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.