Language in forums

“Talking and listening online”

In face-to-face language teaching, oral communication is central. Teachers spend a lot of time setting up activities to generate talk from all their students. Talk is a way of developing thoughts and ideas and sharing in other students’ thinking as well as practising the different kinds of language that arise from the teaching material and situation. And because talk is social, teachers do not normally interrupt the conversation by correcting student language.

What happens with the language when the activity is online and the students are communicating only through writing?

Tricia Bender says about forum discussions

Of course, the hope is that student responses will not be full of grammatical and spelling mistakes, but I think it advisable that they feel they are “talking” (Bender 2003, p58).

Bender is describing the discourse features of speech as opposed to writing – speech which is spontaneous is less monitored by the speaker in terms of “correctness” than for example a prepared speech or lecture, and rapid conversational language contains hesitations, false starts and grammatical slips.

In the same way, informal writing which is part of a dialogue is often not read through by the writer before posting, because participation in the discussion is the priority, while formal writing assignments will be carefully monitored and corrected. So the informal texts may have mistakes in them, and this is seen as understandable if the main purpose is spontaneous communication.

That students indeed seem to “feel that they are talking” is evident in the forum we have looked at in “Developing a forum”, about which Ingrid says “I get to hear different opinions.” The postings are long, so there is a lot of “talk”, which suggests a freedom from the restrictions of “polished writing.” There is also a lot of “listening” when contributors read the other postings in a discussion before responding. Enjoyment in writing and reading is evident throughout the forum. The language does indeed appear to be what Bender calls “a spontaneous stream of consciousness”, with no evidence of re-reading and correction, as though the writer is eagerly rushing on to the next thought, and as though what is written is like speech in being left behind and not gone back to. The errors that occur may be seen as parallel to the normal hesitations, false starts and grammatical slips in rapid conversational language. Veronica in the same forum says

I feel that the tree was the only thing always standing, when their friendship crashed. Do you agrea with me that the happening with the dress in the has a symbolic value?

We can note here two inappropriate words, “always” for “still” and “happening,”

one missing word, and one typing/spelling error. But the message is perfectly clear. And although the language is spontaneous, it is still complex and not at all like speech in structure.

The discourse follows rules of appropriacy similar to those taught for responses in process writing.. Responses are generally phrased in a positive mode, and any disagreement is modified by phrases like “I’m not sure if I agree with that…”, or use of questions: “Don’t you think that….” Or “do you really mean…..?”

As well as being informal, texts may have a strong personal voice; as Andreas Lund points out,

The “hybrid genre of spoken and written language affords conventions that would normally not be found in purely written or oral classroom exchanges (Lund, The Teacher as Interface, 216)

In this example, a German student is taking part in a “sharing experience” forum with her group after their first day observing at a Norwegian school. Features of the text like dramatic punctuation, not stopping to use the Shift key for capitals, addressing the other group members, give an impression of speechlike eagerness and involvement.

i just wanted to add that in my school(primary school)there is an outdoor day every friday-..and that the whole year round, i really like the idea of it- but i have to say that this a new thing to me as we coul never imagine of it in german schools...which si sad!!but i can tell that pupils and even more their parents are going mad when they know about a whole day outdoors coming up soon, everybody is so demotivated which means that the kids are always complainig- if it is not about he weather then it will be about hurting feet, hungry kids and and and...i really think this should be changed!!!!!!!because in my opinion children need!to be outside!!they can learn there so much more as just by sitting in the classroom!!!life takes place outside, dont you think??????

In contrast, in an end-of -course formal assignment using the experience from school visits and comparing the education systems of Norway and Germany, the same student discusses the topic more objectively and uses a much more formal and worked-through language, in a text which has gone through a process of discussion with a teacher.

There are subjects that are taught by other teachers like Arts and Physical Education etc which I think is the same in Norway. In addition to that you can find other subjects in Norway just as Home Economics and one really Norwegian subject which is called Outdoor Activity.

This is arranged in a complete school day which is meant to be spent outside the class room or only in some hours per week. The pupils learn there very important things like how they have to dress in the different weather types occurring in Norway or how they can orientate in the wilderness etc. I think this really shows the connection between the Norwegians and the nature of their country.

Language in forums