The following is reprinted from KOTESOL’s English Connection Magazine with permission:

What is the problem?

I have university classes of around 25 students each, and see them for about two and a half hours a week, a situation similar to many teachers in Korea. Not much time for learning by any standard. We work hard to create a positive English-focused class community in school driven by more than mere external motivation. I believe that many of us to a large degree achieve it. However, what happens when our students leave the classroom? Simply put: life happens- while students certainly aren’t alone outside of the school, they are largely alone in their language learning. Even with the best of intentions, and the best of in-class communities, a focus on English interaction tends to dissipate in the absence of a framework which naturally integrates English into communication (as is done so in the classroom).
My goal for my own classes is simple: double the amount of time they spend each week in an English community. I turn to technological solutions, but not without some hesitance.

What is often wrong with Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)?

Despite writing a tech column, I can think of nothing worse than tech for tech’s sake. Too often it only serves to confuse and further divide teachers and students- an add-on that is tacked on to the program artificially and no more connects students together than more traditional paper-based solutions. Instead of doing regular homework alone they are doing homework online…and still alone. The question is one of whether we can find ways to use technology to make larger English interaction (beyond that with the homework itself) a natural part of students’ weekly cycle.

What can be done?

One solution, but by no means the only one, is to use the Ning social networking platform (ning.com) to replicate your classes online. What is it? The easiest comparison would be to say that Ning is like Facebook or Cyworld, only owned and controlled by the teacher, all for free- a walled garden vs. an open world approach.

Why does it work?

At its core, Ning works because, like other social networking platforms, recreating human interaction is one of its key functions. That this functionality can also be used to facilitate the same sort of group and pair activities we do in our classes is a grand side-effect. Our role then as the teacher it to figure out how to use the various features (blogs, forums, videos, etc.) to place a snowball at the top of the hill and release- letting it accumulate conversations and feedback as it gathers momentum. When students log in they are never alone. They do their homework but just of of the corner of their eyes they can see others in their class working alongside them. Human curiosity leads to peripheral persuasion; they click to see what others are doing, what they are up to, and even just to say hello. We are taking social networking, an activity most of them already spend hours doing for fun, and embracing its potential for near-peer modeling, student-to-student feedback loops and group collaboration.

What is the result?

On a quantifiable level, in my own classes student feedback has improved across the board. More importantly, the level of student output (writing, speech and feedback generation) has increased dramatically- seeming to indicate that given the proper framework English community can succeed outside the classroom walls. What is not quantifiable is the overall better sense of togetherness my classes are experiencing. They are no longer just seeing each other twice a week in an English environment, but also whenever they log onto the network, and that appears to have lead to a much richer development of their second language personas.

Where can I learn more?

Explaining something like Ning is always better done by showing rather than telling. To aid this I’ve put up a large number of screencasts that will walk you through the various steps of creating a Ning network for your classes at joshuawdavies.com/ning, as well as links to my own Ning networks to use as examples. I hope you’ll join me there, as well as on education.ning.com (a site for educators using Ning) to continue this conversation.