By Kai Liu and Eun Young (Ariel) Kim, University of Oregon
Interaction with online discourse communities can have a significant advantage for advanced learners. Technology facilitates interaction with authentic discourse in unique ways. Thorne and Reinhardt (2008) offer a unique model for engaging advanced learners. The sample here is targeted at a Chinese language movie review site, but could be adapted to any similar site in the target language.
Outcome: Learners will be able to observe online discourse, explore and analyze discourse features, and create with language to participate in the community.
Procedure:
Observation and Collection
- Students go to Douban's movie section: http://movie.douban.com
- Students sign up for a Douban account.
- Students navigate through the movie section page to observe features this webpage is comprised of and various ways to find several movies they might like or want to watch. Learners collect movies they like.
- Learners observe how people interact with each other (what kind of language people use, e.g. discourse styles: casual, formal, internet language).
Guided Exploration and Analysis
- Students bring their sample sentences to the classroom and discuss various discourse styles with classmates (e.g. what discourse style is used and why it is used)
- After students watch the movie they chose, they can rate the movie and write short/full reviews.
- Students go to the forum/discussion board to answer other people's question regarding this movie or to post their own questions.
Creation and Participation: Possible Activities
- Have learners look at the reviews/discussion posts in the target language and their native language. Compare the cultural similarities and differences between Chinese and viewers from other countries.
- Have learners create their own movie review based on the target language model.
- Have learners make recommendations to their peers based on reviews they have read.
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