Conclusions and Implications

I began looking at this site out of frustration: I can find academic articles all day long, but trying to actually discover a community online that was (a)generating conversation, (b)generating conversation on something that would interest me enough to follow it for several months and possibly participate, and (c) was still going strong does not seem to be my strong suit. After hours of staring at the screen, trying countless searches on my own affinities, www.how-to-learn-any-language.com (HTLAL) showed up like a light at the end of an interminably long tunnel. The site itself seemed a little strangely put together, and I had no idea what I could write about, but I was hooked.

I am glad that I stayed.  HTLAL is a robust forum, with hundreds of users posting every day about a multitude of topics relating to one of my favorite things: language! While a tiny minority of users post badly-thought-out, rude, or simply incomprehensible comments, the majority of the community seems interested in carrying out a serious, thoughtful inquiry into the nature of language and how (and why) to learn it. These individuals have come together from their various geographical locations because of (or perhaps in spite of) one man, a shady Swiss entrepreneur who created a curious but inspirational website with a well-designed forum and then disappeared, allowing his followers to discover their own best practices on these forums. The forum is an excellent case study for affinity groups - one that I would love to continue looking into beyond this semester. Near the end of my research, I discovered the newly-emerging practice of replacing language teachers with self-access language learning centers, and I did not have enough time to look into them as in-depth as I would have liked. What I did find, however, was that implementing a site such as HTLAL into an existing self-access language learning center, or vice versa, seems to be a good step to take in the future of online language learning. I hope to further research and confirm this implication in the months to come.

Website Architecture

After working with the forum side of this site for several weeks, I realized that I had not come in through the main page at all during that time. Though this is not necessarily strange - after all, I was more interested in the interactive, ever-changing nature of the forums than the static nature of the website itself, I decided to go back to the main page to see if there was anything I had missed that would further illuminate my observations on the forum. It seems that it was worth investigating - instead of finding more valuable information on that side (which I did as well), it was what I did not find that was more interesting.

 

   To the left is a screenshot the home page - note the main navigation bar (the four buttons in the black header space) does not have a link back to this page – most sections have a link in the sub-navigation bar, but once you click on Forum, for example, you have to re-enter the homepage address into the browser to return.

 

At the end of the welcome message here, there is an update announcing the number of members of the website, as well as new moderators and a post count. The date of this update, however, is the same as the copyright at the bottom of the page: 2009 (Oddly, the forum is copyrighted through this year, but this side was neglected.). There are a couple of other signs of neglect, such as the success story page, where Micheloud encourages his followers to submit their stories - but only one other than his own is displayed. Either Micheloud is very picky, or they just aren’t contributing that much because there is very little user-generated content on this side. After seeing a thread on the forum side suggesting that even the forum users didn't know what happened to him, I did a Google search to find if he was simply too busy being successful elsewhere to keep up on his site. Other than discovering that he is in the Swiss banking business and has several other websites that don't seem to have been updated since 2009, there is no news of his doings. It was suggested that I find out whether he even owned HTLAL anymore - and he does not. Fabien Snauwaert, a Frenchman who owns a website about learning English and has published a book on that topic, seems to be the sole contact for HTLAL. He does not show up anywhere on the site, and if he is a contributor to the forums, he uses another name; this does not help my opinion of the safety of this website.

The Guide section has a lot of great, general information, again generated pretty much solely by Micheloud. He includes tips and tricks on the learning process, a list (in English) of the most important phrases to learn in another language, and a full e-book about Mezzofanti, a famous polyglot. The offerings are a bit esoteric, but nothing too out of the ordinary. It is clear when Micheloud uses phrases such as, "there's no rule written on a stone" that English isn't quite his first language, but he is clear enough to be well-understood.

Though Micheloud does not actually include much learning material on his site, he does include a profile for 21 language, ranking them by popularity, difficulty, transparency, GDP, income, number of speakers, and number of countries it is spoken in. They are ordered by popularity, which does not seem to directly correlate with any of the other statistics, but instead is based on his visitations to shops that sell foreign-language materials. This seems like a very loose guideline, and many people seem to have written in regarding their own opinions on where their language should be ranked, but the information is interesting, nonetheless.

The pictures on the far right side of the page are placed directly where and in the same format that one would expect advertisements to be. As such, I hardly paid any attention to them for several visits. When I looked closer, however, I found links to other sections on the web page. I still have not clicked on them, out of confusion and fear that they still may be spam, but they seem to be legitimate. 

Compared to the forum side of the webpage, this website looks a bit trashy and very suspicious. If I hadn't discovered the robust nature of the forum side first, I probably would have left - too much of it looks like what I would consider spam.

Methodology

How To Learn Any Language (HTLAL) caught my eye as I was searching for a site regarding linguistics because of its focus on language itself rather than any one language in particular. Theoretically created by a man who realized how rewarding it was to learn multiple languages, it hosts a variety of general resources designed more to inspire the user to seek out his or her own method instead of following any set plan. The resources include descriptions of different languages, a (difficult to find) sound gallery, lists of good books and tapes for different languages, and much, much more. It is clear that the forum is the big draw of this site, however; everything points back to it and the links prominently feature it (in fact, the website’s logo is even a link to the forum rather than the homepage). On the forum, users of all levels of language-learning (they call themselves –glots – monoglot, diglot, triglot, etc.) talk about every facet of learning language. There are specific forums in which they can talk to each other in their target language, but far more populous are the forum threads to talk about the origin and evolution  of language, discussing the sounds, perceptions, and reputations of different languages, and sharing interesting articles and other outside information regarding language.  

I am participating in this site more as an observer than participant; I am working by subject matter, then user. I want to know why talking about language is so useful in the goal of learning more languages – or if the real goal and the stated goal really may be slightly different. In other studies such as , users were using websites with the stated goal of sharing fan fiction with their peers, but they were also achieving the goal of learning a second language in an informal manner. I believe a similar phenomenon is occurring here; most of the users have a non-English native tongue – while they are asking each other (in English) how language works, they are learning new languages through discussing language itself. This is fascinating to me, as most other forums that I have taken a look at on language learning sites will talk about grammar and other very specific structural information about their particular language, as well as offering places to talk about life in general – but not language in general.

The information I’m collecting is mainly in the form of conversations between users – especially controversial conversations. While I do mean topics that inspire controversy due to their inherent nature, I also mean topics that draw attention to themselves because of the nature of the user who introduced them and/or because of their location in regard to other topics.I am also focusing heavily on the architecture of the website, looking at its influence on the users themselves.

Literature for language - REVISED FOR FINAL

Kartal, Erdogan and Uzun, Levent. “The Internet, Language Learning, and International Dialogue: Constructing Online Foreign Language Learning Websites.” Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education 11:2 (April 2010).

In looking for articles that apply to my forum and research question, I found several that discussed online foreign language learning sites, but none that really seemed to address this sort of model. That got me thinking – there are plenty of websites that provide meeting places for tutors (of all sorts) and students; several websites provide a compilation of materials for individuals trying to learn on their own; and several websites are structured around genres that attract speakers of other languages to learn the language to communicate in those genres. However, the literature that I am finding so far does not mention much in the way of websites populated by peers who discuss how they learn languages. HTLAL has the compiled material, but it adds the interactive layer of the forum. The users of HTLAL seem undoubtedly interested in learning language, but there are at least as many if not more forums regarding tangential subjects such as the history of language, differing levels of respect for any particular language, and why any languages end up sounding the way they do. This shows a new understanding of what language is, and how to learn it.

“The Internet, Language Learning, and International Dialogue” provides an intriguing context for HTLAL – especially the forum. It is fairly generalized, beginning with a series of quotes regarding the importance of language as communication and moving on to discuss the merits of learning a language online. The authors have students analyze [several] websites, four for each language, for organization, pedagogy, and methodology that “use the Internet to its full potential” (92), and end the article with a checklist for all foreign-language learning website creators to follow. In looking at the websites, I must remember that HTLAL was fundamentally different from these counterparts – it is designed to encourage individuals to learn language, rather than walk them through the process. As such, it encompasses a larger number of languages and includes far more generalized advice for the individuals to follow. It does not rate particularly well on the authors’ checklist, and yet it is immensely popular and comes up as the second-best language-learning forum out there right now.

The keyword here is “forum.” HTLAL has only a smattering of actual resources online – while there is a forum devoted to users posting their progress (creating some accountability for those who use it) and an annual challenge to learn languages in a certain amount of time, there are no games to cement knowledge of the language, few drills to work through the language, and no vocabulary lists for any particular language. However, it has a far more robust forum than those of the websites analyzed for the article, and said forum is divided into far more subsections relating not only to specific-language problems, but also problems in language as a whole. For HTLAL users, understanding how language as a whole works seems just as vital as (if not more than) breaking down each individual language into learnable chunks. This article helps to frame my discussion of the article by showing its position to other, similar websites in its genre.   

Ke, Fengfeng and Hoadley, Christopher. “Evaluating online learning communities.” Association for Educational Communications and Technology, 2009.

In looking further at the structure of HTLAL, it seems to fit into a broader context: the online learning community (OLL).  In “Evaluating online learning communities,” Ke and Hoadley note the increase in online communal learning spaces as more and more technology enters the classroom; this allows for a more collaborative atmosphere in distance learning that better supports each learner. “At best,” they write, “these communities can be effective online communities of practice (Lave and Wenger 1991) or knowledge-building communities (Scardamalia et al. 1992). At their worst, they can impede groups of users or lead to persuasive but unproductive ideas if group interactions are disrespectful or unequal (Linn and Burbules 1993)” (488).

The purpose of HTLAL seems to be to create an environment in which individuals are inspired to learn languages on their own and to connect individuals who are attempting similar tasks to keep them company. The forum adds that element that is so useful to distance learning classrooms – the other individuals with whom to compare notes and figure out how to achieve their goals without the face-to-face interaction of a traditional learning experience.

One part of this article that particularly caught my eye is the question as to whether an online learning community “is emergent in nature or created by design” (489). Can an effective community just spring up overnight, or must it have the proper and specific infrastructure in place to ensure success. Ke and Hoadley brush over this question quickly, moving on to the life cycle of an OLL, but I’d like to stop here for a moment. As we see in the later post on this blog investigating the site’s architecture, this is not a well-designed site. Though it comes up as one of the first (if not the first) language-learning site in a Google search, it is poorly designed and most users would be cautious in committing to reading it, let alone surrendering any personal information. Because of this, I would argue that an OLL can be successful in either way, but I would call HTLAL an exception to the rule in garnering such a large and long-standing membership. This leads me to the next step: in a longer study, I would like to poll the users there to find out their perception of the site as a whole.

McLean, Cheryl. “A Space Called Home: An Immigrant Adolescent’s Digital Literacy Practices.”

McLean’s “A Space Called Home: An Immigrant Adolescent’s Digital Literacy Practices” provides a useful parallel for my research in this forum. While Zeek uses social networking sites to stay connected with her home language and location, the users of HTLAL use the forum to become connected with other languages (particularly English, though there are smaller subforums to speak in other languages) and locations. The sociocultural theorists quoted in McLean’s article state that meaning making is a social process that is inextricably linked to the cultural tools and communicative symbols that are grounded in language. By participating in this forum’s dialogue, HTLAL users are transcending “immediate communities and personal histories” (14) to build a new culture integrating the experiences of users all over the world to discuss their interests. They are also creating a new identity for themselves; there are very particular aspects of identity that are specifically valued on this site with accompanying strict guidelines on how to employ said aspects. Micheloud says more than once on the non-participatory side of the website that overstating the languages one knows well is a dangerous, rude, and generally annoying thing to do. In the forum, the sentiment is the same. Without even reading the posts, one can pick up the feeling that being exact on how one is interacting with any particular language is very important by the delineation of languages learned and languages studied in each user’s post signature window. This perhaps is an aspect of the online relationship between these users that is better than in the real world; being honest and upfront about what languages each user can actually speak allows others to choose better how to interact with each user, and how to react to odd postings. It is easy to jump in and learn the in-language of this “family” quickly because of the archive of posts, thus allowing this online community to be a “polyglot” place where users can “be polyglots” (14).

Merchant, Guy. “Mind the Gap(s): discourses and discontinuity in digital literacies.” E-learning 4.3, 2007.

Morrison, Bruce. “Evaluating learning gain in a self-access language learning centre” Language Teaching Research 9.3, 2005.

From the above discussion, it seems that the HTLAL forum could be considered both an online learning community and a birthplace for a new culture; Merchant’s ideas in “Mind the Gap” tie these contexts together into and call them by another name: affinity space. Affinity spaces facilitate “the development of ad hoc and purpose-driven or interest-driven groups in which self-directed learning can take place.” This sounds like a perfect fit for HTLAL users: they are driven by the purpose of learning more languages and come together to figure out how to do just that. This quality is what makes the forum so ideal to fit into the final and definitive slot that I wish to place the forum: as a part of a self-access language learning center.

          Self-access language learning centers (SACs) seem to be a fairly new phenomenon in the United States; in fact, much of the research that I found used centers in Hong Kong for its research, and I have only found records of two well-established centers in this country. They seem to have been born out of necessity – too many students and too few teachers. A

SAC is some sort of centralized database of language-learning materials, generally associated with an educational institution and comprising a physical and digital workspace. There is a manager of these workspaces, but he functions much like his job title suggests – keeping the files in order and making of note of who is using what. The students who utilize this sort of resource then become self-language learners – whether out of necessity or desire does not seem to be clear. Either way, it puts them in a similar position to users on HTLAL – a heterogeneous population of language learners with plenty of resources but little to no guidance – except that they have each other. Using a SAC seems to have an element of working in a vacuum – a difficult thing to do when learning something that by its nature requires communication with others. Using the forum side of HTLAL as a model for implementing interactive forums into SACs would unquestioningly benefit the students – they would have the benefit of farther-reaching knowledge than their own minds and they would have a place to communicate with others, practicing and perfecting their common affinity in a relaxed, social manner.

Data Sample #2

In looking at how people perceive what language is, I need to step back and find out whose perceptions I am examining. Posters to this forum create their public identity in several ways. One very simple way is through their profile snippet that appears with every post – it looks like this:

(if the picture is not showing up, you can find it here: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=29608&PN=1)

There is a place for

·         a picture,

·         your name,

·          the number of languages you speak and study,

·         what sort of member you are, where you are from,

·          how long you have been a member, and

·         where you are from.

Interestingly, most people in this forum do not post a picture, as was the subject of a thread started by the individual in the above screenshot. They are uncomfortable posting pictures for many stated reasons, including privacy, dislike of their looks, and laziness. One particular reason grabbed my attention, however, as particular indicative of the individual being particularly digitally literate:

In my case it's easy: People who not only want to read me (they can read my posts!) or listen to me (they can talk with me on Skype!) can watch my You Tube videos and SEE me full in action. Therefore I don't need an avatar here showing my picture.

The individual who posted that does in fact have a picture up – just not of herself. Just as in the real world, you don’t necessarily place equal importance on every facet of your personality, she decided to play up different parts of herself in different digital arenas.

Another way to create identity in this forum is, of course, to create and respond to threads. There are many different subforums in which to post, including General Discussion, Specific Languages, Advice Center, and many more. So far, I have been focusing on the General Discussion forum, which has threads on anything from pictures in your profile to untranslatable words to whether there is even a point to learning another language – in other words, there is something for everyone. What each poster writes about reflects their interests and intentions in being a part of this site, leading everyone else to either support or shut down the poster as they see fit. One, more dramatic example of this was found in a thread titled, “Are endangered languages less expressive?” The individual initiating this post, C, was reporting on what she considered a “curious phenomen[on]”:

I'm from Barcelona, and a curious phenomena is happening with Catalan. When many Catalan artists, musicians or writers are asked why do they publish their works in Spanish or English instead of Catalan, most of them reply it's because Catalan is an unexpressive language and a song, film or book written in Catalan looks too artificial to be attractive, funny and enjoyable for the consumer. Most Catalans think this way, but it's because Catalan is unexpressive per se, or because it's an endangered language? Do speakers of endangered languages noticed this too, or it's just me?

(The full thread can be found here: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25763&PN=2&TPN=5)

The first two responses treated this as a serious question from a serious poster, but the next few posts were used to shred C’s credibility by commenting on her seemingly anti-Catalan stance in her other posts. This devolved to outright insults directed at C for two posts but then, just as quickly the thread righted itself again. People seemed to be ignoring issues of C’s credibility and simply answering her question – until she inserts herself again, attacking all of the answers that were given and spouting angry statements about how terrible the Catalan situation is. The next few pages are made up of other posters systematically pulling her statements apart, and her lashing back out at them. The original topic – expressiveness of endangered languages – actually stays rather strong throughout, but it is approached by responding to someone else’s (not C’s) comments or by working to prove C wrong. Her identity seems to be cemented negatively by her past post history and her unwillingness to provide requested statistics or to, really, say anything positive about her own language.  

Data Sampling - Revised for final

Link to thread I am using as my data sample: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26764&PN=1

My question is: how do people perceive language? Does this have an impact on how they learn it? As I look at the HTLAL forums, I want to know what they think. The stated mission of the site is located on the homepage, claiming that Micheloud will provide (a) a guide to choosing which language to learn; (b) a detailed, hands-on guide to teaching yourself a foreign language (note the general language here); (c) reviews of books about language learning (interestingly, he is not at all interested in providing access to other language-learning websites); and (d) answers to frequently asked questions about language. These claims seem to bear out fairly well – I will examine them in more depth in a later post. However, the forum seems to add yet another mission to the site: it provides a space for language learners and enthusiasts to come together to talk about language – learning it, defending it, saving it, and generally celebrating it. Here I am looking at a thread that crosses a bit of (a) with the forum’s goal, successfully carrying out Micheloud’s mission.

 Learning a language is one of the most common ways individuals think to improve themselves – whether to get a better job, to sound more cultured, or to travel more confidently. So what happens when the language they learn turns into a detriment to their image? On this forum, they try to puzzle out why. A senior member, LebensForm, created a thread called “Ever criticized for learning German?” in the subforum titled “Specific Languages” to address the negative attitudes she perceived toward her target language. Started on May 19, 2011, it generated 66 messages over 6 months. Out of the 44 users who posted to the forums, only 9 users posted more than once. LebensForm posted 11 times, keeping her presence alive in the forum, but most of the other users seemed content to voice their opinions and move on. LebensForm’s last two posts seemed to be geared toward (first) ending the conversation and (second) changing the subject, but the users continued on restating what had already been said in various ways. The general tone of the thread was positive toward LebensForm and negative toward her detractors. The users continually brought up three particular perceptions that seem to color their own detractors’ opinions: the sound of the language (as “harsh” or “beautiful”; historical connotations linked with the language; and the practicality of the language. Some users’ comments went into multiple categories, as their comments touched on several categories.

Sound

Biologically, phonemes from different languages require different shapings of the mouth and valued pitches are different. The sound of a language will color a person’s perception of the culture; this seems to be particularly true of German, as it was mentioned 16 times. Keilan, one of the first posters, illustrated the problem as follows:

“I usually ask them if they think German sounds like this, and then proceed to say "nach" with the most exaggerated gross throaty noise I can make. NaCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCh.” (Keilan)

The 4 other users who commented on others’ perception of the sound of German said similar things to this; the other 11 users went on the defensive, telling how beautiful it was, that they either liked the harshness of the language or didn’t hear it as harsh, and presenting examples of literature that was “guaranteed” to change listeners’ minds. I would be curious to see how successful that technique actually was; it seems as if it would only work on those who hadn’t really heard German at all before and were parroting stereotypes.

Historical Connotations

19 comments were made about the history of German. They fell broadly into two camps: four users who mentioned that they were learning German to preserve their own heritage, and 15 regarding the negative history tied to Germany. I will focus on the negative history comments here. Most of these comments came in midway through the conversation, and most of them centered around Nazis (the other comments took notice of general, undefined ignorance on the part of their detractors). After the first few comments of this nature, Witproduct noted the fulfillment of Godwin’s Law [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if_pr.html] – an observation made by attorney Mike Godwin in 1990 that if an Internet conversation goes on long enough, no matter the subject matter, someone will compare a point made in said conversation to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis. Godwin was trying to point out the danger of overusing a meme to the point of its power diminishing.

Though the comparisons here were entirely topical, Witproduct’s comment is valuable in pointing out the elephant in the room and trying to figure out just how important it really was. When one user suggested that everyone should just “get over the Nazi crap,” he was quickly chastised and the issue was reframed to make the point that, though what happened in the past is still important, there should be no correlation between the language and those who happened to use it as they did terrible things.

Practicality

18 comments were made on the practicality of learning the language; four users stated that they had been told how difficult the language was (most of those users responded with a remark regarding either the general beauty of the language or their preference for it). The other fourteen posted variations on the theme that Germany is an “economic powerhouse” (Remster), and therefore they were either required to learn it in school (and generally ended up liking it) or they wanted to learn it to better their chances at a job or general communication. Most noted that the importance of German varied from region to region, with it being far less highly regarded in the United States, where “you're surrounded by miles and miles of English” (Remster [Netherlands]).  

Conclusion

Learning a language, even if there are practical aspects involved, seems to be a very personal thing; one user stated that learning a language is a "love story" (JLA): it shouldn't have to be defended or justified - it should just be learned for the joy of learning. Though most users restricted their comments to stating what others didn't like about their language, those who stated real reasons for learning German generally stated similar comments to that of JLA. This community, at least, seems to perceive language as a privilege, as a hobby, and generally as a part of their identity. 

A fun side note: in her original post on this thread, LebensForm asks, “…what do you say when people in your real lives give you a bad time about wanting to learn a particular language?” (my emphasis). It’s a curiosity that she considers this forum not to be a part of her real life – perhaps this is what allows her to ask these questions and air her frustrations about negative reactions to her target language.