Students’ Role in Distance Learning

1. IntroductionMuch of the support that students have in a traditional classroom is absent in a distance learning course. In the traditional classroom, the learner is together with his or her classmates and the teacher; learning is socially embedded. Students can talk to each other and may learn from each other as they go through the learning process together. They also witness the teacher’s expression of the knowledge firsthand. The class participants communicate to each other not only through their words, but also through their gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice, and the teacher can observe the students’ progress and provide guidance and feedback in an as-needed basis. Further, through the habit of meeting in a regular place at a regular time, the participants reinforce their own and each other’s commitment to the course. A distance course must somehow provide learners other kinds of supports so that the distance learner also has a sense of connection with a learning community; can benefit from interaction with peers who are going through a similar learning process; receives feedback that allows him or her to know how he or she is progressing; and is guided enough so that he or she continues to progress towards the learning objectives. This cannot be accomplished if the distance course does not simultaneously promote student autonomy, for the distance course format requires students to take greater responsibility for their own learning. This chapter presents one distance learning course that was able to address all of these goals. The English Department at Högskolan Dalarna, Sweden, participates in a distance learning program with Vietnam National University. Students enrolled in this program study half-time for two years to complete a Master’s degree in English Linguistics. The distance courses in this program all contain two types of regular class meetings: one type is student-only seminars conducted through text chat, during which students discuss and complete assignments that prepare them for the other type of class meeting, also conducted through text chat, where the teacher is present and is the one to lead the discussion of seminar issues and assignments. The inclusion of student-only seminars in the course design allows for student independence while at the same time it encourages co-operation and solidarity. The teacher-led seminars offer the advantages of a class led by an expert.In this chapter, we present chatlog data from Vietnamese students in one distance course in English linguistics, comparing the role of the student in both student-only and teacher-led seminars. We discuss how students navigate their participation roles, through computer-mediated communication (CMC), according to seminar type, and we consider the emerging role of the autonomous student in the foreign-language medium, distance learning environment. We close by considering aspects of effective design of distance learning courses from the perspective of a foreign language (FL) environment.

Attitudes Towards and Uses of the Japanese Adverbzenzen by Swedish Learners of Japanese

The word zenzen is an adverb that is used frequently in daily conversational Japanese. From the Meiji period (1868-1912) until the early Showa period (1924-1989) the word was used together with both affirmative and negative words to form expressions. In the early Showa period the grammatical rules in education changed so that the only acceptable use was together with a negative word. From the 1990’s onward, the use together with an affirmative word has made a comeback especially among younger Japanese people. However even though the usage together with an affirmative word has made a comeback and was considered normal once in history, in today’s society it is still considered as slang and thus not recommended usage in formal situations. Foreign language learners however, tend not to learn a language only by textbooks but also by imitating the language of native Japanese speakers and Japanese popular culture. This may lead to a confusion regarding what words are acceptable to use in conversations. Therefore in this study, an online survey that examines the usage and attitudes regarding the word zenzen aimed at Japanese language learners at Swedish universities was conducted. The results of the survey showed that although a majority of the learners showed a good understanding of the usage, more than half of the learners displayed a feeling of confusion regarding the usage of the word. The gender comparison regarding the usage showed no major differences. Having lived in Japan, having Japanese friends whom you speak Japanese with regularly and length of Japanese study was associated with an increased understanding of the usage. Regular consumption of Japanese popular culture, however, was not associated with an increased understanding of the usage. A literature analysis was also conducted to examine the attitudes regarding the usage of zenzen in a variety of books with topics including business language and books aimed at Japanese language teachers. The results showed that zenzen used together with a negative word was considered as the norm while zenzen used together with an affirmative word was not recommended to be used in formal situations. When recommending proper usage of the word zenzen together with an affirmative word to foreign learners of Japanese, hijou-ni and totemo was seen as better alternatives to zenzen in a formal situation.