In the article, "Crossing Frontiers: New Directions in Online Pedagogy and Research," Kern, Ware, and Warschauer (2004) describe how digital tools allow language learners to negotiate meaning, which in turn, helps them better understand how to use language.
Before coming to graduate school, I enjoyed the happy, simple life, in which I believed that a conversation was a conversation and talking was just talking. Upon closer examination and self-reflexivity while talking with others, I have realized that having a conversation is more like a communicative cha-cha: You say something...The other person tries to figure out when and how to respond...You try to figure out if the other person understood what you said based on how they respond...It's an ongoing negotiation of meaning.
Try this the next time you have a conversation - think about what visual or verbal cues lead you to know when to respond. Think about how you respond differently based on the person you are talking or the surrounding contexts. Reflect on how much you depend on the other person to carry out the conversation.
So thinking about technology, can a person really learn to speak a language well enough to carry out conversations in a foreign country solely through human-computer interaction (e.g., Rosetta Stone, COCA, Flashcards, WordChamp)? At what point is it critical to have interaction with another person in order to fully understand how to negotiate meaning using a different language?
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