Interaction and Computer Assisted Language Learning

A popular theory of education, referred to as Social Constructivism or Social Interactionism, emphasizes the importance of social interaction in learning. According to the theorist Vygotsky, knowledge is created through interactions in social situations. In terms of language learning, Vygotsky believes that humans are drawn to develop languages due to their need to interact socially. He also believes that language can only be fully developed by interacting in a variety of social situations.

In the 2003 article titled, "Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction," Anderson summarizes the importance of interaction in education (especially in distance education) and applications of interaction to a variety of educational settings. The article culminates with a model of interaction for online learning. This article presents a theory of interaction that goes beyond Vygotsky's simple idea that social interaction is important.

Anderson (2003) states that it is problematic to define interaction mostly because most definitions do not offer a definition of "meaningful interaction." Indirectly, the question is posed, "what constitutes meaningful interaction?" What is needed in a classroom setting, says Anderson (2003), is formal interaction (versus informal interaction). Anderson (2003) states, "interaction in formal education contexts is specifically designed to induce learning directed towards defined and shared learning objectives or outcomes" (p. 4). It is important that the interactions match the learning objectives and those interactions could be either teacher-centered, student-centered, or content-centered; it all depends on the desired learning outcomes.

Anderson (2003) provides a very interesting, and I would suspect, controversial statement about the three types of interaction. She states that as long as one of the types of interaction (teacher-student, student-student, student-content) occurs at a high level, students will be satisfied. I wonder if she also believes that students will learn. I would not rate all three types of interactions equally. In fact, I would argue that student-student interaction is by far the most important, and probably the most preferred, type of interaction in a classroom - especially in a language learning classroom. Despite any possible arguments against Anderson's (2003) statement, she does provide some useful information in the form examples of all three types of interaction. Additionally, she presents information on how to assess the appropriate level of interaction in the educational setting. Finally, Anderson (2003) provides examples of how to enhance the levels of interaction in popular educational delivery models: classroom, traditional (mail or email) distance education, audio and video conferencing, and web-based learning.

The model of online learning proposed by Anderson (2003) incorporates a variety of elements, including the object of interaction (teacher, student, content), the timing of interaction (synchronous or asynchronous), the content itself, and the type of web delivery (games, tutorials, chat, e-book, etc).

The theory proposed by Anderson (2003) is not revolutionary, but as she states in her conclusion, she did not aim to present a revolutionary theory. Her intention was to bring together a variety of thoughts about interaction into one model. She states that her main purpose was to encourage dialogue about the interactions in online education. Anderson wrote, "I hope this small theoretical piece encourages dialogue within our community of practice" (p. 19).

As a member of the "community of practice," I feel I must begin a dialogue on this topic. First of all, the model reminds me of the rhetorical triangle. In the rhetorical triangle, we have a triangle with the purpose in the center. On the three points of the equilateral triangle are author, audience, and subject. We can examine each of the elements in the triangle according to their interactions with one another and their interaction with the purpose.

Anderson's (2003) model is virtually the same thing. To better align her model, though, with the very familiar rhetorical triangle, I would propose this model. We would have a triangle with the learning objectives in the center of the triangle. On the three edges we would have teacher, student, and content. To the right of the triangle would be an error pointing to the modes of delivery (e-book, chat, WebQuest, etc, etc).

In my model, I propose that we first consider the types of interaction we desire based upon the learning objectives and then move to the right of the model where we chose the mode of delivery that best fits the learning objectives and the levels of interaction (teacher-student, teacher-content, student-content).

The problem with my triangle is that student-student interaction is not available. I wonder how this could be built in.

I would call my model the Output-based Interaction Triangle.

Well, it needs work, but it's what I can come up with at 11:45 pm on a Friday night. Please comment and let me know if you think I'm on the right track with a new model. Also, please comment on improvements I could make. I think that this is an idea I could/should actually develop into a paper!

Reference:
Anderson, T. (2003). Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4:2, 1-25.