The document discusses the use of digital media and technology in language learning. It covers several key points: 1) The author analyzes Bernd Ruschoff's theory that digital media can help create meaningful and authentic learning experiences by allowing students to negotiate output and collaborate. 2) Web 2.0 platforms empower students to both learn and produce content, acting as "digital natives". This generation influences incorporating digital media into curricula. 3) Authentic learning requires not just exposure to real language, but tasks students relate to. Digital media allows sharing output and getting feedback to support learning. 4) Technology is now normalized in life and education. It changes how we learn and teach but

1. Rossino, Carolina
Aplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés INSPT – UTN 2011
Written Assignment for Final Exam
OUTPUT – ORIENTED LANGUAGE LEARNING WITH DIGITAL
MEDIA
The development of the digital media has changed the way we, common people, act
upon the world that surround us; not only by changing our ways of communication, but
also changing the way we learn and the way we educate other people. In a better or worse
way is a subjective matter, but it has definitely change our way of living.
The chapter I am about to discuss is called “Output – Oriented Language Learning
with Digital Media”. Here, Bernd Ruschoff, the author, highlights the importance and
potential that the digital media represents when trying to generate not only comprehensible
but meaningful output from the learners, or when trying to create the so important authentic
environment that the learners need. His hypothesis and studies are based on Swain’s output
hypothesis (1985), which states that “learners engaged in negotiating meaningful and
comprehensible outputs […] are very much engaged in learning experiences which foster
language learners’ cognitive and linguistic growth by means of processes of reflective and
collaborative learning”(Swain, 1985, p. 42). So, starting from this point and taking into
account two very important words such as “Meaningful” and “collaboration”, the author
makes a connection between the use of the tools and platforms available on the web and the
possibility the concepts previously mentioned give us to create true authenticity, which is,
as the author states, “a crucial issue in language learning methodology” (Ruschoff, 2006, p.
43-44). Ruschoff believes that true authenticity necessitates “the provision of learning
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2. Rossino, Carolina
Aplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés INSPT – UTN 2011
Written Assignment for Final Exam
experiences which include authenticity of language, authenticity of task, authenticity of
learning situation and authenticity of interaction” (Ruschoff, 2006, p. 44 ). From this
definition of authenticity derives another key term, which is very important in the
hypothesis, because it has a close connection with the use o the digital media, and it is the
term “Agency”. This term has been explained by different authors and researchers, but
according to Ellis (1985, p. 44), the concept “addresses the fact that any kind of successful
language learning should be based on the principle of language learning as language use”;
although not explicit but embedded, the concept of authenticity appears in this definition,
giving the learner not only the possibility of construct their own knowledge in an authentic
environment, where language is used in authentic situations , but, as the author says, it
“empowers the learner with skills and competencies needed to interact and communicate in
a meaningful and appropriate manner in a given context” (Ruschoff, 2006, p. 44). Once
more, in a not explicit way, the term places great importance in the role of the learner when
constructing their own knowledge; there is an important combination of authentic
environment and the learner, as an “active, creative and socially interactive participant”
(Harper, 1996, p.48), just like in Vygotsky’s theory of learning (1935). And, if we intend to
follow this path, we may need the tool(s) the learner might need in order to construct
knowledge; in this context, Digital media, as the author states, may be the tool we need.
Although the Internet may not be something new in our lives, the current 2.0 system
provides opportunities for us to become learners and producers at the same time. During the
early years of the Web 1.0, the creation of projects necessitate a lot of effort and technical
knowledge, what is more, we were not able to modify our work and the products of the
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3. Rossino, Carolina
Aplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés INSPT – UTN 2011
Written Assignment for Final Exam
activities were rarely published. In the author’s words, the web, for most people, “was not a
creative space” (Ruschoff, 2006, p. 46). Nowadays, the Web 2.0 has become a
“participatory platform […] where […] anyone can contribute to an ongoing ‘conversation’
in which knowledge is both discovered and constructed as it goes on” (Freeman, 2006, p.
47). This new concept not only has changed our attitude towards our idea of
communication and knowledge construction, but has also ‘created’ a new generation of
people: the so- called “digital natives”. This generation and the different characteristics
they share have played an important part in the inclusion of the digital media in the
curricula and the use of the internet in order to create the authentic learning environment
we have discussed before.
However, as Ruschoff (2006) states, “authenticity cannot be limited to replacing the
textbooks with a sample of real language”. But if there is not only a sample of real language
(a text, an audio or a video) but also tasks the learners can both identify with and relate to
their experiences in life, we can say there is true authenticity.
As a conclusion of this chapter, we are able to say that there must be a purpose and
urgency for the agency of the learner to take place into the authentic environment we are
intended to create; in the author’s own words : “Learners need to feel the need to become
actively involved in learning scenarios they consider […]valid and purposeful in their
lives”(Ruschoff, 2006) and, more important, they need to share this experience, to get a
feedback and to “expose” this learning that is taking part. By producing and publishing
“radio- clips” or other kind of broadcasts, we may be able to see the output and they may
benefit from the feedback the listeners or viewers often provide.
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4. Rossino, Carolina
Aplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés INSPT – UTN 2011
Written Assignment for Final Exam
There is one last challenge, “to find models for how to connect various web
applications […] into coherent learning experiences” (Purushotma, 2005, p. 55); because
using Digital media is not a challenge any more.
References:
• Ruschoff, B. (2006) Output Oriented Language Learning with Digital Media. In
Thomas, M. (2009) Handbook of Research on Web 2.0 and Second Language
Learning (pp. 42-59). Japan: Nagoya University of Commerce and Business.
• Ellis, R. (1985). Understanding second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
• Harper, B. (1996). Using cognitive tools in interactive multimedia. Retrieved June 11, 2008,
from http://www.auc.edu.au/conf/Conf96/Papers/Harper.html
• Purushotma R. (2005). Communicative 2.0 — foreign language education learning with
video games and authentic web media. Retrieved April 1, 2008, from
www.lingualgamers.com/thesis/
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5. Rossino, Carolina
Aplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés INSPT – UTN 2011
Written Assignment for Final Exam
• Swain, M. (1985). Communicative competence: Some roles of comprehensible input and
comprehensible output in its development. In Gass, S., & Madden, C. (Eds.), Input in
second language acquisition (pp. 235-256). New York: Newbury House.
“THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY IN ELT”
Technology is playing an important part in our lives, and as our lives include
education in all the senses, we can find technology shaping us as learners and educators
too.
According to Dudeney and Hockly (2007), the term distance learning has referred to
“traditional paper-based distance courses delivered by mail”. Nowadays, this has been
replaced by the use of the Internet, and the term is often used as a synonym for E-learning,
which includes other types of learning, such as open learning, online learning and blended
learning. This is the way the digital natives construct their world, by using tools that are
different from the tools digital immigrants were able to use. And this use of the technology
has lead to what Sharma and Barret (2007) called “normalization of technology”; it is part
of our everyday life and we have to adopt it and adapt it to our needs; always bearing in
mind that it is only a tool and not a replacement for the human factor.
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6. Rossino, Carolina
Aplicaciones de la Informática Educativa a la Enseñanza del Inglés INSPT – UTN 2011
Written Assignment for Final Exam
As a conclusion, we can say that technology is part of our lives and its playing an
important part on them, becoming almost ‘invisible’, but changing the way we construct
our world and changing the world itself almost continually.
References
• Dudeney, G. & Hockly, N. (2007). E- learning: Online Teaching and Training. In
How to Teach English with Technology (pp.136 – 147). Malaysia: Pearson
Education Limited.
• Sharma, P. & Barret, B. (2007) Blended Learning: Using technology in and beyond
the language classroom (p. 132) Great Britain: MacMillan Publishers Limited.
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