Teaching with Technology

Article #6

Who are Generation 1.5 students?

Generation 1.5 students immigrated to the United States during elementary school or high school or they are students born in this country but grew up speaking a language other than English at home.   They are called Generation 1.5 because their identity is combination of new and old culture and tradition. 

Chararacteristics of Generation 1.5 students are:

• they typically speak 2 or more languages fluently
• they are aural and oral learners; have learned English through listening and speaking and not through reading and writing
• they often sound like native speakers
• they have a limited knowledge of academic English; identified as having weaker literacy proficiency then native speakers.
• they have never acquired or are losing literacy in their home language and some can not even communicate effectively with their family members
• they have cross-cultural identification
• they have done most or all of their schooling in the US; but, their education has been inconsistent.
• they are often placed into low ability classes in US high schools so they have limited experience in academic reading and writing
• they identify themselves as lacking skills and ability; view themselves as less capable than native speakers.

This article focuses on the blogging experience of a Generation 1.5 students.  “It examines a few items, such as  (1) how blogging was integrated into an L2 composition course, (2) how blogging can be used for helping students develop rhetorical strategies necessary for academic writing” (Bloch129).   This paper also examines the “controversies surrounding plagiarism” (Bloch 128) and the use and development of blogs in L2 writing courses.

Many language teacher believe blogging is a viable means for collaborative learning.  “Blogs have what is called an open architecture which means they can be viewed by anyone connected to the Internet” (Bloch 128).  The openness provided by blogging to L2 students is a great way to experience different prospectives on a variety of issues and a place to express their opinions regarding those issues.   According to Joel Bloch,  blogging bridges the gap between the vernacular forms of literacy the student possesses and the academic forms of literacy they seek to obtain in a classroom (Bloch 130).   The premiss for this study in blogging, is academic writing and teaching about plagiarism in  “hopes that the students’ blog-based discussion would lead to an academic paper” (Bloch 130).  

Using blogging as a means to communicate gives the L2 practice in communicative skills and is a place to “break through some of those barriers, particularly where students feel isolated” (Bloch 132).  Blogging opens the door to a new method of online collaboration and to critically think about the ramifications of plagiarism while boosting students’ academic writing skills.  “One of the goals of this study was to help students learn to ‘weave’ their own ideas with the source texts” (Bloch 133)  which is very important in academic writing.  

In conclusion, this study showed how the collaborative environment of blogging does provide a useful tool for students in L2 writing classes.  The study did help students with different writing aspects, but grammar and spelling was not the focus of attention in this study; therefore,  “the results are not generalizable to other rhetorical contexts with other types of students” (Bloch 137).  Nonetheless, blogging can be a useful for encouraging student autonomy and developing language proficieny in language learners.

http://llt.msu.edu/vol11num2/bloch/default.html