The teacher as interface : teachers of EFL in ICT-rich environments : beliefs, practices, appropriation

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THE TEACHER AS

INTERFACE

TEACHERS OF EFL IN ICT-RICH ENVIRONMENTS:

BELIEFS, PRACTICES, APPROPRIATION

Andreas Lund

A Dissertation submitted for the degree of Philosophia Doctor (ph.d) September 2003

The University of Oslo The Faculty of Arts

and

The Department of Teacher Education and School Development

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Preface

After 20 years as a teacher – making use of digital technologies for 15 of these – I gradually and increasingly came to wonder how these technologies really affect the processes of teaching and learning. In particular, I became preoccupied with the apparent contradiction between the potential of digital technologies, the political rhetoric surrounding them, and the attempts at making them work in the classroom. When the Department of Teacher Education and School Development provided me with the opportunity to carry out a doctoral study into exactly these issues, I felt like I was ‘coming home’.

A fundamental and recurring assumption in this study is how we extend our knowledge through social interaction and constant interplay with our environment. To mediate such processes, humans have developed artifacts that help us attune to historically developed insights and that help us create new ones. As my work on this thesis progressed I increasingly became aware of such processes, and of how my thesis took shape during the innumerable exchanges – remarks, questions, concerns, advice etc – from colleagues, friends, family, wife and children. Moreover, these exchanges were mediated by cultural tools – languages, analog and digital technologies – that also left their imprint on the emerging text. The outcome – the final text, is, nevertheless, the product of my decisions and is, thus, my sole responsibility.

The numerous people who assisted me in the research processes are too many to name, but some have been so invaluable that they simply must be mentioned. First and foremost, my supervisor, Professor Aud Marit Simensen from the Department of Teacher Education and School Development and side supervisor, Associate Professor Sten Ludvigsen from

InterMedia, have guided, encouraged and constructively critiqued my work far beyond the call of duty – not to mention standard working hours! In addition, I have benefited greatly from the various scientific communities at the Faculty of Education, InterMedia and the Faculty of Arts. I would also like to thank my fellow doctoral students at the Department of Education and School Development who have constituted a stimulating forum conducive to educatio nal research. I owe Glenn and Magne for many hours of critical reading and

constructive commentary, and Leif Martin at NTNU for his highly relevant and inspiring views and comments. I would also like to thank my brother, Dr.polit Karl Erik Lund at SIRUS, for providing invaluable moral as well as professional support.

A research community that focuses on education is totally dependent on positive and forthcoming educators: teachers, learners and administrations. The three teachers and the many learners who willingly and enthusiastically opened their doors to let me observe their practices deserve very special thanks, indeed. Only considerations about anonymity keep me from thanking them by name for the courage, creativity and enthusiasm they showed. In addition I want to thank the editor of The Tower, Isobel Smith Simonsen, for her help and support.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to staff and faculty at the Department of Education, University of California, Irvine. A very special thanks to Mark Warschauer.

All of the above and many other voices resonate throughout the pages that follow.

Skien/Oslo, September 2003 Andreas Lund

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List of tables

Table 1.1 Definition of key terms in the present study ... 13

Table 1.2 Key abbreviations and acronyms in the present study... 14

Table 2.1 Three perspectives on learning... 27

Table 2.2 Characteristics of standard and procedural epistemologies ... 36

Table 3.1 Paradigms relevant to the intersection of EFL, ICTs, and didactics ... 96

Table 4.1 Complex Mixed Model Design as applied to the present study. ... 124

Table 4.2 Formalized representation of deduction, induction, and abduction ... 128

Table 4.3 Types of data in the present study... 131

Table 4.4 Overview of types of data, level of analysis, and status of data... 141

Table 5.1 Characteristics of the sample population (n=208) regarding age and experience.. 151

Table 5.2 Participants’ principal reasons for signing up for The Tower. ... 153

Table 5.3 Factors associated with completion of course. ... 154

Table 5.4 Reasons given by Group B for not completing the course. ... 155

Table 5.5 Reasons given by Group A for completing the course... 157

Table 5.6 Relevance of the course... 158

Table 5.7 Effects of the course as perceived by participants. ... 159

Table 5.8 Beliefs regarding learning a foreign language ... 160

Table 5.9 Beliefs regarding effects of using ICT in EFL. ... 161

Table 5.10 Participants’ views on ICTs in society. ... 162

Table 5.11 Participants’ views on the role of ICT in the EFL classroom. ... 163

Table 5.12 Participants’ beliefs regarding roles in an ICT-rich environment. ... 166

Table 5.13 Participants’ beliefs regarding identity and value in an ICT-rich environment. .. 168

Table 5.14 Open-ended questions and response categories from The Tower (n=92). ... 172

Table 5.15 Overview of activities in the discussion forum of The Tower... 179

Table 5.16 Overview of findings ... 190

Table 6.1 Overview of designs during period of observation... 204

Table 6.2 Overview of episodes in session 1 (March 06) ... 208

Table 6.3 Overview of episodes in session 2 (March 06) ... 208

Table 6.4 Teacher roles in an ICT-rich environment ... 228

Table 6.5 Overview of conferences and interaction patterns, January 2001 ... 235

Table 7.1 Teachers at the Interface... 279

List of figures

Figure 1.1 Intersection of school subject, technologies and didactics ... 2

Figure 2.1 A model of an activity system... 30

Figure 3.1 Dimensions of teachers’ professional knowledge ... 87

Figure 4.1 Deduction, induction, and abduction ... 128

Figure 4.2 Research design of the present study... 130

Figure 5.1 Bar chart showing distribution of teaching experience... 152

Figure 5.3 Participants at the interface of physical and virtual learning environments ... 170

Figure 6.1 Timescales, levels, and layers in classroom ethnography... 199

Figure 7.1 Teaching in an ICT-rich environment ...………... 274

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1. The Teacher As Interface

in·ter·face (in't?r fas'), n., v., -faced, -facing. -n.

1. a surface regarded as the common boundary of two bodies or spaces. 2. the facts, problems, considerations, theories, practices etc. shared by two or more disciplines, procedures, or fields of study; the interface of chemistry and physics. 3. a common boundary or inter-connection between systems, equipment, concepts, or human beings. 4.

Computer Technol. a. equipment or programs designed to communicate information from one system of computing devices or programs to another . b. any arrangement for s uch

communication. - v.t. 5. to bring into an interface.

-v.i. 6. to be in an interface. 7. to function as an interface. [INTER + FACE]

Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language 1994, New York: Random House

1.1. Introduction

The present thesis is a study of teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and their encounters with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs): how teachers perceive the impact of such technologies on education and on their specific subject domain, and how they practice in learning environments where ICTs are integrated. This is the phenomenon that is being researched.

Teachers’ encounters with ICT and how they integrate ICTs in their work constitute a complex and multi- faceted phenomenon. In the present study, two main research approaches are chosen. Partly, the study aims to capture teachers’ socially and culturally constructed beliefs about and attitudes to ICTs. How they look upon their vocational situation and practices is researched through a sur vey with pre-designed as well as open-ended questions.

Partly, the study aims to capture aspects of teachers’ practices in ICT-rich environments. How they practice is researched through ethnographic classroom observations.

The basic assumption is that education should prepare learners for life and work in the immediate and more distant future, not just serve a curriculum. Technologies as introduced, used, mediated, and brokered by teachers will play a crucial role in such an endeavor and therefore we need to develop insights as to how the interplay between teachers, learners, and technologies affect life in the classroom. Much research has already been done on the role of ICTs in education. Still, the present study argues that teachers’ encounters with and

integration of technologies, their appropriation¹ of them, is an under-researched phenomenon.

In the present study, teachers’ appropriation processes are observed where three strands intersect: the school subject they teach, the technologies they seek to integrate, and the

1 The construct of appropriation is discussed in some detail in Chapter 2.3.5. However, it is important from the start to emphasize appropriation as a multilevel construct and not one that signifies progression or phases of integration. Instead of seeing appropriation as a gradual process of mastering ICTs, it is a question of how we relate to and interact with concepts, tools, and knowledge.

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didactics² they employ. The composite and mutually constitutive field of EFL, ICTs and (subject) didactics is not an established academic domain. However, as ICTs continue to make their impact on diverse school subjects it is assumed that the intersection of school subject, technologies and didactics will become an interesting area for further research. It is where the three fields converge that this study intends to make a contribution and not primarily to the separate fields. Hence, it is necessary to give a preliminary description of this particular realm before formulating the research questions driving the present study. Figure 1.1 (below)

illustrates the intersection refe rred to and, thus, where the phenomenon is studied.

Fig 1.1 The intersection of school subject, technologies and didactics. Teachers’ appropriation of technologies takes place at the interface of the three fields

Teachers’ encounters with and integration of ICTs are an observable phenomenon that is intersubjective in the sense that its essence is located at the nexus of subject matter (EFL), technologies (ICTs), and ‘the science of teaching’ – didactics. However, in the present study the focus is more on teachers’ practices than on the subject matter and technologies involved.

Practices subsume the school subject and technologies, or rather; the latter two elements are interwoven in educational practices and not regarded as separate properties. We see the school subject in the activities in which it is embedded. This is one reason why a sociocultural perspective is used as a theoretical lens. A sociocultural approach sees a school subject as being constituted through practices and discourse. A basic premise is that knowledge emerges as people participate in social and cultural practices, not transferred from a source and then stored in the individual mind as a property. Practices consist of activities, and activities constitute the principal focus in the present thesis. Such activities involve teachers, learners, and technologies; how they interact with each other and how they influence and are

influenced by their environments. Such activities, then, represent change – transformation – in humans as well as in contextual factors, and these transformations are found at individual, collective and institutional levels.

There is a complexity involved that makes it necessary to employ a perspective that sees human conduct, e.g. learning and teaching, as fundamentally social, as practices that cannot be separated from the historical and cultural contexts in which they take place. Consequently, learning and teaching are seen as aspects of enculturation. This is the second reason a

sociocultural perspective is chosen.

2 A preliminary note on the term Didactics is in place. It is here used in a non-prescriptive way, devoid of its etymological connotations of being ‘deictic’, and the often normative and prescriptive connotations within the English vernacular. The term is defined in Table 1.1 in Chapter 1.7. Didactics is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3.9.

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But there is a future aspect as well. Learners should be prepared to handle challenges and improve social conditions in the years to come. This involves both enculturation and

developing potential for cultural change and renewal. Technologies influence and change the way we view the world. Technologies accumulate and reproduce human insights while at the same time carrying a potential for further development of such insights. This view of

technologies as cultural tools, artifacts, is central to a sociocultural perspective and therefore essential in the present study.

While technologies carry certain properties that may be conducive to changing educational practices, these practices are at the same time heavily influenced by the social and cultural heritage they are embedded in. Change and renewal depend on how tensions and possible contradictions between potentially innovative technologies and the contexts they enter into unfold. Consequently, the interplay between humans, tools and their sociocultural contexts emerges as an analytic focus. While a rich research literature on learning with and through ICTs has emerged in later years – particularly within the tradition of Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL) – focus has often been on technological design and/or learner interaction with technology. The role of the teacher raises unanswered questions. To pursue these, the present study argues that teachers, learners and technologies should be studied as they interact in learning activities and situations, not as separate elements or just binary combinations. Even if we may know too little about the nature of such interactions, we know that they are so complex that innovative practices conducive to learning and teaching have been slow in materializing. Exactly what this complexity consists of is not all that well documented in research literature, and is therefore a main concern for the present study.

The encounters between teachers and technology referred to in this study are located partly in a sample of teachers taking part in an in-service course, The Tower, combining new

technologies with learner-centered approaches to teaching and learning³, partly in the form of a close study of three practicing teachers. In both cases – The Tower and in the classrooms – teachers work in co- located, physical settings as well as in networked, online environments.

Their beliefs, roles and practices formed at the interface of these two dimensions add up to the phenomenon the present study explores and analyzes. The rationale is to gain insights into the multiple patterns of activity that unfold in the ICT-rich classroom. Also, to understand such processes may be conducive to developing relevant and future oriented teacher education as well as in-service training⁴. Reorganization of working life (Gee, 2000; Gee, Hull, &

Lankshear, 1996)⁵ and a rapid development of ICTs require response from educators. Exactly what this response should be is, of course, a matter of discussion. The present thesis aims to contribute to an understanding of what the situation requires.

The present study takes a predominantly qualitative approach but with quantitative methods interspersed, adding up to a mixed method approach. The phenomenon is studied through the

3 The Tower is treated in some detail in Chapter 5. Suffice to say that this course served EFL teachers who wanted to integrate ICTs in their practices. It required participants to familiarize themselves with technologies situated in EFL practices, do assignments, and take part in an online discussion forum. On this basis, the present study elicits these teachers’ beliefs about ICTs. A survey in the form of a questionnaire and postings on the forum form the data used in descriptive statistics analysis.

4 Teacher education is here u nderstood broadly, i.e. as an integrated model where future teachers participate in disciplinary, pedagogic and didactic discourses simultaneously as well as a consecutive model where a study of a particular discipline is followed by a study of (subject) d idactics and pedagogy. In-service training is understood as institutionally organized efforts to increase teacher professionalism among practicing teachers.

5 The format used for citation in the present study is the American Psychological Association (APA) style.

However, it is somewhat adjusted so that the first time more than three authors are named, they appear as first author’s name et al.

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lenses of a survey and classroom observation before implications for classroom practices, teacher education and in-service training are discussed. The thesis argues that The Tower survey and the classroom analyses have profound implications for how we come to regard learning and teaching with ICTs. The reason is found in the transformational potential in ICTs, how they (therefore) come to change classroom practices, and how teachers of EFL appropriate such technologies (cf Chapter 7 for a discussion of outcomes, contributions and implications of the study).

1.2. Research questions

Addressing the needs of a knowledge society, A. Edwards et al. (2002:115) pose four

questions: “What kinds of learners are we likely to need? What kinds of pedagogical practices are likely to support their learning? What kinds of teachers do we think will be able to support their learning? Where are those teachers and how are they to be supported?” While all four questions are relevant, especially number two and three can be seen as framing the larger concerns of the present study.

The history of teachers working at the interface of co- located, physical learning environments and digital, networked, and distributed forms is a brief one. Only recently have studies begun to appear that show us what it is like to be a teacher in technology-rich environments. For teachers, the concern is how to make ICTs work for them and their learners so that expectations are met. They are expected to take a particular technology that is currently making a tremendous impact on the world of work as well as social and private lives and make it ‘theirs’; i.e. essentially to take tools that were not originally developed for learning and teaching and transform them into vehicles for greater opportunities for learning. This process of adoption, adaptation and transformation is a process of appropriation, a key construct in the present study (cf Chapter 2.3.5 for a discussion). Consequently, the research questions in this study aim to capture aspects of such appropriation processes. This is done by partly exploring teachers’ beliefs, partly by observing their practices as they materialize in ICT- intense environments. The research field may thus be broadly stated as EFL Teachers’

Encounters with Technology. An accompanying, preliminary research question might then be formulated as:

• What happens when teachers of English use ICTs in their practices?

This is an extremely broad question. It addresses possible changes in the English language and in learning and teaching as a result of digital tools, and how teachers and learners behave under the impact of ICTs. Consequently, subsequent research questions are needed in order to sharpen the focus. Since the present study targets teachers, it is important to elicit some of their beliefs as well as explore some of their practices. This is sought by asking three supplementary questions:

1. What are some of the beliefs and attitudes of teachers of English who encounter ICTs in their profession?

2. What kind of educational practices emerge when teachers of English integrate ICTs in their classes?

3. Under what conditions do we see innovative practices emerge?

The first question is directly related to the sample of teachers who participated in The Tower – an in-service course for teachers of English. It is not intended as an instrument to disclose discrete mental properties of the participants but as a guide to the process in which teachers

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articulate their perception of technology in their professional lives. It qualifies the subsequent research question, which seeks to guide our understanding of what goes on in the complex world of working in ICT- intense settings. The answers to question 1 aim to sensitize the research into classroom interactions addressed by question 2. While question 1 addresses individual concerns (that add up to concerns of a sample, cf Chapter 5), question 2 addresses an interactional level (cf Chapter 6). Where such practices may be seen as innovative it is important to look beyond the individual and interactional levels and to the institutional level represented by schools, policy papers and decision makers (limited to a Norwegian

perspective but hopefully with relevance elsewhere). Question 3 addresses this level.

The research questions might seem to address teachers only. However, the aim is to see teachers’ encounters in an interactive perspective where teachers, learners, technological artifacts, and environments constitute an information ecology⁶, “a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technologies” (Nardi & O'Day, 1999:49). The above research questions address the actions of teachers, but teachers’ actions cannot be analyzed in isolation. They are part of such an information ecology and this ecology is a historically, culturally and socially constructed world. This perspective calls for a unit of analysis that captures a complexity that goes beyond the individual’s appropriation of

technology, and captures processes in which the use of ICTs transforms the social practices of learning and teaching. Consequently, the broad preliminary research question and the three supporting questions can be formulated in the following:

• In what ways are ICTs appropriated in the EFL classroom?

This seemingly brief wording is intended to capture the complexities described above, but with a focus on the roles teachers play when organizing classroom activities conducive to learning and the epistemic environment they create. Why this question is important is discussed in the following.

1.3. Why teachers?

In their introduction to the May 2002 issue of the educational journal Language Learning and Technology, a special issue on ICTs and teacher education, the editors point to four concerns for technology and teacher education:

First, the cognitive and psychological process of technology integration by teachers awaits exploring. What kind of cognitive and psychological factors affect teacher adoption of technology? (…) Second, the kind of social and organizational arrangements that promote technology use by teachers is another area that needs further exploration. Some persistent issues include the following: Why do only a few teachers in a particular school use technology? (…) Third, the relationship between teachers and technology has been a long- standing issue that is yet to be resolved. (…) Last, as Internet-based education becomes increasingly popular, we also need to explore the differences and similarities in online versus face-to-face teaching (Zhao & Tella, 2002:3-4).

Based on extensive reading in the field, the present researcher agrees with the editors when they summarize, “Relatively little is known about how teachers interact with technology.

6 The construct Information ecology is used in several places throughout the present study. It should be noted that despite its technical overtones, it is regarded very much as a social ecology, what Jay Lemke (2000) refers to as an Ecosocial system that captures interactions between humans and non-humans, cf Chapter 4.4.2.

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However it has become increasingly clear that teachers are key to the realization of its claimed potentials” (op.cit.:1). Another study identifies three domains that contribute to successful integration of technologies in the classroom, and states that “the teacher, in our study, appeared to play a more significant role than other domains” (Zhao, Pugh, Sheldon, &

Byers, 2002:29), the other two being the nature of the project/innovation and the

context/school. This finding is substantiated by an overview of case studies that conclude:

“Inadequate training and support of teachers has consistently been identified as the single- most problematic issue in introducing technology into developed-country classrooms”

(Capper, 2000:17).

While quite some research has been done on computers and learners, computers and learning and classroom interaction, less has been done on teachers practicing within a specific subject domain in technology-rich environments. Researchers find that “Most of the current efforts take a very narrow view of what teachers need to use technology – some technical skills and a good attitude” (Zhao et al., 2002:v). Still others find that political, institutional, and contextual constraints inhibit teachers’ innovative uses (Cuban, 1986; Gobbo & Girardi, 2001). Some studies focus on teachers’ beliefs about learning and how they correlate with their use of ICTs (Becker, 1994, 1999, 2000; Cloke & Sharif, 2001; Fulton, 1999). Finally, there is a growing body of research on the interplay of teachers, learners, technologies and their social and cultural embeddedness (Gobbo & Girardi, 2001; Zhao et al., 2002). Nevertheless, as argued by Zhao et al., “these types of studies tend to neglect the messy process through which teachers struggle to negotiate a foreign and potentially disruptive innovation into their familiar environment”, and that, “there is a conspicuous lack of attention to the complexities and intricacies of how classroom teachers actually incorporate technology in their teaching”

(Zhao et al., 2002). This may be one reason for studies that conclude that ICTs have been integrated by teachers only to little extent (Erstad & Frølich, 2002; Karsenti et al., 2002;

Rizzo, 2003).

The above concerns point to the rationale for the present study, as elaborated in Chapter 1.6 (below).

Teachers are important in the sense that it is through their practices learners are apprenticed into exploiting technologies as part of the total learning environment. Historically, teachers have been gatekeepers to what enters their classrooms in the form of materials, teaching methods and tools; i.e. they have been instrumental in delivering the curriculum. The present study argues that this is an insufficient position. Instead, teachers as designers⁷ of

environments and situations conducive to learning along with their expertise (cf Chapter 6.10) in orchestrating such designs become essential. They need to design and orchestrate learning situations where learners engage in relational agency, i.e. “ a capacity to use environmental resources (including relationships with others) to solve problems” (A. Edwards, 2002:5). Such relational agency involves a particular view of technologies; they are not just instrumental, changing our surroundings in a one-way direction. Rather, as we use technologies to achieve a goal, we become transformed in the process as well.

1.4. A knowledge domain and its framing

The analytic focus of the present study is directed at technologically mediated practices that evolve in the EFL classroom. Thus, didactics, ICTs (or more precisely, Computer Assisted Language Learning, CALL) and EFL are the components involved. It is the meeting ground of these three elements that constitutes the knowledge domain for this study. As such, it is essentially a variation of a basic triangle of humans, tools, and school subject. The

7 The terms design and designer are elaborated in Chapters 3.11 and 4.4.4.

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manifestations of elements may vary, e.g. technologies take on the form of analog or digital tools and emerge in contexts such as CALL or Computer Support for Collaborative Learning (CSCL). The present study takes this triangular model as a point of departure for analyzing practices that unfold. What is most important, however, is to see the elements as mutually constitutive of a cross-disciplinary domain. Moreover, they align themselves around an axis in the form of a particular perspective; they relate to a sociocultural view of humans, tools, and contexts as an inseparable unit. Such units can be studied on micro levels in classroom episodes as well as on macro levels when technologies are sought introduced on a national level.

This means that the sociocultural perspective becomes an integrative force in the present study. As ICTs become integrated in most school subjects and are not merely add-ons (or represent a distinct ‘computer discipline’), the relevance of seeing how ICTs weave their way into a particular subject increases. But a generic approach to how learning and teaching are mediated by tools must be complemented with more subject specific studies to increase our understating of how the subject matter itself may change in the process. Admittedly, such a compound object of study may result in a ‘crowded focus’. On the other hand, such a crowded focus is what teachers experience when they integrate ICTs in their school subject and their practices. This carries didactic consequences.

A school subject is a historical, cultural, and social construction. It is transformed by the values and importance assigned to it by policy makers and by the way it is configured by users. In the case of languages, for instance, “globalization changes the conditions in which language learning and teaching takes place” (Block & Cameron, 2002a:2). Today, the

‘identity’ of English is very different from the one previous generations of learners

encountered. In fact, English offers several ‘identities’ to learners, its “disciplinary purity” (A.

Edwards et al, 2002:6) is disrupted. Therefore, it is important to analyze its present nature and the goals it serves. In the present study, EFL is chosen for several reasons. English is one of the core subjects in the Norwegian curriculum, it is the first foreign language and the way it comes across in schooling will, consequently, affect all users. Moreover, English is especially interesting as the primary language on the Internet. In a networked and globalized world, English has become the principal communicative code across cultures. Most exchanges in English are between non-native speakers of the language (Block & Cameron, 2002a; Crystal, 1998; Graddol, 2001).

The above account describes a phenomenon that is dynamic and complex and that consists of humans (teachers and learners) interacting with – and through – technologies in order to raise their competence within a knowledge domain. The knowledge domain is not a particular subject area (school subject) but an interface where disciplines, skills, and practices are reconfigured. To make sense of such complexity and analyze some aspects crucial to teaching and learning in technology-rich environments, we need a theory that incorporates the above characteristics in its foundations. As was stated in the introduction (cf 1.1), the current project takes on a sociocultural perspective, both on teachers’ perception of ICTs and their practices how these are molded in the tension between tradition on the one hand and innovation on the other and how they are influenced by the learning environment teachers are part of⁸:

The present study argues that taken together, changes in subject matter, in concepts of learning and teaching, and in learning environments present teachers with a potentially

8 Without going into a discussion of to which extent the focus on teachers is compatible with a sociocultural perspective, it should be noted that several researchers in this tradition point to the teacher as a crucial element in the learner’s development and that this applies to several approaches within this perspective (Daniels,

2001:106ff).

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extremely dynamic and complex situation. Teachers used to have a more transparent environment and stable subject matter prepared in the form of approved textbooks. With globalization and digitally networked technologies, opacity, instability, and uncertainty – but also a greater potential – now seem to challenge their practices (this is illustrated in Chapter 6). Some of the questions that arise were addressed in Chapter 1.2. But such questions cannot be raised or answered in a socio-political vacuum; hence a brief look at the ‘official’, political discourse that has enveloped the introduction of ICTs in Norwegian education.

1.5. Policies

In Norway, educational policy makers have tended to base ICT integration on an instrumental approach to technologies as in the first national plan for IT (sic) in education (KUF, 1995).

The second plan (KUF, 2000) pointed to the value of technological literacy from a fiscal point of view as well as an educational one. Both documents approach ICTs from a utilitarian position; there has been a tendency to initiate technology-driven projects and experiments and expect innovations and change in practices conducive to learning to follow. These

expectations are not always met. A Norwegian study of schools taking part in a national project on innovative use of ICTs found that learners, teachers and administrators approach ICTs with different intentions and beliefs, resulting in a gap in attitudes to practices (Erstad &

Frølich, 2002 ). The authors conclude that “schools in Norway are presently in conflict between traditional pedagogic means and the outline of something new where ICT plays an important role. One could say that we find ourselves in times where school culture itself is under scrutiny” (op.cit.:44, my translation). In other words, an official, ‘institutional’ or policy-driven discourse on ICTs is in conflict with an emerging and possibly innovative discourse but where the latter suffers from lack of articulation. Teachers find themselves at the interface of such competing or even contrary discourses.

As for EFL in Norway, English as a school subject has proved to be a long-time companion to ICT-related research and development projects that first started in the mid-1980s. Although no policy papers address this particular knowledge domain (except for some vague

suggestions in various curricula, cf Chapter 3.13), English continued to be one of the school subjects addressed in a software-oriented series of workshops initiated by the Norwegian Data Secretariat. Here, development of ‘educational software’ and an approach that can best be described as ‘data driven learning’ characterized the efforts (Datasekretariatet, 1987).

While policies as they materialize in curricula, exams, and plans are discussed in Chapters 3.13 and 6.7, this brief introduction should serve to illustrate the techno-economic slant of the ICT-related discourse that originated in the educational policies in Norway.

1.6. Purpose, Rationale and Significance of the study

1.6.1. Purpose

The immediate purpose of this study is to increase our insight in and understanding of what it means to teach English as a Foreign Language in technology-rich environments; i.e. there is a marked didactic dimension to the purpose. The study is descriptive in the sense that it aims at describing a phenomenon systematically by first studying a group of teachers in a specific in- service training program – The Tower – and then individual teachers at work. But its purpose is also exploratory in the sense that it aims to increase our understanding and extend the limits of current knowledge about the phenomenon⁹. However, teachers of EF L should not be so

9 The term exploratory is sometimes associated with pilot studies, initial research carried out to clarify the nature of a problem, and subsequent studies. The reason why it is applied to this study is found in the fact that the field

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different from other educationalists that the study does not have a bearing on other teachers encountering technology in their respective subjects as well.

There is also the purpose of adopting and developing a theoretical approach, in the form of a sociocultural perspective, to the field of (subject) didactics. Didactics (sometimes referred to as pedagogy, particularly in Anglo-American contexts) is a field that has a different history and that carries different connotations across cultures. The present study seeks to use the Vygotskian tradition to contribute to a sociocultural understanding of language teaching (Engeström et al., 1999; Vygotsky, 1986, 1978; Wells, 1999; Wertsch, 1998; Wertsch et al., 1995). This has a direct bearing on the unit of analysis¹⁰. The individual, the social and the environment are regarded as mutually constitutive and not as separate entities. What is needed is a unit of analysis that allows for a view of human conduct, e.g. learning, as being mediated in complex ways and that involves the use of cultural tools, artifacts, as well as other people (cf Chapter 4.7.2 for a further discussion of the unit of analysis).

It follows that the present study places great emphasis on the theoretical assumptions and constructs that are seen to frame didactics in a sociocultural perspective. To the knowledge of the present researcher there are few (if any) studies that address the compound field of school subject, technologies and didactics from such a perspective. This forms the rationale for a detailed discussion of the perspective chosen. Also, the present study aims to contribute to a mixed method approach to complex phenomena such as appropriation and transformation.

The justification for such an approach is pursued in Chapter 4.5. Without linking specific research questions to theoretical and methodological issues, there is clearly a purpose to contribute to both (cf Chapter 7.5).

Finally, in addition to its investigative, analytical and theoretical purposes, the present study also aims at informing teacher education, in the form of pre-service education as well as in in- service training. The intention is to contribute to developing teachers’ professionalism and professional identity as technologies make themselves felt in the work of teachers. In the present study, teachers are seen as crucial in assisting, guiding, interpreting, augmenting, and responding to learners’ efforts of taking advantage of ICTs. In order to do this they must themselves have appropriated such technologies, and this has a direct bearing on their professionalism.

To summarize, the purposes of the present study are found on an analytical/investigative level as well as a theoretical and practical level. These purposes converge in the broader purpose of contributing to the field of didactics.

As for audience, a multi-disciplinary study such as the present thesis addresses primarily scholars in the field of teaching and learning. The separate domains of ICTs, EFL and didactics are played down in favor of a holistic approach to a compound phenomenon. This may involve scholars in one field finding it taxing to follow the more discipline-specific terminology and accounts of the others. That is also why this study provides some more detail on e.g. approaches to teaching EFL (cf Chapter 3.4.1) than a scholar in this field would need.

of study is relatively new and that there is not a lot of research to draw on. This automatically adds an exploratory quality to the study.

10 Vygotsky is often cited for his example of how water cannot be analyzed in terms of hydrogen and oxygen since they both sustain fire while water extinguishes fire. His rejection of dividing units into elements is applied to analyzing thought and language (Vygotsky, 1986:4). This position carries important ontological and

epistemological implications.

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However, as ICTs continue to infuse school subjects as well as influence approaches to learning and teaching, more cross-disciplinary studies will arguably be called for and,

consequently, become more common in research. The present study argues that this will open new horizons for teachers’ professional knowledge as well as change our relationships with knowledge in general.

1.6.2. Rationale

When technologies change, they change the way we relate to and act in the world. With refined technologies, we also develop refined intellectual tools in order to make sense of such relations and actions (Säljö, 2002:15-16). The interactive, flexible, and networked nature of ICTs bring about opportunities for accessing, manipulating, and producing information that were beyond the scope of educational systems and curricula designed only a few years ago.

Today, local and distributed practices, online and offline spaces are interwoven and challenge notions of identity and culture. Also, ICTs are not just tools that might enhance certain aspects of learning and teaching; they transform our notion of knowledge and how we position

ourselves in the face of a transformed concept of knowledge. In other words, ontological and epistemological issues emerge and disrupt well-established and institutionalized views of the core terms of education, e.g. knowledge, curriculum, learning, and teaching.

Consequently, ICTs in education are creating a lot of interest (some would say propaganda or even hype – the amount of money involved is one reason) because of what many educators see as a potential for advancing and transforming learning so that it is more attuned to the

‘real world’. Thus, all the more need for knowledge about teaching and learning processes where technology constitutes an integrated part of the learning environment. Being

technologically literate is required to participate in working life as well as social life. For instance, as technologies continue to become more or less seamlessly integrated into the way we communicate, the practices involved change (e.g. exchanging, interpreting, choice of register, addressing). The consequence is that our ideas about communication, including in a foreign language, will have to change. Communicative change involves benefits and promises (e.g. creating and sustaining online linguistic communities, linking minds, hearts and hands, democratic potential) as well as risks (e.g. information glut, questionable credibility,

censorship, commercialization; cf Burbules & Callister Jr, 2000). Also, “in a post- industrial economy, it has been argued that the linguistic skills of workers at all levels take on new importance”, and that “‘Communication skills’ and the new literacies demanded by new technologies as well as competence in one or more second/foreign languages, all represent

‘linguistic capital’” (Block & Cameron, 2002a:5).

But being prepared for economic, vocational and technological change also involves being prepared for social change and the greater challenges of modern life. Teachers have a responsibility to attend to general, formative, as well as the subject specific targets in the curriculum, thereby preparing learners for taking on such challenges. In the present study, this dimension is brought into perspective by drawing on Wolfgang Klafki’s Critical-Constructive Didaktik (Klafki, 1998, 2001). Klafki brings a democratic and reflective dimension to

didactics by addressing some of the pressing concerns of humanity (e.g. ecology,

peacekeeping, poverty) and how confronting such issues is part of the formational aspects – Bildung – of didactics. In a networked, global world such issues are increasingly carried and spread by ICTs, sustained by languages and in particular English. Consequently, the rationale for the present study is found in the crucial role teachers play on linguistic, technological, vocational, social and global levels. The perspective might seem daunting to most teachers.

However, such issues and teachers’ abilities to cope with them are gradually emerging in literature on didactics, pedagogy, and teacher education (Candlin & Mercer, 2001; Cope &

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Kalantzis, 2000; A. Edwards et al., 2002; Klafki, 1998, 2001; Lankshear, Snyder, & Green, 2000; Leach & Moon, 1999). The point is summarized by A. Edwards et al.:

We are therefore, tentatively at least, arguing for more teacher education; for a teacher education which is informed by close-to-practice versions of the social sciences, (…) for a teacher education which is not limited to curriculum and how it is delivered; and for a teacher education geared towards creating teachers who seek and interrogate uncertainty (A.

Edwards et al., 2002:134).

As for studying teachers of EFL in particular and their encounters with ICTs, the rationale is found in the following arguments:

• English is one of the obligatory subjects in the Norwegian school system, from the very first year and into upper secondary school where it is also offered as an elective, in-depth subject the last two years. The various curricula of EFL describe English as advancing proficiency skills as well as formative/cultural aspects. This double focus places the foreign language close to a first language position and in a perspective of what it means to be literate in the 21^st century.

• English is a global language, in constant flux and with a multitude of variants (Crystal, 1998, 2001a, 2001c; Graddol, 1997, 2001). On the Internet, it has no competitor regarding the number of native speakers or number of web pages in English (Global Reach, 2002). Thus, English as a school subject is one of the most central disciplines where subject matter and technologies meet.

• It follows that learners today will encounter and familiarize themselves with the world largely through the use of (variants of) English mediated by a diversity of digital technologies. This makes EFL an important epistemological lens for the 21^st century.

• Subject didactics is a complex and competence- intensive field that now also requires teachers to be prepared for teaching and learning in technology-rich environments.

English as a school subject has – at least in Norway – been one of the subjects most often included in innovative projects, research and development. There is quite some accumulated experience of EFL teachers encountering ICTs in in-service training and/or their practices. To scaffold learners’ progress in EFL, teachers of English at all levels need to be knowledgeable about computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and the roles played by ICTs in general. This is not just adapting ICTs to existing practices but entails an appropriation of technologies that exploit their transformative and future-oriented potential. Such processes are molded in the tension between tradition on the one hand and innovation on the other, and how they are informed by the learning environment teachers are part of. Also, such processes are not very well documented and analyzed and, therefore, insights in such processes constitute the principal rationale for the present study.

1.6.3. Significance

On a theoretical level, the present study argues that didactics is in need of a socioculturally based concept of knowledge in which the teaching/learning dichotomy is suspended. As technologies create opportunities for easier access to information, for how we exchange and produce information, knowledge becomes re-defined as coming-to-know in participatory processes that depend on our ability to explore and exploit the mediating tools involved.

Teachers are seen as crucial in such endeavors. Technologies change according to the historical and social conditions that shape and sustain changes. To understand how teachers face such changes requires a theoretical perspective that does not separate the individual and the collective, people and environments, cognition and activity. While substantial and

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valuable research has been carried out on such general issues, the present study argues that it makes a theoretical contribution to understanding the position of a teacher and a school subject and how classrooms become reconfigured, in such a framework.

On a methodological level, the present study should be significant in its combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, an eclecticism that aims at capturing several

refractions of a phenomenon. The overall methodological profile is qualitative in the form of classroom ethnography, but quantitative methods are used in order to capture the beliefs of a sample of teachers. The outcome of the quantitative study is intended serve as a backdrop, a

‘bigger picture’ of the concerns teachers have when encountering ICTs. According to some researchers, a mixed method is necessary to capture the complexities involved when humans, tools and environments are seen as mutually constitutive to processes such as learning

(Burbules & Callister Jr, 2000; Russel, 2002; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). Exactly how different methods inform each other and to what extent a particular theoretical perspective assumes or excludes certain approaches are issues that may not (or cannot) be resolved (cf Chapter 4.5 for a discussion). Still, the present study argues, through its use of several research methods, that complementary approaches may carry a lot of potential when

analyzing dynamic phenomena that appear at individual as well as collective and institutional levels.

On a practical level, the present study intends to provide a contribution to the field of subject didactics of EFL including teacher education and in-service training. The turnover rate of technological innovation is extremely rapid, so strategies for teachers’ lifelong appropriation of tools and renewed practices are needed. The present study should be relevant when

drawing up plans and designing programs for teacher education and training so that an informed view of ICT integration can guide teacher development. A merely instrumental approach is seen as highly insufficient and as one that misses out on the complexity, transformative potential and emerging understandings of knowledge and learning. With its ambition to take on such issues, relate them to didactics and made visible through the lens of a particular subject, the present study expects to make a contribution to a field not well

researched but one that will have a direct, concrete impact on how we support teachers in their endeavors for developing a higher level of professionalism.

1.7. Definition of terms

The present study draws on several fields, each with its heritage of scholarly terms and constructs. For instance, a specific theoretical perspective will develop its own set of

metaphors and constructs to enhance its distinct position but this may also result in impeding an outsider’s or newcomer’s immediate understanding of the issues involved.

In the present thesis, care has been taken to explain ‘proprietary’ terms as they turn up, e.g.

abduction, acquisition, appropriation, artifact, zone of proximal development etc to name but a few terms from methodological, linguistic and theoretical domains. However, it is necessary to define some ‘common’ notions used throughout the present study, since they carry a particular perspective. Table 1.1 below introduces some common terms, as they are

understood in the sociocultural perspective that permeates the present study. It draws heavily on features of a “sociocultural pedagogy” as developed by A. Edwards et al. (2002) and also views on learning and language as presented by Lantolf (2000), Thorne (2002b) and

Gumpertz and Levinson (1996a):

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Table 1.1 Definition of key terms in the present study

Language A human social-semiotic, socially constructed system of conventions, coded into speech acts that convey a cultural inheritance to be communicated to others

Foreign language Signs, codes, conventions, and speech acts that have been created by a different culture and involves different user identities

Learning Transformation as increasingly informed participation in the practices of a community including the potential to change them

Learners People who appropriate, interpret and respond to their environment in new ways

Knowledge Something recognized, appropriated and generated through participating in social practices

Didactics A social practice in which learners, teachers and artifacts are configured around a knowledge domain, and in which knowledge building is made visible by grouping knowledge into educational subjects

Teaching A process of making judgments about the strategies to be used to assist learners’ increasingly informed interpretations, responses, and actions and how to exploit affordances¹¹ in order to support specific kinds of participation Teachers People who assist the interpretations, responses, and actions of learners,

e.g. by designing, explaining, and manipulating learning environments Community A set of practices, e.g. as materializing in an EFL community, in a classroom,

or a professional community of teachers jointly appropriating ICTs

Learning environments Sets of opportunities for participation which may provide varying degrees of freedom of action

The fields of EFL, ICTs and didactics are permeated by abbreviations and acronyms. Some commonly used items are explained in Table 1.2 (below) while others will be spelled out as they appear.

11 The term affordance is attributed to the psychologis t James Gibson who used it to refer to a reciprocal relationship between an organism and features in its environment. Affordances hold the potential for triggering action, e.g. human legs and a ladder afford climbing. It should be noted that compared to Gi bson’s initial biological use of the construct it has in sociocultural theory gained a marked cultural flavor, cf Chapter 3.5.1.

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Table 1.2 Key abbreviations and acronyms in the present study

CALL Computer Assisted Language Learning (sometimes referred to as TELL – Technology Enhanced Language Learning). A key term that cloaks important issues of change, but persists in scholarly literature and is therefore kept in the present study (cf Chapter 3.7.1)

CSCL Computer Support for Collaborative Learning. A view of educational technologies that focuses on their mediational role within collaborative learning processes

EFL/ESL TEFL/TESL

English as a Foreign Language and English as a Second Language. There are historical reasons for the separation of the two, but in the present study this distinction is suspended and EFL is used for both (cf. Chapter 3.4). The same applies to Teaching EFL/ESL

ICTs Information and Communication Technologies. Usually reserved for digitally- based hardware and software

L1/L2 First language (”mother tongue”) and second language. In the present study, L2 would cover EFL

SLA Second Language Acquisition. Primarily research into the way people learn a language other than their mother tongue, but also used in language

didactics. In the latter case the term covers several approaches, from structural to communicative and usually conceives of language as a product to be acquired

Finally, the use of one particular word should be explained: traditional. The term is used throughout the present study, sometimes as a contrast to innovative and/or ICT- intense practices or settings, sometimes to describe an established or institutionalized view. It is important to note that when used, the word traditional is not intended to sound derogatory. It is simply used in its etymological sense of carrying a certain heritage, handing down an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior.

1.8. Delimitations and limitations

The previous sections have placed the present study within a social as well as a pedagogic scope and with the assumption that a particular phenomenon, teachers’ appropriation of ICTs, is somewhat under-reported and not well understood. With ICTs having increasingly more impact across school subjects, social processes, and working practices research into ICT- infused issues runs the risk of being too all-embracing. Therefore, due to the cross-

disciplinary nature of the research object, the present researcher has chosen to impose certain restrictions in order to keep focus on the research questions.

Three distinct fields meet in this study; English as a Foreign Language, Computer Assisted Language Learning, and Didactics. It is the points and boundaries - the interfaces - at which they converge that constitute the focus of the study. While this approach may narrow the horizon represented by the separate disciplines, it is a delimitation that is chosen in order not to blur the focus of the research issue.

Also, the sample of teachers studied imposes certain delimitations on the findings. The teachers who participated in The Tower course and the three teachers observed in classroom practices may not be typical of their colleagues. What these teachers have in common is that