Technology as Pharmakon: The Promise and Perils of the Internet for Foreign Language Education
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Globalization and networking technologies have transformed the contexts, means, and uses of foreign language learning. The Internet offers a vast array of texts, films, music, news, information, pedagogical resources, sounds, and images from around the world as well as unprecedented opportunities for direct communication with native speakers in real time. However, the very technology that delivers these materials and interactions can produce subtle mediational effects that can influence how learners evaluate and interpret them. Focusing first on technological mediation broadly, and then on the specific context of desktop videoconferencing in a telecollaboration project, this article outlines the benefits and the potential pitfalls that computer mediation presents for the learning of languages and cultures. Specific attention is given to the question of what it means to mediate the foreign culture through interfaces that are familiar from one's home culture. The principal argument is that the dynamics of online language learning call for a relational pedagogy that focuses on how medium and context interact with language use. The goal of such an approach is to expose students to a broader scope of symbolic inquiry, to connect present text‐making practices with those of the past, and to foster a critical perspective that will prepare young people to understand and shape future language and literacy practices.
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Applied Linguistics has been slow to research in any critical depth the effects of the new technology and its uses in language education.
“Applied Linguistics has been slow to research in any critical depth the effects of the new technology and its uses in language education (however, see Kern 2014;Kern & Malinowski forthcoming;Kramsch 2009,Ch.6;Malinowski 2011, Malinowski & Kramsch 2014).”
From Language and Culture (2014) · cites this paper as Kern 2014
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Artifacts and cultures-of-use in intercultural communication
Thorne, S. L. (2003) · Language Learning & Technology · doi:10.64152/10125/25200 · Cited by 573 · cited 2× · see citing works
“…the viability of telecollaboration for providing motivating language practice and developing intercultural awareness, some studies show that intercultural contact does not necessarily lead to cultural understanding (Belz, 2002, 2003; Coleman, 1998; O’Dowd, 2003, 2006; Thorne, 2003; Ware, 2005).”
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Kramsch, C. (2014) · AILA Review · doi:10.1075/aila.27.02kra · Cited by 1,539 · see citing works
Digital Gaming in L2 Teaching and Learning
Reinhardt, J. (2017) · The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning · doi:10.1002/9781118914069.ch14 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kern, R.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Kern, Richard
- ORCID
- Kern, Richard
- Venue
- The Modern Language Journal
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-02-14
- Volume
- 98
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 340-357
- ISSN
- 0026-7902 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-4781
- OpenAlex
- W1501311993
- Cited by
- 229
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 20 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 12 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 65.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Modern Language Journal (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › English Language Learning and Teaching
- Social Sciences › Education › Foreign Language Teaching Methods
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Literacy, Media, and Education
- Keywords
- foreign language teaching, technological mediation, desktop videoconferencing, virtual exchange, relational pedagogy, globalization and language learning, online language learning
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