1	Language, Culture, Meaning, Learning and Technology Professor Dr Andrew Lian Chair – Department of Foreign Languages Western Illinois University USA AP-Lian@wiu.edu – http://andrewlian.com
2	What follows is… A set of personal reflections developed over some years which I would like to share and which is the result of A professional lifetime of trying to deal with the lack of a unified, agreed, explanatory, tested theory of learning and teaching
3	What follows is… A concept paper trying to outline some fundamental philosophical and practical issues It is NOT a paper reporting one or more experiments It IS meant to contribute to the ways we think about learning and language-learning because how we think about things determines what we do in our practices
4	Structure… This talk has a multi-faceted title. Let me begin with… Meaning and Learning The other aspects will emerge naturally as the talk develops
5	So… Let’s begin Here are two statements I wish had been smart enough to produce We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are (Anaïs Nin) The universe is made up of stories, not atoms (Muriel Rukeyser)
6	What does this mean??? We see the world through our past Meaning, and therefore knowledge, are not external to us. They are both created by us and are a function of us The world is as the world is. How we perceive that world is an act of meaning-making on our part – e.g. phonetics Meaning is made not found
7	Important consequences… The ability to function in life requires the constant generation of meaning If a person cannot make sense of the world around him/her at any instant, then that person is literally paralyzed and can do nothing
8	And If everything that people do is mediated through their past, they never have access to the world as it actually is but to interpretations (I call them stories) about the world, which they tell themselves on the basis of their internal logical and representational systems (not necessarily language – more like a helpful mystery) They then use “language” or other forms of semiotic signification to produce stories (or texts) for others to deal with
9	Paradoxically These systems both Enable us to make sense of the world and Limit our understandings of that world
10	Especially because… Our beliefs and understandings are reinforced if we function successfully in life, thus the more success we experience and the more we do in life, the more the meaning-making process is short-cut (economy) – we guess more successfully the less likely we are to be open to new (self-generated) meanings And the more likely we are to exclude meanings not already in our system (e.g. phonetics – linguistic; walking – cultural etc.)
11	In other words… We become used to understanding in certain ways
12	Consequence This mechanism essentially filters the world for us and tells us what it looks like
13	And… This mechanism works on all systems which enable us to make sense of the world, including language and culture
14	Of course… This is a gross over-simplification as there are countless unpredicted and unpredictable factors which will impact, at every moment of our life, on how we make sense of the world but we still need to make sense of them even though they are unpredicted and unpredictable
15	Thus… Meaning-making is a constant and highly dynamic process of construction and re-construction It is a self-story-telling process constrained by “situation”, “culture” and “language” and many other things, and by the fact that we are physiological beings
16	So… research into Meaning-Making should also incorporate, for instance, little-recognized but actually relevant areas such as the learner as a physiological being (including biological rhythms and limits), issues of kinesics, body posture and proxemics, questions of perception (including relating brain and language) and cultural rhythms NB the above represents many of my personal interests and is in no sense meant to limit content or activity
17	Learning… In this perspective… Learning involves, for each person (and potentially at all the levels that I have outlined): Making the meaningLESS MeaningFUL Involves an act of understanding which is individual and which therefore requires individualized solutions
18	How can we achieve that when… we simply do not get to perceive the things that we need to perceive (or understand) in order to function in the world? Awareness-raising is critical (part of my 3As: Awareness, autonomy and achievement) But how do we do that?
19	A generalizable suggestion By creating opportunities for learners to confront, contrast and contest their understandings and beliefs against the complexity of events unfolding around them, be they linguistic or non-linguistic (my 3Cs) By creating a rhizomatic learning environment (every node/experience can connect to any other one as needed by the moment). This is the opposite of a tree structure
20	A tree structure
21	A rhizomatic structure
22	Let’s move on to language -learning But first some comments about: LANGUAGE and CULTURE
23	Language When we “teach” a “language” these days (proficiency-based and mass market), the reality of our work is not to teach the information we value (e.g. linguistic description) but To create conditions enabling our students to learn what they need in order to become proficient in the language (including necessary information) “Language” is not just “language” – it is much more – the concept of practical language
24	Culture We are told to teach not just “language” but “its culture” too – breakfast in Guatemala? But… what does that mean??? Which culture? High culture (e.g. literature), popular culture (e.g. comics)? Whose culture? British, American? Is it definable? How not to trivialize it?
25	More on culture What about “invisible” culture (social practices or expectations not necessarily defined, studied or identified)? I am thinking here of such “cultural” phenomena as “humor” or even “guanxi” So maybe culture is not primarily about facts but includes constraints on meaning created by social practices
26	And… What “culture” does a Chinese speaking with a Hungarian need in order to communicate successfully? What culture can/do they share?
27	Four sources of “culture” The culture of the target language society of the person(s) communicating (culture of “English” – whatever that means) The culture of the society of the people with whom we are communicating (e.g. culture of Chinese or Hungarian) The personal culture of the person(s) communicating (their personal practices) The culture embedded in the language system used for communication (built into English) – carried across time and groups
28	Dealing with “culture” means Dealing with all FOUR of these in various dynamic, uncertain, unknown and unpredictable ways which will Influence every communication act The best we can hope for is that learners will have some cultural “knowledge” and, more importantly, some capacity to adapt to new situations as they arise – the concept of practical culture
29	A structure that has worked for me Create an action space (you need one for any learning environment) where the consequences of one’s understandings have a personal impact (the case of macrosimulation – a social space or structure which creates a sense of history for each person) – see Andrew Lian’ s website -
30	And provide a set of tools to help… us to change the form of story we tell ourselves by tapping into different understanding mechanisms (e.g. with sounds not allowing our selection mechanisms to operate – we need to defeat the filter)
31	Some tools Might be as simple as the teacher saying: “Have you noticed that….???” This is a simple but extremely valuable process
32	However Even if teachers actually did know everything and Could also be omnipresent, There are some things they actually could not possibly do (e.g. show contrasts between different scenes of people in interaction with one another)
33	This is where… technology can help
34	It can provide support including Simple structure drills Spelling and grammar checkers Pronunciation and listening tutors Collaborative writing and learning tools Multimedia database-driven systems Access to information High quality communication systems e.g. videoconference – skype - marratech
35	Here are some examples Listening comprehension practice (the case of FR131/FR132 – highly enriching at little cost in a no-growth budgetary scenario) Electronic filtering MMGen MMExplore MMBase Reference: http://www.andrewlian.com/andrewlian/prowww/apacall_2004/apacall_lian_ap_tell_rhizomatic.pdf
36	But isn’t having a teacher the best?? Isn’t 1 student to 1 teacher the ideal? Only sometimes…. There are times when learners need to be left alone to experiment or work things out for themselves The U of Melbourne review of our work at U of Queensland (the human touch) Technology actually can help
37	Let’s imagine a future Which has the teacher as a central component of learning but Which includes sophisticated technology and which takes account of the arguments in this presentation Here is one possible scenario for both learning and development
38	Lesson-generation and distribution
39	Of course… There is much more to say about Meaning Learning Language Culture and Technology (a functional re-ordering)
40	And… This is not The End Thank you for listening to me