Professional Documents
Culture Documents
E-Learning Methodologies
for Language Acquisition
Rita de Cássia Veiga Marriott
University of Birmingham, UK
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22
Chapter II
The Emergence of Social
Presence in Learning
Communities
Antônio Carlos Soares Martins
Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica de Januária/Fapemig, Brazil
Abstract
The discussions presented herein emerged from two empirical studies in progress:“Online Learning Com-
munities in the Realm of Complexity” and “The Complexity of Learning Environments” in the Graduate
Program in Applied Linguistics at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. One of the major
pillars of both studies centers around Complexity Theory. Initially arising from the natural sciences,
Complexity Theory has been gaining ground in the comprehension of human and social sciences. This
chapter presents some ideas regarding the role of social presence in both blended and online learning
environments, in line with the Community of Inquiry Framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000).
Moreover, the authors hope to contribute to a better understanding of patterns that emerge from social
interactions as well as of the ideas embedded in learning communities as complex systems.
Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
on quantitative methodology to interpret social Children are able to integrate the latest tech-
expressions in a qualitative manner (Heckman & nologies into their existences. What might
Annabi, 2002; Rourke & Anderson, 2002; Rourke this mean for formal education, in terms of
et al., 2004). Considering these discussions, our the pragmatic activity and with regard to
chapter presents a complementary contribution common understandings of the purposes
that aims to analyze, in the light of complexity, the of schooling?
content of some messages exchanged in blended
and online learning communities. By qualitatively In this direction, Complexity Theory in its
analyzing the manifestation of social presence in transdisciplinary nature can assist in better un-
this setting, we attempt to show possible patterns derstanding the events that take place in blended
that may arise. and online learning environments.
A complex system is dynamic, non-linear,
open, and presents emergent properties. Moreover,
COMPLEXITY AND APPLIED this type of system is capable of adapting, which
LINGUISTICS: TRANSDICIPLINARY leads to self-organization, and ultimately to the
DIALOGS emergence of new patterns and behaviors (Hol-
land, 1997). An adaptive complex system is made
At first glance, complexity is a phenomenon that up of agents who interact dynamically and adapt
encompasses a great quantity of interactions and with one another as well as with the environment,
interference among its agents. For Morin (1990), as they seek mutual accommodation to optimize
complexity effectively includes the interweaving the benefits that will ensure their survival.
of events, actions, interactions, retroactions, de- An ever-increasing number of articles over the
terminations, and random events that constitute past years have sought to analyze the second lan-
our world, full of phenomena. guage acquisition process, as well as the language
Complexity has its place in science due to learning classroom in general, in the light of chaos
research that has attempted to explain questions and complexity theories (Cameron, 1999, 2004;
which challenge all conventional categories Larsen-Freeman, 1997, 2000, 2002, 2006; Paiva,
(Waldrop, 1992). Davis and Sumara (2006, p. 2002, 2005a, 2006a, 2006b; Parreiras, 2005).
ix) argue that “complexity thinking has captured Although other works had already reflected
the attention of many researchers whose studies on the implications of chaos and complexity
reach across traditional boundaries.” Examples of on teaching and language learning (Bowers,
phenomena under investigation in the education 1990; Connor-Linton, 1995; Lewis, 1993; Van
arena include: Lier, 1996), it was Larsen-Freeman (1997) who
brought these theories to the forefront of Applied
• How do social collectives work? The as- Linguistics.
sumption that the actions and potentialities of In her article, Larsen-Freeman (1997) draws
social groups are sums of individual capaci- attention to the many similarities between
ties has been challenged as it is becoming complex systems found in nature and second
more evident that collectives can exceed the language acquisition. One of the implications of
summed capacity of their members. What this perspective, she writes, is that it discourages
might this mean for classrooms, school reductionist explanations of teaching events and
boards, communities, and so on? language learning. In discussing issues relative
• What is the role of emergent technologies to inter-language, individual differences, and the
in shaping personalities and possibilities? effects of instruction, Larsen-Freeman (1997)
23
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
contends that in non-linear systems, such as sec- In this light, Palloff and Pratt (1999, p. 5) argue
ond language learning, the behavior of the whole that distance learning is invariably active: “the
emerges from the interactions of the parts. Thus, keys to the learning process are the interactions
by studying the parts in isolation, one by one, we among students themselves, the interactions be-
will merely be discussing each part as opposed to tween faculty and students and the collaboration
the manner in which the parts interact. in learning that result from these interactions.”
After the publication of Larsen-Freeman’s Computer-mediated communication (CMC),
work, several papers have reflected upon the particularly computer conferencing, has become
implications of complexity in understanding the a versatile medium for the delivery of both dis-
relations between language learning and teach- tributed and on-campus education. One such
ing. In Brazil, the first to study complexity in advantage is that text-based communication offers
Applied Linguistics was Paiva (2002), who sought opportunities for reflection in terms of the Com-
to understand the process of foreign language munity of Inquiry (Garrison et al., 2000).
learning as a complex system. This perspective The creation of learning communities is one
would be further developed in her later works of the most debated pedagogical interventions
(Paiva, 2004, 2005, 2006). In this same manner, used by educators and researchers to contem-
Kramsch (2002) and van Lier (2004), using the plate philosophical change related to knowledge
“ecology” metaphor, sought to re-think teaching construction. This line of thinking suggests that
and learning through complexity. we construct and maintain knowledge through
In 2006, the journal Applied Linguistics negotiation and not merely by examining the
dedicated an entire special edition to Complexity world. Other key aspects embedded in learning
Theory’s contributions to Applied Linguistics, communities are those involving interaction, the
demonstrating this theory’s role as a system of relationships of reciprocity, and collaboration, es-
interpretation for studies seeking a broader com- sential components in the process of constructing
prehension of the factors involved in the second shared knowledge (Cross, 1998; Wenger, 1998).
language learning process. These precepts of learning communities align
The basic notions of Complexity Theory will themselves with the assumptions found in the
be taken as a viewpoint to understand the role of literature regarding online learning communities.
social presence in investigating online and blended Joint enterprise,2 the relationships of reciproc-
communities, especially as reported by Garrison ity, and the sharing of common purposes, vital
et al. (2000) and Rouke et al. (2004). aspects if a learning community is to function
productively, have also been identified by Rogers
(2000) in online dialogs.
ONLINE AND BLENDED LEARNING According to Harasim, Teles, Turroff, and Hitz
COMMUNITIES AS COMPLEX (2005), the words ‘community’ and ‘communi-
SYSTEMS cation’ stem from the same root, ‘comunicare’,
which means ‘to share’. The authors emphasize
Technology as a mediating resource for the that people are naturally attracted by the media,
construction of shared1 knowledge is stressed sources of communication, and community
by Lévy (1993), who contends that cyberspace, formation. Paiva (2006a) adds that technologi-
unlike classic media, introduces an all to all type cal resources provide new opportunities and
of interaction, where participants can be both challenges for the learning process such as col-
senders and recipients, thus leading to a collec- laborative instructional projects, which boost the
tive intelligence. collective intelligence.
24
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
25
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
collaboration. Based on these issues, the discus- Garrison further points out that an online
sions regarding blended and online collaborative experience does offer opportunities for reflection
experiences presented herein will focus on the in a manner not at all possible in face-to-face
aspects that appear to promote the emergence of environments, which require verbal agility, spon-
social presence. taneity, and self-confidence to address a group.
The longtime attempt to understand human Thus, an online learning environment reflects a
social interactions was set in motion with the de- “group-centered” pattern of interaction as opposed
velopment of modalities of mediated technology. to an “authority-centered” one in a face-to-face
In conversational analysis, reports from Schegloff environment. Moreover, there is a greater tendency
and others (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974; to lean on the commentaries of others in online
Schegloff, 1968; 1973; Schegloff, Jefferson, & environments as compared to the turn-taking
Sacks 1977) sought to understand the nature dynamics in face-to-face environments. In this
of telephone and face-to-face conversations. manner, according to Garrison (2006, p. 25), there
Rourke et al. (2004) cite a variety of reports in is evidence indicating that “online learning may in
communication theory which studied a number fact have an advantage in supporting collaboration
of machines, including facsimile machines, and creating a sense of community.”
voicemail, and audio-teleconferencing in orga- Rourke et al. (2004), in one of the key works
nizational settings, through the concept of “im- on assessing social presence in computer con-
mediacy” from Mehrabian (1969). This concept, ferencing, propose three broad categories of
developed to analyze face-to-face interaction, communicative responses: affective responses,
refers to “those communication behaviors that interactive responses, and cohesive responses.
enhance closeness to and nonverbal interaction These categories, although relabeled to better re-
with another” (p. 203). These behaviors involve flect the nature of the emergent indicators defined
nonverbal channels, such as facial expressions, by the authors, correspond directly to Garrison et
body movements, and eye contact, which lead to al.’s (2000) original categories. In this chapter, the
more effective and more immediate interactions term dimension, instead of responses, is preferred
among the interlocutors. as the events under investigation involve more
Rourke et al. (2004) examine many early works than simple responses.
that argued that the critical difference between The affective dimension involves personal ex-
face-to-face communication and computer-medi- pressions of emotion, feelings, beliefs, and values,
ated communication was the absence of social and includes indicators such as expressions of
context cues. According to Rourke et al. (2004), emotion, use of humor, and self-disclosure. The
however, recent revisions of social presence ques- interactive dimension includes communication
tion to what extent these results from previous behaviors that provide evidence that others are
studies can be generalized to all media and to all present, such as agreement/disagreement, ap-
their applications. proval, and referencing of previous messages, as
One difference between face-to-face contexts well as involves indicators such as: continuing a
and online contexts, highlighted by Garrison thread, quoting from others’ messages, asking
(2006, p. 27), is that “communication for social questions, complimenting, and expressing appre-
presence in an online context is less frequent ciation. The cohesion present here encompasses
and more deliberate and intentional compared to communication behaviors that build and sustain a
a face-to-face context where physical presence sense of group commitment, such as greetings and
more naturally stimulates expressions of social salutations and group or personal reference.
presence.” The interweaving of events, actions, and in-
26
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
teractions in the notions of complex systems is The second study, a longitudinal ethnographic
present in the interrelationship of social, cognitive, work, discusses the content of the interactions of
and teaching presences in a Community of Inquiry 08 undergraduate students in English as a Foreign
(Garrison et al., 2000). Although the categories and Language (EFL) academic writing course at the
indicators suggested in the Community of Inquiry School of Languages and Literatures, Universi-
model are in a certain way presented in a static dade Federal de Minas Gerais, during the second
and non-realistic manner, when we consider, for semester of 2004. This study was designed in a
example, that the selection of text segments used blended format so as to give students the opportu-
to illustrate the indicators in Rourke et al. (2004) nity to interact both online and face-to-face, and
is fabricated, the ideas embedded in this model thus focuses on learner interaction and collabora-
appear to signal the presence of agents (learners, tion in peer-review activities in both face-to-face
cultural artifacts, contexts), offering possibilities and online asynchronous classes. Rather than
to identify several qualities such as dynamism, directly comparing the learning environments, or
self-organization, emergence, and so on, which attempting to discover which is more effective,
are common to complex systems. this research focuses both on their possibilities
The next part of this chapter will present an and constraints, as well as on the value of their
overview of classic and contemporary thought combination.
with the aim of promoting a better understanding In keeping with the perspectives of this chapter,
of the core ideas of complexity. a special inquiry was formulated by choosing two
distinct scenes: one related to blended learning
and the other related to online learning.
CONTEXTUAL ISSUES Regarding the online experience, the corpus of
UFMGPRAT English 1, one of the subcommuni-
The discussion presented herein has emerged ties investigated in the study “Online Learning
from the analysis of two distinct studies: “On- Communities in the Realm of Complexity” was
line Learning Communities in the Realm of chosen. Throughout the course, participants made
Complexity” and “The Complexity of Learning use of a discussion list to carry out the tasks as-
Environments.” signed in the teaching practice course. For each
The first study discusses the main character- task, the instructional design involved: (1) post-
istics and functions of online learning communi- ing an individual contribution to the discussion
ties as well as the emergence of social presence, list, (2) discussing these contributions, and (3)
teaching presence, and cognitive presence in posting a collective contribution to a forum for
terms of Communities of Inquiry (Garrison et feedback from teachers and members of other
al., 2000). This study’s core analysis focused on subcommunities.
the interaction of 50 undergraduate students who In the second study, activities alternated
participated in a 20-week course for pre-service between face-to-face and online classes. Face-to-
teachers at the School of Languages and Litera- face classes entailed reading and discussing theory
tures, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, in as well as presenting seminars. The online classes
the first semester of 2004. This course involved were conducted in an electronic forum where texts
theoretical and practical issues of teaching and produced by students were posted. Also present
learning a second language. These students were here was a discussion list via e-mail intended to
divided into small groups of three to five partici- resolve problems and doubts that would inevitably
pants and interacted in an online environment arise between one face-to-face encounter and
without the direct intervention of the teacher. another. For the sake of analysis, the data from
27
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
(3)
FINDINGS Ellen: I am going to have to punish you…
(laughing). (original text in Portuguese)
This section will be dedicated to pinpointing evi-
dence of the affective, interactive, and cohesive Concerning blended learning, expressions of
dimensions as well as patterns that may emerge emotion, feelings, and humor can also be clearly
with the support of social presence. observed in the participant speech of this com-
munity.
Affective Dimension Excerpts 4 and 5 illustrate the presence of the
affective dimension, especially expressions of
Regarding the exclusively online experience of emotion in the face-to-face experience. In excerpt
the UFMGPRAT English 1 subcommunity, it can 4, for example, the emotion is expressed not only
be observed that emotions, feelings, and humor linguistically, but also non-linguistically, through
seem to be expressed emphatically, as can be pauses and laughter in short statements, which are
found in excerpts 1 and 2. Any divergence that typical of face-to-face conversations.
could otherwise have been resolved by means of The teacher’s manifestation upon facing a
looks, tone of voice, or any other resource typical student’s difficulty in performing one of the tasks
of a face-to-face interaction tends to be expressed proposed by the course is immediate, which draws
textually: direct correlation to the concept of Mehrabian’s
(1969) “immediacy,” which contemplates commu-
(1) nicative behavior related to the specific proximity
Lisa: …Gee, sorry if I offended ya. Didn’t of interaction possibilities in the face-to-face
mean to say that all your sentences were bad. On experience:
the contrary! What I meant was that we had (in
all) a lot of sentences and we would have to be (4)
more selective because if we flood the students Nathalie: Ana, I’m in trouble! I don’t know
with visual aids we may end up not getting the how to do it.
result expected. Ana: You are not, Nathalie!
As I said before, when I answer e-mails quickly Nathalie: Yes!
(most of the time, unfortunately) I end up simplify- Ana: I think you’re…
ing the text and it gets a tad too forward. Please Nathalie: I don’t know.
don’t get me wrong. I’m really enjoying working Ana: I think you’re in the right way.
with you guys! (Laughter)
Ana: I think you’re in the right way. Write it
Expressions of humor and self-disclosure on the board please.
are also constant in the interactions observed
in the UFMGPRAT English 1, as illustrated in
2 and 3:
28
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
29
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
(12) (17)
I think that we have to make a selection of the Your text is much better now. Congratula-
phrases from the whole because we can’t bombard tions!
the students with phrases, right? (original text in
Portuguese)
30
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
(18) (19)
Angélica, your text is very good with just few Lisa: United we stand!!!!
mistakes. Congratulations!!
(20)
In this context, which involved the peer edit- Ellen: A big hug, all for one and one for all!!!!
ing of their texts, the students frequently wrote Go girls.
commentaries complimenting their colleagues
or highlighting the positive aspects of the text (21)
before making any corrections or giving any sort Lisa: Together we will overcome the difficulties.
of suggestion. I hope so…I’m going to continue to try to resolve
these little problems and I hope that they will not
Cohesive Dimension hurt us because we’ve worked hard, right?
As pointed out by Garrison et al. (2000) and This attachment to group cohesion can be
Rourke et al. (2004), the cohesive expression interpreted as a need for the group to ‘stand on its
can be exemplified by activities that construct, own two feet’ until the end of the course. This fact
develop, and sustain group behavior all at the seems to be related to the pedagogical proposal
same time. It can be observed that the vocative of the course which established the “own life”
cases were constant through the entire life of the of each subcommunitythat is, autonomous
PRATUFMG English-1 subcommunity. communities without the direct intervention of
In addition, there were a number of moments the teacher.
in which the community participants addressed The social expressions that emerged from the
the group using pronouns that refer to the col- participants’ interactions in the aforementioned
lective, such as “we,” “our,” and “us,” as well as asynchronous learning community seem to offer
the use of the verb in the third-person plural in collaboration and support to the emergence of
messages written in Portuguese. Another indicator patterns such as the negotiation of meaning, the
of the group cohesion could be identified through overcoming of conflicts, and the development
communication using phatic expressions and salu- of group cohesion. One of the major joint enter-
tation. Many times the community participants prises that emerged from these interactions within
spoke to the group using expressions such as “Hi UFMGPRAT English-1 is distributed leadership.
everybody” or “Hi all.’ Also observed was “Hi, The community participants chose to alternate
Powerpuff Girls,” referring to the cartoon “The leaders so that each member could participate
Powerpuff Girls,” “saving the world before bed- equally in group activities. Thus, the role of the
time.” It is interesting to note that this nickname management of a learning community, many times
was not defined in the interactions that occurred taken on by the teacher, is distributed among the
in the course discussion forum, demonstrating community participants. Although UFMGPRAT
an intimate identity within the subcommunity. English-1 was the subcommunity investigated
In addition to this nickname, the participants for the discussions debated in this chapter, it is
of the UFMGPRAT English-1 group constantly important to emphasize that the emergence of
search for motivational and cohesive expressions distributed leadership occurred in most subcom-
in the language, which can be considered a new munities from the course for pre-service teachers,
indicator of social presence pointing toward the original corpus for the study “Online Learning
development of group cohesion. These manifesta- Communities in the Realm of Complexity.”
tions can be observed in examples 19, 20, and 21
(original texts were in Portuguese):
31
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
32
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
Another emerging aspect is the fact that social social presence with different learners and in
presence is more linguistically apparent in online different learning contexts.
interactions than in face-to-face interactions. Although social presence has been considered
In face-to-face interactions, diverse non-verbal to be intrinsically interrelated with cognitive pres-
paths, such as looks, facial expressions, and ence, as well as with teaching presence in Gar-
gestures, play key roles in marking social pres- rison et al.’s model, this chapter focuses on social
ence or “immediacy,” as defined by Mehrabian presence only. Therefore, further studies wishing
(1969). These results are aligned with previous to examine the remaining components of the
studies (Davis & Thiede, 2000; Martins, 2005, Community of Inquiry model in both online and
2006) which indicate that, due to restrictions in blended environments are to be encouraged.
contextualization (Gumperz, 1982), common in In the discussions presented in this chapter,
face-to-face interactions, expressions of emotion the Community of Inquiry has been scrutinized
and politeness tend to appear more linguistically under the notions of complexity. Considering
marked. that our focus was on emergent phenomena in
The results also point out that the expressions both online and blended learning, research into
of affection, expressions that involve efforts in other characteristics of complexity in learning
interactions, and interactions that address the communities is valid. The use of Complexity
collective, aid in the development process of Theory as the foundation for the study of online
group cohesion, thus promoting the collaborative learning is still quite recent, hence an open field
experience and opportunities for the construction for further investigations still exists.
of shared knowledge. In this sense, the discus-
sions based on the data presented in this chapter
follow in line with the findings from Garrison et CONCLUSION
al. (2000) and Rourke et al. (2004), which indicate
that social presence may trigger and sustain the Initially brought to the field of Applied Linguistics
construction of shared knowledge. from isolated initiatives, complexity thinking has
As the purpose of this discussion has been to gradually established itself as a consistent episte-
prompt some reflection on complexity thinking mological basis for the understanding of contexts
and social presence, we hope that this study will and events involved in teaching and language
serve as an incentive for future investigations in learning activities. These events, as regards the
other contexts, as the discussion presented herein process of second language learning, much like
is based on a small sample from two distinct case the universe as a whole, are complex in nature.
studies which was specifically investigated in The complex nature of phenomena has led
this chapter. classic scientists to establish methodological
procedures that reduced the phenomena to the
investigative conditions of the time. Scientific
GUIDELINES FOR FUTURE and technological advances stemming from these
RESEARCH efforts established the reductionist view of classic
science as a reliable paradigm. The emergence
In this chapter we have presented some differences of another viewpoint allows us to investigate
between the processes of socialization in online certain aspects of a phenomenon, which in many
learning and blended learning. However, further cases is not in fact contemplated within a sole
inquires on this topic are still needed, especially paradigm.
those conducted regarding the characteristics of
33
The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
This idea aligns with Halliday (2001) in the in this chapter will contribute to research on e-
sense that second language teaching is too com- learning methodologies for language teaching and
plex and multifaceted to be analyzed according learning as well as pinpoint issues and challenges
to one sole perspective, be it what it may. In this for others to address and build upon.
light, Larsen-Freeman, (2002b) emphasizes that
one of the contributions of complexity is that it
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The Emergence of Social Presence in Learning Communities
2
Joint enterprise in this context is seen as a
result of a collective process of negotiation
that reflects the full complexity of mutual
engagement (Wenger, 1998).
3
Redundancy in this text is used in Davis
and Sumara’s (2006, p. 138) terms: “In
social grouping redundancies include com-
mon language, similar social status, shared
responsibilities, constancy of setting and so
on.”
38