Communities of practice online: Reflection through experience and experiment with the Webheads community of language learners and practitioners
Week 3
February 3 - 9, 2003
Issues Discussed in Week 3
communities of practice
(an ongoing thread)
would make people hesitate about joining a CoP. Enter Nigel.
Anecdote 1 : The university where I did my M.Ed in TESOL was very much
into student-centered learning. Fine. We had endless classes (and some
of them felt like they would never end) in which the "content" was
introduced by student-led discussions. I eventually learned not to take
these classes. There are some contexts in which transmission of
knowledge is necessary and expected, and cannot be generated through
negotiation by inexperienced learners. Plus, if leadership is going to
be rotated, you have to have confidence in the leadership skills of
everyone in the group, otherwise you're going to waste a lot of time. In
a goal-oriented context (getting a univ degree),
classes/communities/whatever need goals and they need to reach them.
From your comments, I'm not sure a CoP is necessarily a good way to do
this.
Anecdote 2 : In my other life, I co-founded a student theatre group. Our
initial ethos was rather CoP-like, a "company of players" without
hierarchy (other than a director and producer for each play), no
committees, everything decided by majority vote, etc etc. This worked
very well for about six months when there were 20 company members and
the same two people (the 2 co-founder) were either producing or
directing. However, as the company grew, it became clear that "chaos
navigation" was going to tear the group apart, and I persuaded the
company to create one elected leadership position (a sort of chairman).
And this has worked rather nicely. Idealism should always, in my
opinion, give way quickly to realism.
So, my points would be this: I would hesitate about participating in a
CoP where there was something specific I wanted to attain, and I would
be wary of making a commitment to a group that did not have a leader,
with whom the buck could stop (as WiA does of course). I am no expert on
CoPs, and have only had time to read the listserv messages, not the
online papers, so please correct me if I'm way off track. Also, if
someone could show me the relevance of CoPs to language learning, I
might be a bit less in the dark.
Off-topic now, but I have to respond to Diane's comment:
>( Does
>anyone else suspect that the influx of EFL. Students
>into English language dominated Universities is
>actually dumbing down and making writing/marking
>standards so inflexible that originality is actively
>discouraged?)
Having recently taught ESL writing to a small international/immigrant
population at a medium-sized suburban university in Philadelphia, I can
strongly disagree with this sentiment. Our philosophy (common I believe
with many writing programs) was to raise the standards of the ESL
students by setting high standards and grading strictly. We teach the
conventions and expectations of academic writing (thesis statement,
paragraphing, citations, objectivity, etc) in order that students have
the tools at their disposal to be competent writers and achieve success
in their mainstream classes. By originality, I understand critical
thinking and writing, the ability to analyze source texts, and write
analytically about them. In our experience, the native English speakers
had as much difficulty with this as the ESL group, and all were working
towards this essential but complex concept. In no way could the presence
of diversity in the student population be seen as "dumbing down".
Nigel
<nigel@d...> wrote:
Also, if
> someone could show me the relevance of CoPs to language learning, I
> might be a bit less in the dark.
Hi everyone,
. . . I would like to address Nigel's question
regarding relevance of CoPs to language learning. I have already
posted to this list evidence (I think) of how members of our online
Writing for Webheads have operated as a CoP in the past (and this is
a group of language learners and teachers). I won't repeat that here.
But more practically speaking, my last few Arabic classes have been
organized essentially as CoPs. I have long ago (for my own purposes)
given up on the idea of traditional language courses except for
absolute beginners in a language (which is when it helps to learn
something of the structure of a language). The Arabic courses I have
organized since then have always had just two components. One is a
teacher who serves as facilitator and informant. This teacher can
put aside his/her ideas of 'teaching' grammar and vocabulary. The
second component is a group of students who agree that when meeting
in the class they will interact purely in the target language. The
teacher and students then both bring materials to the class. For
example, I might record off the radio or pick up a newspaper on my
way to class, or even create a web page on a topic with links to
Arabic sites that we can explore in class (Arabic songs are a good
example of this). With all teachers and students working to
contribute in this way to the course materials, we in effect form a
community of practice where all collaborate on the content of the
class, scaffold each other, and have fun. Even if you want to
discuss grammar, as long as you do it in the target language, that's
fair game.
This has informed my teaching as well. In one class I was teaching
in Oman my students had to prepare presentations in English. When
they complained this was too difficult I offered to model the first
presentation, only in Arabic. To prepare, I did it in my Arabic
group first. Essentially we discussed the topic I was to present
(just a conversation, on the UN). Did I mention I would typically
record these sessions (and play the tapes back on long road trips)?
From the tape, I fine tuned the vocab I would need. After I gave my
presentation in class my students could hardly complain about doing
the same in English.
. . .
Vance
Nigel brought up some very interesting points about CoPs. Are they a panacea? Do they have problems? What are they strengths and drawbacks?
If Nigel is willing, it would be useful to address some of the concerns that Nigel brought up next week in Week 4.
Stay tuned,
Chris
>I really enjoyed our thoughtful chat yesterday, Arnold, and as promised I
>will find the best parts and publish one of these days. This was a good
>example on how to make new professional friends in an online chat. Yours, Sus
Hello Sus, hello everyone,
I agree with everything you say in the above quote, Sus. Thanks for saying
this.
I do wonder if the same measure of thoughfulness would also be arrived at
if we, or all the others in this community, had happened NOT to share - in
broad terms - an educational background in theory and practice.
As a teacher trainer and educator I am now thinking of a CoP's potential
for students or student teachers - who by definition are students of the
discourse and as yet inexperienced in their trade-to-be.
Big question therefore: How could a community of (would-be) practice be
initiated, nurtured and maintained for students, with a similar
(degree-wise) kind of involvement and thoughtfulness on the part of these
students, without their teachers having to resort to the kind of 'support'
and 'structuring' if not downright 'educational straitjacking' that we know
so often kills learning stone dead.
Perhaps one of the possible answers to this big question has already been
given by this very community: Do not think of separate categories (implied
notion). But get a mix of students and teachers who - after a while - do
not know anymore in which category they belong. "I looked from student to
teacher and from teacher to student, and I could not say which was which."
I would love to hear more answers from others...
Arnold
Yesterday I read most of the messages I missed from week 2.I have
really enjoyed the precious discussion and gained a great deal of new
information on the definition of a CoP.I felt guilty and frusterated
though for not participating, especially, that Chris(If I'm not worng)
asked for our experiences with this or other CoPs.. . .
Best regards,
Buth
Dear girls,
. . .
Kind of quiet today! I
did have a short chat with Damian a while ago to ask him if I could
post part of our chat on students CoPs (remember, Daf?) and he agreed. Ok
with you, too? BTW, Daf, he's going to start his activity with his students
tomorrow. I'll also add that little bit of info.
Hugs, Teresa
I'm gradually catching up on the discussion on COPs which has been of great
interest. Chris's posting caught my eye as I was thinking that Webheads was
the first CoP that I'd experienced forgetting altogether my involvement with
the Co-counselling movement here in Darwin- Yes a good example of a f2f COP
for sure Chris.
Regards
Sonja
