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Date Posted: 04:16:55 10/29/04 Fri
Author: Aparecida S.Silva
Subject: Re: Task 4 - Aparecida's Comments
In reply to: Fernanda 's message, "Re: Task 4" on 15:54:01 10/25/04 Mon

Fernanda
You’ve written a very good text. This time you’re saying that computer is a good tool which aids learning. I agree!
You Dramatic Entrace is very creative, maybe you should make it a bit longer, I mean exploit it more.
Aparecida

Computer networking as a help to minority students

An African-American student is attending a class in the last row of a classroom, hearing an Anglo teacher talk and rounded by Anglo students. His colleagues are in linguistic and social defined in-groups, and he is viewing himself as an intruder. Unprepared for a cultural dislocation, the student has a drop in self-esteem and starts getting low grades.

This is not a rare scene in English universities. Social scientists report that foreign students, especially Africans, in the university, avoid asking for help “because they are afraid of confirming negative beliefs about their scholastic abilities” (Mitchell apud Swaffar, Romano, Markley and Arens, 1998, p. 41). This problem can be alleviated with the help of computer networking.

On line classes allows the student to reflect about his writing, it gives him time to reconsider his answers, to check what other people have written, and to review the task. It minimizes proficiency differences and gives confidence to a foreign student that may be shy to speak in front of fellows.

In electronic discussions, the student usually has to work more than the instructor. He has to discuss topics suggested by the teacher, to answer his fellow’s questions and, sometimes, to ask for extra explanations about a task. This kind of interaction stimulates student participation and promotes self-esteem.

Since a student increases self-esteem, he will improve learning. In this case, if the student mentioned in the beggining participates in computer networking, he will develop writing and thinking skills. It will allow him to be an equal member of the group and, later, to participate in oral classes free of those initial feelings of inferiority. Besides, he will certainly have better grades.

On line classes are an useful strategy to include ethnic minority students into a group of discussion avoiding cultural dislocation. In electronic discussions, all students are equally heard and they can exercise the power of language.

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Replies:

  • Re: Task 4 -- Ângela Vitorino, 19:00:31 10/29/04 Fri
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