in 

the intersection of dialogue between people, their collective knowledge and 

research, will have an impact on teaching. 

Another major characteristic of action research is the focus on 

collaboration among teachers. It is an essential aim of this kind of research 

to bring teachers together in networks (see also Teamwork, Collaboration). 

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The importance of creating networks is essential for creating a joint practice 

in the complex process of learning to become a teacher. The focus indeed is 

on communication in networks, and also communication about research. 

But the problems are not only theoretical; they can be very practical in 

nature: participants are spread over different time zones and different areas, 

there are problems with physical contact (owing to constraints with budget, 

time, space …). 

Information technology can solve only part of these problems. During 

our project we were confronted with the problems of creating such a 

community. How will these discourse communities change our 

understanding of ‘becoming a teacher’? Especially when the new networks 

of teachers-as-researchers are constructed on-line. 

Such networks and the concept of teachers-as-researchers are also 

essential to the study of the impact of technology: 

Little is known about the impact of technology on standards of students’ 

work, on the quality of the learning experience, on the acquisition of 

core transferable skills or on the changing role of students, teachers and 

other staff. Such research does not necessarily have to be large-scale 

and quantitative; small-scale, qualitative action-research projects could 

guide practice at the local level, thus strengthening claims of 

educational institutions to be fully learning organisations. (Lewis & 

Merton, 1996) 

We need joint practice and examples of good practice demonstrating the 

way in which computers can be integrated into the professional life of 

newcomers to teaching. 

Teacher as Designer. Technology today ‘creates an impetus for major 

transformation in the institution of schooling, and it also offers new tools for 

carrying out this transformation in ways not possible before’ (Office of 

Technology Assessment, 1995, p. 4). New sites of education resemble the 

‘workplaces’ of the ancient guild system. 

There is a growing consensus that teachers should be computerliterate: 

‘The Information Society so highly praised by the EU (European 

Union) Delors White Paper must be completed and matched by a Learning 

Society, if we do not want to fall into an over-informed world and a valueless 

culture based on ‘zapping’ and ‘patchwork’ superficiality’ (Richardson, 1997, 

p. 29). This competence is essential as the teacher of the future has to 

consider what kind of communication serves the teaching and learning. 

What should teachers know about computers? Teachers should be 

familiar with ICT and be able to utilise and integrate it in their practice. 

Inevitably, their practice will have to be reoriented and evaluated as an 

ongoing and ever-changing practice. Apart from learning to use the 

computer, teachers should be thinking about how the computer can be 

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integrated in their subject and their area of expertise as a tool for organising 

and delivering course content and their own professional development. 

As consumers, they should be critical of products and institutions that 

market themselves as legitimate providers of education. At the same time, 

teachers should become producers too; they will be involved in developing 

material. This in an inevitable process; in the long run textbooks will 

change. More and more they will be applied to a growing variety of 

functions and they will be transformed into digital environments. 

The shift away from textbooks as ink-on-paper products redefines the 

work of publishers, authors and … teachers. Design has become a central 

issue in education. And in design educational aspects have become a central 

concern. 

Conclusion 

We need a meaningful vision for culture and education in these 

transformational years, as we struggle to establish new forms of language 

and culture with new technologies. Such a vision should be inspired by the 

recognition that our traditions are forced into a new context. By bringing all 

these ‘post’ perspectives together and by questioning or problematising 

them, we hope that we have illustrated how the digital revolution has deeply 

influenced the subjects that we are teaching, and the roles that teachers can 

play in new teaching and learning environments. 

A cultural perspective on this paradigm shift seems essential, inspired 

by cultural studies, media studies and discourse analysis. In these 

disciplines, the concept of literacy is deconstructed to an extent that we are 

now invited to construct new educational practice. We suggest that all 

teachers – and language teachers in particular – should reflect on the ways 

in which tools change our cultural space. Within this approach, there would 

be a need to develop a critical sense of the form of ‘media literacy’ 

(O’Sullivan, 1999). This would educate learners to resist the surface 

messages from today’s new media. It would also enable them to be able to 

use all types of media effectively themselves in a variety of cultural contexts, 

including contexts of their own making. 

Our approach to language teaching today is inspired by a single 

question: are we only going to use the Internet to teach culture in a 

traditional way, or can we capitalise on its potential to give students access 

to new kinds of culture(s)? 

Acknowledgements 

The Language Teaching On-Line project was supported by DG_XII of the 

European Commission. 

This article has been edited by the General Editor with permission 

from the authors. 

144


Correspondence 


Ronald Soetaert & Bart Bonamie, Vakgroep Onderwijskunde – 

Lerarenopleiding, University of Ghent, H. Dunantlaan 1, B–9000 Ghent, 

Belgium (ronald.soetaert@rug.ac.be, bart.bonamie@rug.ac.be). 

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a view informed by the problems of traditional literacy in a digital age

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