1.5 The Map is not the Territory

This study takes an ecological perspective and therefore considers, not only the environment but, as well, the relationships and interplay between the elements in the environment. For this reason, we have noted the physical characteristics of both traditional and online learning environments while at the same time considering the types of learning situations which each best supports. Thus, behaviourism or a transmissionist approach to learning cannot be overlooked as an essential element in TLEs. Likewise, OLEs can be used to support forms and aspects of behaviourist learning. However, this is not the theory of learning or approach that is most easily supported by this environment given its unstructured, uncontrolled, vast nature. The following table contrasts the two environments by considering, not only the physical characteristics, but, as well, the types of learning and teaching which they most easily support.

While the trend may once have been to talk of "Brave New Worlds", it would seem more appropriate to refer now instead to "Strange New Worlds". As a learning environment, the Internet appears to have little in common with what is typically associated with school and education. The Microsoft tagline "Where do you want to go today?" epitomizes the unbounded or unlimited nature of the Internet. The classroom environment with its clearly delineated boundaries, both physical and non-physical, contrasts sharply with the comparative open nature of the "real world". Yet, just as we can compare the bounded world of the classroom with that of the "real world", so too can we compare the "real world" with the "virtual world". In so doing, we are likely to find the "real world" to be bounded in comparison to the online learning environments of the Internet. In the online, virtual world, the absence of time, but more importantly, the absence of distance means that those who enter this world are almost unlimited in terms of the access afforded them: access to places, to people and to experiences that they could never have in their classroom or perhaps even in the town in which they live. It is indeed global access and even more since the Internet can allow access to recesses otherwise often hidden. Online, a student may converse with a prison inmate, with a famous author. He/she may research a question from how to do a science experiment to how to build a bomb. While such examples are extreme, they nonetheless illustrate the open nature of the Internet. More importantly, the examples illustrate the enormous abyss which lies between the world of the classroom and that of OLEs.

Logan (1995) argues that such a difference between two environments is not a unique situation. However, as he aptly argues, this time, the mismatch is far more pronounced than in the past:

The current mismatch between the newer forms of information processing and the institutions designed for older forms is not historically unique. In every age and in every society that has undergone significant technological development and change, a mismatch between the new techniques and the old institutions has been a problem. Our era is no different except that the transition between the old technologies and the new ones has been more rapid and hence the mismatch has been greater. (p.214)

Teachers accustomed to a structured, bounded and teacher-centered, environment no doubt find themselves in a foreign landscape when using the Internet for learning. Their map no longer represents the territory. Using the Internet for learning involves or necessitates a shift in thinking and beliefs about learning and teaching. Becker (1991) argues that improving education through use of technology "will require teachers and administrators to modify their concepts of appropriate and inappropriate teaching behaviours, to reprioritize the value of different types of instructional content, and to change habits and assumptions that guide their classroom and school management strategies" (p.8). Technology based on constructivist theories cannot simply be assimilated into traditional classroom practices (Cognition Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1996). Moving from one environment to the other such as from the traditional, bounded classroom to an online learning environment is much more challenging when the theory of learning underlying the technology requires a transformation of existing classroom practices or when the map no longer represents the territory.

At the same time, it is possible that the environment itself can have an impact on beliefs. Kagan (1992) speculates about how the learning environment actually reinforces and ingrains beliefs. She describes how beliefs grow out of a need to adapt to and survive in the particular and somewhat peculiar environment of the classroom:

A significant characteristic of classroom teaching is its many uncertainties. A teacher cannot continue to orchestrate instruction and maintain control in the highly unpredictable environment of the classroom without knowing whether things are going well; a teacher must be able to identify, label, solve, and evaluate the solutions to problems. Because there are no indisputable external guidelines, teachers create their own, in the form of a personal cohesive pedagogical system that they can support without reservation. In a landscape without bearings, teachers create and internalize their own maps. (p.80)

Kagan's theory highlights the role that the teacher's environment plays in formulating beliefs. If indeed one's environment affects one's beliefs, then, does changing the environment of the teacher provide a concomitant change in beliefs? What happens when Kagan's metaphorical landscape is altered? Do teachers formulate new maps? Do they change their beliefs? Is there a conflict between the environment and their beliefs?

In his discussion of "The Stranger", Schutz (1944) theorized from a sociological perspective about what happens when one's environment changes:

Strangeness and familiarity are not limited to the social field but are general categories of our interpretation of the world. If we encounter in our experience something previously unknown and which therefore stands out of the ordinary order of our knowledge, we begin a process of inquiry. We first define the new fact; we try to catch its meaning; we then transform step by step our general scheme of interpretation of the world in such a way that the strange fact and its meaning becomes compatible and consistent with all other facts of our experience and their meanings. (p.507)

This "scheme of interpretation" to which Schutz refers are similar to what Wehling and Charters (1969) refer to as representations, or cognitive maps, of the external world and to what Kagan terms a "personalized pedagogy" or "belief system". When confronted with uncharted territory, Schutz's stranger is forced to reconceptualize, to rethink existing notions, to reinterpret and define new maps. When teachers move from the traditional landscape of the classroom to OLEs, they essentially become Schutz's stranger "who has to place everything in question" (Schutz, 1970). They are the "stranger in a strange land". The new patterns of the strange land are as Schutz describes "not a shelter, but a field of adventure, not a matter of course, but a questionable topic of investigation, not an instrument for disentangling problematic situations, but a problematic situation itself and one hard to master" (p. 93).

Teaching and learning assisted by emerging technologies may only represent a step forward in the history of education if teachers' practices take full advantage of the potential and possibilities of the technology. For this to happen, teachers must be able to shift their beliefs to accommodate new ways of learning, thinking, working, collaborating, sharing and building knowledge. They must be able to redesign their maps to fit the new territory. However, these beliefs must first be articulated and made explicit so that they can be questioned, understood and evaluated by the teachers themselves. This research thus represents a first step in assisting teachers to make their beliefs more explicit and in helping them evolve their teaching approaches.

Chapter 2 of this study focuses specifically on the evolution of approaches to teaching FSFL. The influence of learning theories in teaching languages is outlined from a historical perspective. As well, the chapter traces the evolution of the role played by technology and the interplay between technology use, learning theories, and approaches to FSFL teaching. As part of the evolution, a vision for the teaching and learning of FSFL in the 21^st century is described. The vision relies on teaching and learning in OLEs using a constructivist approach. The study will aim to understand teachers' beliefs by interpreting them in relation to this evolution.