4 Learning English
20.01.06
The learner of the future debate: where once technology contributed to inequalities in language
education, it is now evolving as a complex but unifying environment inviting communication for all
Wiring English into our technological world
Mark Warschauer
I have a small family blog related to
the development of my son, Danny,
who has Down’s syndrome. The blog
receives relatively few visitors, mostly
family members and friends. Imag-
ine my surprise then when several
Iranian medical students started vis-
iting and posting comments. It turns
out that an English class at Tehran
University’s Medical School had dis-
covered the blog. The future doctors
were posting comments as a way of
honing their communicative skills
in English while sharing ideas with
the international community about
health and human development.
The medical students’ comments
— and my subsequent interaction
with their instructor, Samaneh Oladi,
who was writing her master’s thesis
on blogging and language learning in
Iran — drove home to me how three
stereotypical divides don’t exist any
more, or at least not in the ways we
traditionally have perceived them.
The ESL/EFL Divide
The ESL/EFL divide refers to the dif-
ferences between English language
learners in countries such as Britain,
the US, and Australia, where they are
exposed to English as a Second Lan-
guage (ESL) on a daily basis, and in
countries such as France, Iran or
China, where English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) is studied. Socio-
linguist Braj Kachru took this cate-
gorisation a step further, dividing
English use between an inner circle
of English-speaking countries, an
outer circle of countries such as India
or Nigeria where both local languages
and English are used, and an expand-
ing circle of countries where English
is taught as a foreign language.
However, with the advent and
worldwide diffusion of digital media,
and with English emerging as the
default lingua franca for global
communication online, the clear
borders between these circles no
longer exist. Simply put, there are
millions of people in traditional
“English as a foreign language”
countries who now use English on a
daily basis on the internet as part of
their professional, academic and
personal affairs. And much if not
most of this communication is with
other non-native speakers of English,
rather than with people from English-
speaking countries.
This change has several concomi-
tants for English language teachers.
First, we need to rethink how we
teach many elements of language,
especially pronunciation but also
syntax, vocabulary and pragmatics.
In each of these areas, it is more
important for language learners to
be able to accomplish their goals in
specific contexts than to mimic
Making use of the
internet demands
different types of
language skills
native speaker standards of correct-
ness. We also need to rethink the
relationship between language and
culture. As a Taiwanese educator
asked at an English teachers’ confer-
ence in Taipei: “Why is it that our
students learn in their English
classes to talk about the British
parliament but not about our local
government institutions?”
In short, in the era of technology-
enabled worldwide communication,
we need to rethink who owns English.
The digital divide
The digital divide refers to the gap
between those who have access to
computers and the internet and
those who don’t. According to this
concept, there is a bipolar split
between the information haves and
have-nots, the connected and the
disconnected. Thus, stereotypically,
learners in rich countries have access
to expensive computer labs, whereas
learners in poor countries forego
computer-aided instruction due to
lack of technological access.
The notion of a digital divide was
always problematic in that there
are many degrees of access to infor-
mation technology. Though only a
minority of the world’s population
owns a computer, many other peo-
ple have access to shared comput-
ers at home, work, school or in their
community. Thus, rather than a
bipolar divide, there is a continuum
of computer and internet access. The
computer-student ratio in Iran is
certainly lower than that of Britain
or the US, but the medical student
bloggers mentioned above were all
able to gain sufficient access to take
part in international discussions,
whether at home, the university or
an internet cafe.
A blurring of the so-called digital
divide will only accelerate with the
proliferation of lower-cost computers
(a $100 laptop is now under develop-
ment), the use of cell phones or other
alternate devices for internet access,
and the spread of low-cost wireless
networks. So we need to rethink pre-
vious views about who has access to
technology.
The technology divide
Teacher trainers in computer-
assisted language learning have long
stressed that the computer is merely
an optional tool to assist the language
learning process, but that technology
doesn’t transform the end goal of
what is to be learned. While the sen-
timent is understandable — that we
should focus on the content and not
the underlying tool — the fact is that
language and technology are highly
intertwined. Making effective use of
computers and the internet demands
different types of reading, writing
and communication skills than those
required in other realms. Being able
to find relevant websites and rapidly
scan and skim them; use word proces-
sors and computer-based tools (such
as spelling and grammar checkers) to
write and edit quality papers; inter-
pret, design and publish multimedia
material; and effectively participate
in online communication media
(email, discussion forums, blogs).
Not all our students will need
these skills, but those who do will
benefit from an opportunity to learn
them in an English class. Our goal
should be to help students not only
use technology as an instructional
aid, but also master technology as a
medium of communication, research
and knowledge production.
We can no longer think of English
as existing independently from the
internet, as it is one of its main
realms of international use. An Eng-
lish teacher in Egypt recently
expressed the exact opposite of the
conventional wisdom, telling me
that, for him and his students, “Eng-
lish is not an end in itself, but just a
tool for being able to make use of
information technology.”
While I understand the teacher, I
would suggest that both English and
information technology are tools
— to allow individuals and commu-
nities to fully participate in global
society. If we bear this fact in mind
and think creatively beyond divides,
we can judiciously combine language
and technology to best prepare our
students for life in the 21st century.
Mark Warschauer is Associate Profes-
sor of Education and Informatics at
the University of California, Irvine
Guardian Weekly and OneStopEnglish are
staging a debate on technology and language
learning, “Meet the Learner of the Future”,
at the 2006 Iatefl conference on April 11. For
information go to www.onestopenglish.com