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WORKING PAPER - SECOND INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIA ON RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES TO BE HELD IN BOGOTA COLOMBIA, AUGUST 17- 19, 2011 CSIT TEACHING MODEL AND WIKIS: INNOVATING FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING ABSTRACT The current communicative needs and sociocultural interests of the modern world demand new practices and environments in the foreign language classroom. One way of innovating foreign language teaching and learning can be the integrated use of wikis and the CSIT teaching model. This integration can provide opportunities not only to renew language learning and teaching practices but to rethink the roles of teachers and learners, and ultimately to move from information processing to knowledge construction.

KEY WORDS Innovation, ICTs, wikis, CSIT teaching model, foreign language classroom.

RESUMEN Las necesidades comunicativas y los intereses socioculturales actuales del mundo moderno exigen prcticas y ambientes nuevos en el saln de lengua extranjera. Una manera de innovar la enseanza y el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras puede ser el uso integrado de wikis y el modelo de enseanza CAIT. Esta integracin puede proporcionar oportunidades no slo para renovar las prcticas de enseanza y aprendizaje de lengua sino para repensar los roles de los profesores y aprendices y, en ltimas, trascender del procesamiento de informacin a la construccin de conocimiento.

PALABRAS CLAVES Innovacin, TICs, wikis, modelo de enseanza CAIT, saln de lengua extranjera.

INTRODUCTION One way of innovating language teaching can be the use of new technologies, which provides opportunities not only to renew course contents and teaching methods but to rethink the process of learning in order to transform information into knowledge and understanding (Semenov, 2005).

Warschauer and Meskill (2000) state that, among other things, new technologies can help students have opportunities for authentic and meaningful interaction both within and outside the classroom, access different tools for their own social, cultural, and linguistic exploration and gain apprenticeship into new discourse communities. For their part, Padurean and Margan (2009) explain that new technologies allow the development not only of instrumental skills but also knowledge of new languages (audiovisual and hypertextual) as well as teaching competencies and methodological skills in virtual environments.

The Constructivist, Self-regulating, Interactive and Technological (CSIT) teaching model (CAIT as it called in Spanish), established by the Forum's Internet Educational Foundation Meeting (Beltrn and Prez, 2003) may be a concrete way to strengthen educational planning, implementation and evaluation through new technologies. This model is based on the context of a pedagogy of imagination centered on the student, which expects him/her to subject the information collected online to the action of critical thinking. In addition, this model understands technology as a cognitive tool to stimulate the development of analytical thinking, and pragmatic and dialectical processes (Soler, 2003; Beltrn y Prez, 2004).

For their role as task organizers, input providers, and language teaching management resources, wikis can become useful cognitive tools for both teachers and students in the language curriculum. Parker and Chao (2007) explain that wikis can be used as a source of information and knowledge, as well as a tool for collaborative authoring since they allow participants to engage in dialog by sharing their knowledge with the group, putting up interesting pieces of information, working together and discussing issues. For language learning, contends Lund (2008), wikis hold a potential for collectively producing, organizing and sustaining textual (and, increasingly, visual and auditory) resources. Gimeno and Garca (2009) claim that wikis are a social network that can be used to support cooperative learning tasks in the language curriculum. Due to their collaborative nature, they can be used in projectbased and problem-based language learning practices where students and teachers contribute to the construction of knowledge.

CONTEXT Currently, EFL teachers and learners are experiencing a set of pedagogical and sociocultural changes that asks from them better language practices and environments: improved teaching and learning

philosophies, integrationist curricula, the emergence of new means of communication, etc. See discussion about some of those changes below.

Competency and performance-based curricula Oliver (2002) states that competency and performance-based curricula tend to require (a) access to a variety of information sources and forms; (b) student-centered learning contexts based on information access and inquiry; (d) learning environments centered on problem- and inquiry-based activities and (e) teachers as coaches and mentors rather than content experts. In his opinion, contemporary ICTs are able to provide strong support for all these requirements because, among other things, they provide and support for resource-based, student centered settings, enable learning to be related to context and to practice, and encourage students to take responsibility for their own learning. Ultimately, ICTs can allow teachers and students to move from a transmissionist classroom centered on information memorization to a constructivist classroom based on knowledge generation.

Information literacy Shetzer and Warschauer (2000, p. 172) state that previously language educators considered how to use information technology in order to teach language, nowadays they need to consider how to teach language so that their learners can make effective use of information technology. This shift resulted from the emergence of what some authors have called information literacy, which consists of knowing how to use computers and access information to reflect critically on the nature of information itself, its technical infrastructure, and its sociocultural and ideological context and impact (Shapiro and Hughes, 1996). As a result of this new kind of literacy, Nishinoh (2005) claims that instruction in the English classroom has to improve students information literacy/skills in general and improve their English skills while making use of the information literacy/skills which are being learned.

ICT in language learning and teaching Rozgiene, Medvedeva, and Strakov (2008) state that teachers need to work with hypermedia and internet in their classes because they provide a number of advantages for language learning. First of all, all language skills can be easily integrated in task-based learning. Secondly, learners have greater control over their learning because they can go at their own pace, skipping some parts or going back to review the material. Thirdly, the learner can access various learning tools like grammatical explanations or exercises, vocabulary notes or comments, pronunciation information, or questions or

prompts. Finally, learners can share not only brief messages, but also create interactive graphics, sounds, and videos, which can facilitate collaborative learning.

Wikis and language learning and teaching According to Lund (2006), the production and appropriation of language in wikis go beyond individualistic and mentalist approaches to language learning since these interfaces make possible the development of activities that require multiple participants with a collective goal in common. Also, explains Lund, since wikis have resources to face complex problems, they facilitate the production of language. Kovacic, Bubas and Zlatovic (2008) claim that wikis can be used in language learning to encourage student interaction and discovery while helping the students acquire the linguistic content of the language course. To them, the flexibility and relative easy use of wikis make them suitable for the implementation of learning paradigms like collaborative learning and social constructivism. Similarly, in a study about the use of a wiki in an EFL class, Chen (2008) concludes that the wiki environment can allow students to fulfill their role duties, cooperate, negotiate, manage and model their contributions from each other.

DEVELOPMENT In order to provide both EFL teachers and learners with technology-enhanced environments that respond to current societys demands and needs, EFL programs can implement the constructivist selfregulating interactive and technological (CSIT) teaching model. According to Beltrn (2003), this model aims to transform information into knowledge, change teacher-based classes into studentcentered classed and, ultimately, change and improve reality. It can do so because of its four essential features: (1) constructivist which allows students to (re)construct reality by re-structuring contents within the context of instruction, (2) self-regulating which enables students to learn to learn by directing their own learning process, (3) interactive which encourages students to work in learning communities by sharing and connecting multiple points of view, and (4) technological which drives students to carry out authentic and real tasks by using technological resources as cognitive instruments.

Martn, Beltrn and Prez (2003) explain that this teaching model has seven steps or processes to help teachers and learners work with contents, values, abilities, processes and strategies. Teachers can have those steps as reference to create concrete, active and meaningful learning experiences. To them, these

parameters can become the axes of articulation of academic learning and guide teacher and students activities. See description of the seven steps below.

Figure 1. Steps and process in the CSIT teaching model (Martn, Beltrn & Prez, 2003)
Contextualization It describes the justifications, contents and tasks that configure the learning proposal as well as the audience to which it is directed. It refers explicitly to level, area, topic, and specific contents. Objectives It represents the aim or aims students need to achieve at the end of the unit. They show the mental route of students divided into three axes: cognitive (knowledge, abilities and skills), affective (attitudes, feelings, and values) and behaviorist (activities, actions). Teachers role It moves from transmitting information to helping to learn and learn with technology. The teacher becomes a guide, a facilitator and a mediator. The teacher plans tasks, diagnoses strengths and weaknesses, presents contents to promote understanding, encourages students to analyze and transfer information, and helps students assess their processes. Students role It is an active and responsible agent whose activities make knowledge construction possible. It involves a disposition towards learning, a planning of tasks, a development of adequate strategies, an application of acquired knowledge and an evaluation of results. Technological tools They range from data bases and semantic webs to micro worlds and simulators that do not just allow to acquire information but to increase and improve the human capacity to construct and generate knowledge. Teachers need to determine what kind of instruments can be used to do the programmed activities and to fulfill the proposed objectives. Activities processes development and Teachers and students need to do activities and follow processes in order to learn to learn such as plan tasks, select and organize information, transfer and apply knowledge, act critically and creatively, etc. These activities and processes must allow students to acquire information but, above all, develop comprehension and communication skills, solve real and authentic problems and use critical thinking and creativity. Beltrn (2003) recommends five concrete steps: Sensibilization (preparing the mental context for learning), planning (designing learning tasks), elaboration (understanding the message, the situation, or the ability), personalization (developing creativity and critical thinking) and application (use or transfer knowledge and skills). Evaluation It entails assessing not just the successful achievement of objectives but the appropriate development of processes and the adequate use of technology. It also involves assessing students attitudes and participation in group and individual work.

RESULTS The use of new technologies through wikis and the CSIT teaching model can result in two main innovations in EFL classrooms: a consolidation of the postmethod era and a reinterpretation of teachers and students roles.

New language learning and teaching perspectives Kumaravadivelu (2006) states that traditional ELT methods and strategies fail to offer the necessary flexibility to be applied to the many varied contexts of English Language Teaching. This failing triggers what he calls the postmethod era, in which new language pedagogies are characterized by a broader focus, an emphasis on developing teachers skills, and flexibility to meet students needs. Consequently, teachers and learners should work together to innovate the everyday practices and processes of the language classroom. The use of wikis and the implementation of the CSIT teaching model seem to enable the postmethod philosophy in the language classroom because they can facilitate the combination of constructivism, situated cognition, autonomy, cooperative language learning, taskbased teaching and problem-based learning (Matthew, Felvegi & Callaway, 2009; Kessler, 2009).

New roles of the language teacher and the language learner According to Gallardo (2011), the educational environments situate the learner in the center of the learning experience, which makes teachers create activities and contents based on students learning styles, interests, motivations and multiple intelligences. The teacher, then, loses his traditional role as a knowledge transmitter to become an information consultant, a learning facilitator, a virtual moderator and tutor, a continuous evaluator, and a technology mediator. Learners, on the other hand, stop being passive knowledge consumers to become active processors of information. In the new learning environments, learners need to be able to work in teams to achieve a common goal, set objectives in different time-frames, interact through synchronous and asynchronous communications systems or face-to-face communication, and develop autonomous and collaborative learning strategies.

CONCLUSIONS Undoubtedly, the information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer language educators a wide scope of activities and techniques to engage EFL learners in a range of communicative and interactive tasks and, ultimately, to foster learner-centered language environments. This paper succinctly presents a proposal to integrate wikis and the CSIT teaching model for those teachers who realize that their

actions and roles and those of their learners need to differ from traditional EFL methods. In sum, this reflection calls for the need for finding innovating ways to implement technology-enhanced language processes and activities in the EFL classroom.

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