Estado de la Cuestión

By the early 2000s the quality of audio and video on the Web had improved considerably, and complete language courses began to appear, notably the range of courses offered by commercial entities, such as the BBC (www.bbc.co.uk/languages/) and by university and government projects, for example Chinese Online (East China Normal University, www.hanyu.com.cn/), LangNet (US Departments of Defense, Education and State, www.langnet.org/) and the CAMILLE Group’s InGenio Project (Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, camilleweb.upv.es/camille/).

It should be noted though that the limitations of complete individualization by means of online self-study courses without guidance and integration had been recognized by this time. This resulted in the fact that ‘e-learning’ was redefi ned as ‘blended learning’

as it became clear that Web-based activities in a traditional self-study mode could not ‘replace’ classroom practice and social interaction on language learning but would support and extend it.

The term Web 2.0 gained popularity following the fi rst of a series of Web 2.0 conferences initiated in 2004 (O’Reilly, 2005 ). Essentially, the term Web 2.0 was an attempt to redefi ne what the Web might potentially achieve or had become: a social platform for collaboration, knowledge sharing and networking. It was not a break with the past but more of a move towards the vision of the Web as originally conceived

by its creator, Tim Berners-Lee, namely as a ‘common information space in which we communicate by sharing information’ and ‘a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize’ (Berners-Lee, 1998 , n.p.).

From the early 2000s there was a breath-taking increase in the number of Web-based communities that make use of typical Web 2.0 tools such as discussion lists, blogs, wikis and podcasts, as well as dedicated social networking websites and virtual worlds or MUVEs that promote sharing, collaboration and interaction (Thomas, 2009 ).

A host of Web applications now ‘facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centred design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web’ – as the Wikipedia article on Web 2.0 puts it. The ever growing diversity and fl exibility of digital media, together with the increased ease with which the communicative, interactive, multimedia and networking potential of computers and the internet can now be exploited, have also had a considerable infl uence on the way current principles and paradigms underlying foreign language learning methodology can now be put into practice. Current pedagogy advocates collaborative knowledge construction rather than simple instructivist learning, as well as authenticity and task orientation. Furthermore, new opportunities for research into language acquisition processes are opening up, as the tools and platforms available on the Web make traceable both the processes of creating and publishing meaningful output as well as the actual products themselves.

Digital media in their current realization have now become truly creative spaces which have become as naturalized in the real world as radio or television and telephones. In addition, access to personal or shared information has become so much easier than in the past, as tablet PCs, smartphones and other mobile devices have been developed into powerful appliances for daily use. In addition, data shared via social platforms, shared resources in the form of cloud computing and applications such as Dropbox have the potential to make collaborative creation, distribution and sharing of learning materials a regular part of teaching and learning languages. Looking at current trends in language education confi rms this perception.

In addition, such platforms and Web 2.0 tools for the publication of text, for example Wikispaces , as well as media products in the form of podcasts or videocasts, such as YouTube, have become a realistic option to broaden the scope of output-oriented project work in language learning. This approach, very much rooted in current thinking in language teaching methodology, appears to be in line with current deliberations within the CALL and TELL community, and digital media are in the process of becoming part of the standard repertoire of language teaching and learning, making output-oriented language learning scenarios with a focus on stimulating meaning negotiation and output production more practical at the grassroots level. As Swain and Deters ( 2007 , p. 831) put it, in language learning ‘participation has found its place alongside acquisition’.

Similar to the notion that language learning might benefi t from contexts, in which language production results from processes of meaning negotiation, Web technologies and social software are rooted in the idea that knowledge can be accumulated more

fruitfully when negotiated collaboratively by groups sharing a common goal. One of the remaining challenges that needs to be faced with regard to the full integration of digital media into language learning is to defi ne appropriate frameworks for research into the actual processes that learners go through when participating in learning opportunities of the kind outlined in this chapter. Digital media offer new opportunities in this area, too, since participatory platforms and social software tools, such as wikis and podcasting, do offer the option of tracing processes of output-production, thereby making them observable. Consequently, all edits can be considered in terms of what they document and represent as far as acts and processes of language learning are concerned. Research of this kind will allow us to broaden the understanding of the effects and effectiveness of digital media in innovative, creative and participatory language learning.

In 2003 the 3D virtual world of Second Life (SL) was launched, following on from the earlier 3D virtual worlds of the 1990s mentioned above. Second Life soon began to attract the attention of language teachers. In 2005, Languagelab (www.languagelab.

com), the fi rst large-scale language school, was opened in Second Life, and since 2007 a series of in-world annual conferences known as SLanguages have taken place.

Cooke-Plagwitz ( 2008 ) provides an introduction to Second Life and examines some of the advantages and disadvantages of its use as an instructional tool for foreign language students and educators. Molka-Danielsen and Deutschmann ( 2009 ) look at the wider context of learning in Second Life, focusing on instructional design, learner modelling and building simulations (see Sadler & Dooly, this volume).

Conclusions

There is no question that digital media are now having a signifi cant impact on the way foreign languages are being taught and learned. It can now be argued that computer-assisted language learning has come of age, and that we are now entering a fully integrated and naturalized phase of CALL. Digital tools for learning have become integrated elements both in the real world and also in foreign language syllabuses. In view of the development of even more fl exible tools for social networking and knowledge sharing, it can be said that CALL has reached the stage of normalization insofar as so-called Web 2.0 applications have become a common social phenomenon.

Nevertheless, the debate on normalization simmers on. In a Special Issue of IJCALLT , dedicated to this topic, Bax ( 2011 ) now questions the assumption that normalization is both inevitable and desirable, and he asks if normalization occurs to the same degree with each technology and if it follows the same steps for each technology.

Returning to the starting point of this chapter, namely our aim to match technological developments with pedagogical and methodological progress in language learning, one can say that in a number of cases the methodologies and paradigms discussed for quite some time seem to have found their match in recent phenomena observable

in the way technologies are used in real life and language learning. One such example is the concept of process writing, where the focus is more on the process of creating written text rather than the end product, which is a principle underlying the use of and participation in wikis, writing blogs etc., as well as contributing to social networks (see Hegelheimer & Lee, this volume). In technological terms, simple use and consumption has been replaced by participation and contribution, principles which are now also seen as corner-stones of language learning, where ‘participation has found its place alongside acquisition’ (Swain & Deters, 2007 , p. 831). As stated in an article on output-oriented language learning (Rüschoff, 2009 ), the challenge that needs to be faced, with regard to the full integration of digital media into language learning, is to defi ne appropriate frameworks for research into the actual processes that learners go through when participating in learning opportunities of this kind. Such research would broaden our understanding of the effects and effectiveness of digital media in output-oriented, creative and participatory language learning.

Note

1 To the great sorrow of many friends and colleagues worldwide, Graham Davies passed away on June 20, 2012. Graham was a pioneer in the fi eld of computer-assisted language learning—a smart, funny, creative, entrepreneurial, warm, and generous man, who will be fondly remembered as a dedicated teacher, prolifi c scholar, experienced software developer and publisher, and exceptional leader in our profession. Although he is gone, his voice can be heard one more time in the pages of this chapter.

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Researching language learning in