The key to success in teaching language and culture together in the foreign language classroom lies in the students' interaction with real language used by real people and real materials. In the urban classroom setting, students have access to native speakers and many authentic materials. There are often numbers of native speakers in local neighborhoods, numerous ESL classes for these native speakers, and bookstores that carry foreign language books, newspapers, and magazines. There are also cinemas that show foreign films, video stores that offer foreign films for rent, and museums, cultural centers, and embassies to visit. However, in rural settings, students generally do not have such access. They are usually culturally isolated. There is the occasional exchange student or a student who might have satellite television with international channels and radio stations to view or record. The population of the area is primarily American English-speaking. Colleges and universities in these areas rarely have enough students for an ESL course or program to exist. Due to low demand, libraries, bookstores, and video stores do not often have foreign language materials for checkout or purchase. There are few cultural centers, and the small local museums are often regionally focused. Until recently, rural foreign language students were severely disadvantaged. 

All of that has begun to change rapidly, due to the tremendous advances in technology during the nineties.  Because of the growth of the Internet, e-mail, synchronous chat, and videoconferencing, students in the rural areas (and the urban ones as well), have virtually endless access to culture and language, without leaving one's school or home.

The wealth of sites on the Internet has brought information and authentic materials, albeit electronic, into the easy reach of instructors and students in both rural and urban areas.  Furthermore, the impact of the availability of resources on the Internet has given rural classrooms the push they needed to attain cultural information and materials that they were once lacking due to geographic location.

Much of what one finds on the Internet might be categorized as informational sites.  One finds a multitude of sites where teachers and students can obtain linguistic and cultural information, usually in narrative and photo form, created by other educators, businesses, and individuals just interested in a particular language and/or culture.   At these sites one can get basic information or connect to other sites in the areas of art, the media, government, history, music, literature, food, festivals, customs, and sports.  There are also sites which countries, governments, and cultural groups themselves sponsor.  One might discover that these more “official” sites are beneficial because they are usually written in the target language and through the eyes of the target culture population.  Many of these informational sites are readily accessible by instructors and students because the graphics and text are not as complicated and load more quickly and easily. Teachers should guide their students to sites appropriate for the learning experience, their level of ability, and their interests.  Before incorporating Internet sites into one's lesson plans, the teacher must research what is available, experiment with the sites first to check for ease of use and appropriateness, and develop lessons to accompany the sites.  Relevant and appropriate sites are those that support and enhance the language and culture learning process already taking place.

There are numerous sites of authentic materials, such as newspapers and magazines.  One site, the Internet Public Library (IPL) Reading Room Newspapers is a clearinghouse for international newspaper sites and provides links to major newspapers according to country (IPL Reading Room Newspapers).  As with other informational sites, teachers must develop lessons and assignments to accompany the sites, rather than allow students to stumble randomly through them with no direction or purpose.

There are also sites where students and teachers can access video and audio webcasts of different television and radio stations.  One of these sites is International Radio and TV Online, which provides what it calls "networked multimedia for language and culture education" (International Radio and TV Online).  However, to be able to hear and view these webcasts, users must download software called "plug-ins" or "players" to be able to receive them.  The limitation at this point in time is whether instructors, students, and computer laboratories have the technological capabilities to sustain the downloads and playbacks.  Currently, many institutions are not technologically ready, but webcasts will become more commonplace in the near future.  Perhaps they will replace current media delivery, such as audiocassettes, compact discs, video (cassettes and discs), and even satellite and cable television.  Regardless of what the future holds, the instructor still remains the student guide to cultural acquisition and must continue to view or listen to samples of the webcasts to develop assignments that support what is being done in the classroom.

Students in past decades have had the opportunity to have pen pals in other countries and cultures, using traditional mail as the medium of transport.  The only possible pitfall to this correspondence was that weeks or more passed between letters.  However, all of this has changed with the growth of electronic mail (e-mail), online chat, and instant messaging as the means of more immediate interaction and correspondence.  In fact, chat and instant messaging are becoming so prevalent that America Online’s David Gang states,

 

We see it migrating quickly to having quick one-on-one conversations from any device, from anywhere in the world….A traveling Buddy List is going to turn the Earth into a very, very small planet. (Snider)

 

Online interaction may be asynchronous or synchronous, depending on whether one chooses e-mail or chat, or a combination of both.  Teachers may arrange online class meetings in their respective computer laboratories where the students chat with the native culture students in a designated chat area that computer support technicians can create on the institution's own web servers.  Instructors may also choose to assign students e-mail correspondence outside of class, then have them present language and cultural information that they have learned to the rest of the class in the form of oral presentation and discussion.  Classrooms may link with other classrooms, or students may connect with individual students they meet at pen pal sites.  Whether one chooses e-mail, chat, or both, teachers must monitor these tools and create specific lessons for their students. Students need specific objectives, and instructors need to guide them towards appropriate linguistic and cultural exchange with their online pen pals.

One of the most important advances in technology has been that of interactive television, or videoconferencing.  Classes and conferences presented in this manner originate at one location, with a group of participants and an instructor or moderator.  The class or meeting is then broadcast over television to other sites by way of an analog or digital phone line, computers, and the televisions.  What makes this type of connection so promising is that it is completely interactive.  The participants at all sites can see each other, hear each other, and speak to each other.  Sites are equipped so participants may send each other computer files and documents and show pictures, slides, and videos to each other.  Because this type of connection is basically one of a telephone connection, there exists the possibility that classrooms, students, and other persons in different countries may be able to communicate, interview each other, and share their cultures. Communication across regions and states can only be the beginning of communication and interaction across country and continental boundaries without the expense of travel. 

One limitation that might prevent widespread use of the interactive television classroom is the cost.  Currently, it is quite expensive to create such a classroom.  What has developed as a less expensive solution is videoconferencing across the Internet, combining the tools of chat and those of video transmission.  To videoconference across the Internet, all one needs is a personal computer, an Internet connection, a microphone, and a small video camera.

An example of this utilization of technology as a means of cultural delivery and exchange was developed recently at a rural community college in Virginia.  At Southwest Virginia Community College (SWVCC), the foreign language instructor and the academic computing personnel created a sort of “global interactive classroom.”  In the spring semester of 1998, the college received a grant of up to $6,490 from an organization called Community Colleges for International Development to develop this classroom (Boyce, Project Proposal 4).  The rationales behind the proposal were the aforementioned problems of rural colleges: there are few native speakers and there is a lack of financial means for students in these areas to travel abroad (Boyce, Project Proposal 1-2). In this particular situation, both institutions involved, SWVCC and the University of Quintana Roo (UQRoo) in Chetumal, Mexico, experienced the lack of native speakers and finances for travel.  The purpose of the project was:

           

…to assist students at both institutions to learn about each other’s languages, histories and cultures using instructional technologies readily available to them and to promote serious planning for further academic and economic collaboration. (Boyce, Project Proposal 3)

 

To create this virtual exchange, the institutions used a combination of many of the aforementioned technologies: Internet, e-mail, chat, and digital video cameras.  Purchased with the grant were eight black and white digital video cameras (four for each institution) at a cost of $575 (Boyce, Project Report 2). The approximate cost for Internet access was $1000 (Boyce, Project Report 2). Other costs included faculty and administrative project time, mailings, telephone calls, faxes, and supplies totaling $2,433 (Boyce, Project Report 2). As part of the project, the English instructor at UQRoo and the Spanish instructor at SWVCC traveled to the partner institutions at a cost of $2,461 (Boyce, Project Report 2). The project’s most essential costs, the cameras and the Internet access, were relatively inexpensive and comprised less than one-third of the total project cost.  Each institution had its own computer laboratories prior to the grant.

            During the course of the semester, intermediate Spanish students at SVCC and English majors at UQRoo shared their languages and cultures first through e-mail. Later in the semester, they proceeded to online videoconferencing and written chat, using an Internet connection to SWVCC’s web server (called the “reflector site”), the video cameras, and a program called CU-SeeMe.  CU-SeeMe is a basic computer videoconferencing and chat software program developed by Cornell University, available as a free download from Cornell or for a small fee from a company named White Pine (CU-SeeMe). The chat used by the students was limited to written chat, as the computers at UQRoo had no sound cards.  However, one can use this program or similar programs, such as Microsoft NetMeeting, for spoken chat with microphones and videoconferencing if sound cards are present.  In addition to computer interaction, participants also exchanged by regular mail delivery photo albums containing photographs of their families, friends, and events from their lives, accompanied by audiocassettes describing the albums.  Students at SWVCC spoke Spanish on their cassettes, and students at UQRoo spoke English on theirs.  As a result of the exchange, a formal “Declaration of Intent” for future exchange and cooperation between the schools was signed, and the project continued into the 1998-1999 academic school year.  Both institutions expect to continue and expand the exchange into other subject areas. Furthermore, the idea of intercultural exchange via the technologies is now being used in some of SWVCC’s history and civilization courses, which are currently linked to comparable courses at a college in Scotland and one in Norway.

            As one can envision, the growth and use of technology as a tool of linguistic and cultural education and exchange is going to increase rapidly. It is very likely that videoconferencing and electronic interaction will become the instruments of choice for many educators.  However, one must not forget from whence we came.  Only fifty or so years ago, culture was practically a non-existent component of the language-learning classroom, and now it is an integral and increasingly equal part of it.  Educators have discovered that language and culture cannot be separated, and the best way to teach both is by allowing students to experience real language in real context along the way.  Sure, technology is going to shrink boundaries even further by bringing students, educators, and cultures together virtually like never before.  Nevertheless, one must also remember that language and culture are the ways we humans have of relating and communicating with each other in person.  Nothing can compare with or truly replace real life: people of all cultures, languages, and nationalities living, working, and interacting with each other on a day-to-day basis.   And, it is from this that we learn the most about each other as members of a culture and as individuals.

 

Works Cited

 

Boyce, Douglas.  “Collaboration through Instructional Technology:  Building Links Between Quintana Roo and Virginia:  Project Proposal.”  15 October 1997.

 

Boyce, Douglas.  “Collaboration through Instructional Technology:  Building Links Between Quintana Roo and Virginia:  Project Final Report.”  12 June 1998.

 

CU-SeeMe.  <http://cu-seeme.cornell.edu>.  (28 July 1999).

 

International Radio and TV Online. 1994-1997. <http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/modlang/Lab/main.html>.  (28 July 1999).

 

IPL (Internet Public Library) Reading Room Newspapers. <http://www.ipl.org/reading/news/>.  (28 July 1999).

 

Snider, Mike.  “Instant Messaging on Fast Track.”  USA Today.  11 August 1999: 6D.