Coping with the Google
generation
Matthew Absalom
AFMLTA | The University of Melbourne
Google’s Earth
• Where do we live today?
– 24/7 globalised world | ‘global network society’
– Constantly connected
– Overwhelming bombardment of information
– Democratised, socially-networked flow of
knowledge
– Tension between old paradigms (e.g. newspaper
subscription) and new realities (online access to
all sort of news sources)
Who do we have in our classrooms?
Generation G(oogle)
According to neuroscientist Susan Greenfield
…it's pretty clear that the screen-based, two dimensional
world that so many teenagers - and a growing number
of adults - choose to inhabit is producing changes in
behaviour. Attention spans are shorter, personal
communication skills are reduced and there's a marked
reduction in the ability to think abstractly.
This games-driven generation interpret the world through
screen-shaped eyes. It's almost as if something hasn't
really happened until it's been posted on Facebook,
Bebo or YouTube.
Generation Google Gap
Generation G:
• hypertextuality
• mashup/remix/repost
• communication
reconfigured
• devices at the ready
Generation PreG:
• incoherent, loss of control
• plagiarism
• ‘why can’t they sit down and
talk’
• ‘why can’t they do one thing
at a time’
What about language learning?
• Kramsch (to appear in MLJ 2014):
– Communication has become a value in itself
– No longer a ‘sharing of culture’ but a ‘culture of
sharing’
– Abandonment of the negotiation of meaning
– Communicating carries the weight of identity
– Our students’ expectations of language learning have
changed
• Our expectations of our students’ expectations of
learning and communication need
reconsideration
Clash of the Titans
• Increasingly, there is a gaping chasm between what we
do in our lives and what happens in certain aspects
our teaching context
• In the past, a much closer relationship between
education and professional life
– Inspirational, innovative, interactive classrooms lead to
drab, retrograde, static exam-like tasks
– Vibrant, communicative, interpretive situations are
assessed via limiting, quasi-monologic, rote-learned oral
presentations
• What are we preparing our students for?
• Do we even know? How can we do this?
Snapshot of a professional
• A day in the life of a translator
– Traditional tools of the trade: print dictionaries
(mono/bi/thesauri/etc.)
– New corpus-driven and democratised tools:
• WordReference
• online depositories of text
– http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/librettim.html
– www.librettidopera.it
– www.ipasource.com
• Online dictionaries
• Google Translate
• How do we prepare our students?
To cope, to know
• ‘Humans will always take the shortest route’
• We know students use stuff
• Many traditional tasks are now exotic:
– Writing
– Reading
– Learning by heart
• We need to know what students do to be able
to cope with it
Online translation
• Around 80% named
Google Translate
• Around 20% named
WordReference
• Other sites:
– Reverso
– About.com
– Online dictionaries and
thesauri
What are they doing?
• I use google translate in a vague way, mainly as a rough guide. I take
everything it gives me with grain of salt and prefer Word Reference as it
provides a comprehensive dictionary, additional translations and forums
for translation discussions.
• As a dictionary
• I mainly looked up direct single word translations or I use online
translation to looks up certain tenses
• Occasionally paste my Italian sentences in google translate to see if they
make sense
• To translate phrases/paragraphs/pages from French to English to aid with
my understanding
• I mainly use it to check for typos or errors …I sometimes use it to figure
out if my 'concordanza dei tempi' is correct Sometimes I may also look up
a website with verb tables or certain grammar rules if I either don't have a
print book handy or am too lazy to find one
• to try and use new or more complex vocabulary
Why use online tools?
• Quicker than a dictionary
• I produce better work
• Morally equivalent to using
a dictionary
• Fine when it is used as a
dictionary not a full text
translation thing
• They're not the advisable
thing to use, but obviously if
it's a singular word it's not
too bad. If you're using a
translating tool to actually
do your work, it's horrible.
What do I/they think?
So what should we do?
• Students use these tools
• Professionals use these tools
• We need to train our students how to use
these tools reflectively and in an efficient way
• Not just Google Translate but also the
traditional tools of the trade
• 87% of students in my study had never
received training to use online tools
Going to Hell
Nel mezzo del cammin di
nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva
oscura,
ché la diritta via era
smarrita.
Ahi quanto a dir qual era è
cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra
e forte
che nel pensier rinova la
paura!
In the middle of the journey
of our life
I found myself in a dark
wood
For the straightforward
pathway had been lost.
Ah, how to say What a thing
it is hard
this forest savage, rough,
and stern
that in the very thought
renews the fear!
Going to Hell
Tant'è amara che poco è più
morte;
ma per trattar del ben ch'i'
vi trovai,
dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho
scorte.
Io non so ben ridir com'i'
v'intrai,
tant'era pien di sonno a quel
punto
che la verace via
abbandonai.
So bitter that death is little
more;
but for the good that 'there I
found,
say of the other things I
'saw.
I do not know how to tell
com'i 'bring to mind,
so full of sleep at that point
who abandoned the true
way.
My name is Matthew
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
我的名字是馬修
Mon nom est Matthew
Mein Name ist Matthew
Nama saya Matius
Il mio nome è Matteo
私の名前はマシューです
Mi nombre es Mateo
Phonology
音韵学意大利语，包含了一系列停止送气辅音
La phonologie de la langue italienne contient une série de consonnes
occlusives qui sont unaspirated
Die Phonologie des italienischen enthält eine Reihe von StopKonsonanten, die unbehaucht
Fonologi Italia berisi serangkaian konsonan berhenti yang tidak
diaspirasikan
La fonologia della lingua italiana contiene una serie di consonanti di
arresto che sono unaspirated
イタリア語の音韻論は、無気音されているストップ子音の連続が含ま
れています
La fonología de la lengua italiana contiene una serie de consonantes
oclusivas no aspiradas que se
So…
• Engage with the ‘tools’ in an explicit way
• Quality rather than quantity
• Strive to go beyond the atomistic and the
immediate – the power of achievement
• Talk openly to students about what they’re
doing with language and what we want to do
with them with language