Writing has become one of the most common forms of everyday communication, in part, thanks to the development of modern information and communication technologies. However, and especially in the Foreign Language (FL) classroom context, writing is also considered one of the most difficult language skills to acquire and to teach (Frydrychova Klimova, 2012).
Traditional challenges of teaching writing, such as choosing engaging topics, the time spent in grading, and the transparency of the feedback and corrections given to students are still unresolved. Additionally, we also have new 21st century challenges that arise from the availability of the Internet and the tools for accessing Internet content. For example, while students write more than ever before, they generally use a different style of writing, often producing shorter texts and mostly in informal contexts.
This gap between students’ everyday writing and more formal writing seems to be constantly growing. However, it is also an indicator of the drastic change of today’s communicative needs (Lotherington & Ronda, 2014; Pettes-Guikema & Williams, 2014). As acknowledged in recent approaches—multiliteracies and digital literacies approaches – technical tools of communication such as digital networks, the Internet, and the Web 2.0 are influencing how, where, when, why, and with whom we communicate (Lotherington & Ronda, 2014).
In response to the current challenges, recent perspectives on writing have expanded to incorporate new digital tools and environments. The digital tools are being integrated in the FL curriculum, and more and more FL writing teachers are starting to engage learners with digital and online L2 writing activities (Ho & Savignon, 2007). Digital media and information technology, therefore, are changing the way foreign languages are currently taught and learned.
One of the major contributions of Internet and digital media in FL learning is its potential to put language learners into virtual contact with other members of the community (O’Dowd, 2013). Through computer-mediated communication (CMC), new opportunities for interaction and communication open up, allowing learners to engage in online discussions and further exchange ideas, give explanations, share their perspectives and respond to various types of discourse (Ertmer et al., 2007).
Although developing communicative competence in the digital era can be very demanding, digital media and CMC, combined with the recent emergence of Open Educational Resources (OER) stress the role of peers in facilitating the development of expertise. First, digital learning is more uniform and accessible among a community of users with varied backgrounds and different levels of proficiency; and second, digital competence is enhanced through interactions with peers. This way, digital media favors strategies such as peer-feedback and peer-review (Lotherington & Ronda, 2014).
The content included in this site serves as a clear example of these goals. The site offers open-license supplementary materials to the third-year course offered at the University of Iowa called “Spanish Language Skills: Writing,” making learning readily available to students and instructors and further offering opportunities for online interaction and peer reviewing. It is our hope that these materials continue to be used at the University of Iowa, and also by FL instructors at other institutions.
REFERENCES
Ertmer, P. A., Richardson, J. C., Belland, B., Camin, D., Connolly, P., Coulthard, G., & Mong, C. (2007). Using peer feedback to enhance the quality of student online postings: An exploratory study. Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication, 12(2), 412–433.
Ho, M., & Savignon, S. J. (2007). Face-to-face and computer-mediated peer review in EFL writing. CALICO Journal, 24(2), 269–290.
Klimova, B. F. (2014). Constraints and difficulties in the process of writing acquisition. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 122(0), 433-437.
Lotherington, H. & Ronda, N. (2014). 2B or Not 2B? From pencil to multimodal programming: New frontiers in communicative competencies. In J. Pettes-Guikema, & L. Williams (Eds.), Digital literacies in foreign and second language education (pp. 9–28). San Marcos, TX: CALICO.
O’Dowd, R. (2013). Telecollaboration and CALL. In M. Thomas, H. Reinders, & M. Warschauer (Eds.), Contemporary computer-assisted language learning (pp. 123–139). New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic.
Pettes-Guikema, J. & Williams, L. (2014). Digital literacies from multiple perspectives. In J. Pettes-Guikema, & L. Williams (Eds.), Digital literacies in foreign and second language education (pp. 1–7). San Marcos, TX: CALICO.
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