Online dialogue tools offer ways of practising the communicative and interactive skills that students need, by encouraging them to express their own thoughts in relation to the thoughts of the other members of the group.
Discussion develops language, whether it is mother tongue, second or foreign language. Discussion is very often about texts – for example, a book, article or a lecture – and draws on the language and content of the texts as well as the language of informal interaction. Other uses of discussion, involving different language, might be planning work together, exchanging experiences, brainstorming, or giving feedback.
Moderating online discussions is not basically different in its priorities from moderating “live” classroom discussions.
Online moderating is about:
1. Creating a good task
A moderator setting up a task has a number of long-term aims in mind in relation to developing competencies such as
•understanding a text
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• practising some of the language in a text
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• functioning well in a discussion (e.g. by showing awareness of turn-taking and “listening” to what other participants “say”)
•using appropriate language in responding to others
•developing digital skills
•developing insight into ways of learning online.
Essential to student development is the need for regular hands-on experience,
practice and repetition. In this kind of progression, tasks will tend to be simpler in early stages. But to create good discussion, a task must obviously be open-ended so that participants bring in their own content and reflection and find meaning in expressing their own views and reading the views of others.
2. Moving the discussion in different directions by picking up a theme or introducing a new one
One of the useful features of a forum discussion is that all participants have an overview of the whole discussion, and read the other contributions. It is very easy for a moderator – or indeed a participant – to pick up points from the discussion for further development, or to introduce a new topic. Typically, moderators will use encouragement and questions to do this!
3. involving and encouraging all the participants, so that they all “say” something, and are “heard.”
The overview of a discussion also enables the moderator to encourage participants to develop ideas, or to write more. It also makes it easy for the moderator to contact a participant who has not posted anything – this is easily done by e-mail so that the transaction is confidential. (see Using email)
4. Using language which is pleasant, relaxed and direct
The moderator’s voice in a forum appears on screen as a name and perhaps a picture, in exactly the same way as the students. This is a feature which emphasises the feeling of conversation filling up the room space.
About moderator’s language, Trisha Bender says
“…writing within the discussion forums is new to some of us. It is the quotidian writing of asking questions, responding to student comments, and asking more questions. This conversational writing style mimics the way I would speak if I were sitting with my students in a seminar.” Bender,p.75
Unmoderated and student moderated discussions
The first choice for the moderator after setting up the task is to decide whether to be part of the discussion or stay outside. Both types of forum give students useful practice. A forum may also be moderated by a student.
An example of a complex and extended unmoderated forum on a Norwegian distance teaching course for English teachers was about Zadie Smith’s novel White Teeth
The starting question is very open, to see where it leads, and whether we need more questions: What did you enjoy most about “White Teeth”?
The discussion was lengthy and lively. Each group spontaneously started by discussing the challenge of reading a very complex text, before getting involved in a lively discussion of the novel. More questions were not needed!
See also the “Exchanging Experiences” forum
Moderated discussions
Now, a look at the role played by the moderator in the “Nispero Tree” and “Bedside Table” forums.
Anne in the Nispero Tree forum 1) takes up specific criteria in the task definition, 2) follows up later to make sure the discussion covers the criteria, 3) makes positive comments and introduces a new idea, and 4) finally takes the discussion into the last phase, which the students in fact have already started on. The task is detailed and demanding in relation to the text discussed, but also open, and the discussion is spontaneous and not structured by the detailed criteria.
The full text of this forum is here
Sandra in the Bedside Table forum1) expresses interest, 2) asks a student to lend her book, 3) comments on her own reading, 4) brings in a poem and asks students to think about its theme and message in relation to another text, and 5) comments on a book as a member of the group. So her contributions are full of teacher language to stimulate more reading and more thought on texts.
Full text of Bedside Table forum here.
Sandra using good teacher language in the Bedside Table forum:
Is it your own book, Ellinor, and if so is there a waiting list? I'd like to borrow it - there are copies and an audio CD in the public library in town, but they're all on loan. Seems to be a popular book.
Have you read any of her other books - If you could see me now or Where Rainbows End?
Here is Anne in the “Nispero Tree” forum, coming in well into the discussion:
Great comments on the title! Excellent! I'd only like to add that Ana’s skin is the colour of the nispero fruit (p. 26), which is a beautiful brown, Teresa thinks, until she 'learns' that 'brown is black'....
You may continue responding to the question above, but since time is running short now, we'd better also take up the last, important aspect: How can we use this book in class? I know you've already started discussing that issue, but you might have something to add, perhaps?
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•Moderating a Forum
