SPRACHEN & BERUF: What impact do you think Web 2.0 technologies are having on language training?
Mark Powell: Certainly not as big an impact as they could be having. Read some of the publishers’ websites and they would have you believe we are all using interactive whiteboards, setting up dedicated client Moodles and organising learning portfolios by the minute. But I think the reality lags somewhat behind the hype. Many training rooms still consist of little more than a flipchart and a CD player, which is not to say we can not be effective in a mono-media environment, but it has always struck me as bizarre, for example, that we use so little video in our training. Audio just makes no sense at all when we are working with our clients on soft skills like presenting, networking and negotiating. It is like sending them into a meeting blindfolded!
At the other extreme, you have got the tech-heads who already spurn the ‘lower order’ technologies like blogs and wikis and think we should all be floating around in Second Life. This polarisation of trainers’ enthusiasm for and adoption of technology is a pity because, intelligently implemented, many of the applications and online resources we now have can really enrich the learning experience.
SPRACHEN & BERUF: How are you using technology yourself at the moment?
Mark Powell: I am a huge fan of online video. YouTube is just the best thing on the internet and a gift from the gods to language trainers, as far as I am concerned. Because so many companies have firewalls and restricted internet access, it is vital to be able to download what you are going to use, but the range of business interviews, news features, presentations and movie clips is now so enormous, there is no need to buy a cheesy language learning DVD ever again! The secret, however, is having an equally broad range of techniques for exploiting online video without too much of a time investment on our part. Otherwise, at worst, it is just video for video’s sake and, at best, a huge amount of extra work for a tailor-made training session we may never be able to use again.
I also do a lot of one-to-one training, so for me it makes sense to work on things like e-mail writing and telephone skills using internet telephony like Skype. Coupled with a webcam, you have got the cabability to reformulate client output as they write, whilst multi-tasking in a semi-teleconference environment. Online whiteboards that allow you and your client to write on the same electonic document simultaneously, such as Skrbl.com, are also invaluable here. And free video e-mail like Eyejot.com is just great for phased role play activities, sending short video messages back and forth. What is more, all this kind of stuff is pretty much disaster-proof. I am no technological wizard, so if I can get it to work, it is got to be good.
SPRACHEN & BERUF: As new learning platforms and multimedia are developed, is there a danger that trainers themselves will become marginalised?
Mark Powell: I do not think so. It is true that some HR departments would love to commoditise language training, take out the problematic human factor and buy off-the-shelf ‘online learning solutions’. But I think even they accept that soft skills training requires high-touch techniques rather than high-tech. We know you can not learn to present or socialise with clients and colleagues through a computer. What you can do is play computer games in your free-time (assuming you have any!) to reinforce the necessary grammar and vocabulary work. And, in a sense, this frees up the trainer to do the real hands-on training, leaving simple knowledge transfer and repetitive practice to the machines.
If we take the analogy of the language trainer as a personal fitness trainer, then online self-study (perhaps using quiz-making software like Qedoc, Quia and Quizlet) would be the food supplement regime and in-class technology (podcasts, video clips, PowerPoint slides, digital recording devices, etc.) would be the exercise machines themselves. But it remains the trainer’s job to put the clients through their paces, motivate them, fine-tune the exercise programme and assess progress. And that is why, in a very real sense, we are all language coaches now. With all these wonderful tools at our disposal and freed from the more academic learning model, we can be truly performance-based in our approach.
Mr Powell, many thanks for your time!
May 19, 2009
Schnellzugriff
