Keeping within the Genre

We discussed an article in class today that talked bout the experiences different learners of French had in the discussion forum of Le Monde. I thought it was really interesting that the two students who were welcomed back and the most successful in the forum were the students who engaged in debating. The other two students were not as successful because they did not engage in the debates with other French-speaking people.

It was interesting to see that the participants who were successful, David and Laura, did not approach the forum as a means to improve their French like Fleurie and Eleanor. Instead, they contributed meaningful opinions to the forum. This allowed for more communication with French-speakers. They behaved in a more cutlurally appropriate way, and they were succesful and welcomed-back. However, Eleanor and Fleurie did not practice their French by debate, as suggested by the French speakers on the forum. Thus, they did not have as much success. It seemed they were waiting for someone to initiate with them and help them with their French. Instead, they should have contributed to conversations on the forum about different topics.

I found this article fascinating because of the different approaches and outcomes but also the need for teachers to explain to their students how to engage in online L2 discourse. On social media, students still need to be instructed on how to engage with native speakers in a culturally appropriate way so that they will have greater success. This is really important for me to keep in mind because I would like to teach EFL where there will, hopefully, be more opportunities to utilize social media and discussion forums to enhance language learning.

To see the article:

http://llt.msu.edu/vol7num1/pdf/hanna.pdf