Grace Xiaodan Wang

EIPT-6433

Final Design Document

Background information

A. Needs and Context

The Sooner Jump Start International Bridge Program is a program derived from the ESL
program in the University of Oklahoma. This program is a two-semester international bridge
program designed to support students in the successful language and cultural transition into
college in the United States. Since 2010, when this program was built, it has been recruiting
hundreds of high school graduates from main-land China to study English as a second
language. Currently there are 130 Chinese students studying in this program.

Since the summer of 2014, I have been working in this program as a Graduate Teaching
Assistant. My job responsibility is helping students to succeed in their academy
accomplishment and culture transition during their study terms in this program. The academy
accomplishment, which offers advice to achieve the qualifying TOEFL score; and the culture
transition which offers advice to students to help them understand the culture differences
between China and the United States.
After working for one year I found that most of my students are eager to practice their English
in speaking and writing. They desire to get to know Americans, to learn and practice their
English in the American culture, and are eager to engage in the OU community.

However, it is difficult for them to get to know American friends who study at the University
of Oklahoma. There are two main reasons why: first, the Sooner Jump Start building, where
the students have class at, is on the south side of the campus. Yet OU students’ colleges/ classes
are on the main campus, which is on the north side of the campus. Second, schedules for Sooner
Jump Start students are quite different from students who study on the main campus. Sooner
Jump Start students have classes from 9:00am to 3:00pm, Monday through Thursday. Yet
students in OU main campus have a quite flexible college schedule. So different class
schedules make it difficult to meet American students (?) in person. Third, based on my
observations most American students are very busy and also they are not interested in getting
to know people from a different culture, especially making friends with students who have
language barriers.

Based on my observations in my workplace, which includes surveys, informal interviews, and

weekly small group meetings, many students in Sooner Jump Start program are looking for a
language partner. The problem is that they don’t know how to find a language partner.

Meanwhile one of my American friends, Bronwyn, is taking several Chinese classes at OU

and is looking for a Chinese Language partner. She said that she, and many of her classmates,
wish there was a place or club that they could find a Chinese Language partner. A place where
they could reach out to a Chinese community in Norman to practice their speaking and writing
skills in Mandarin Chinese out of the classroom. The Confucius Institution at OU has many
students who are taking Mandarin Chinese classes and are interested in the Chinese culture.
The problem is that these students don’t know how to engage or get into a Chinese community
in Norman.

Based on the needs from both Sooner Jump Start students (English learner) and students who
are studying Chinese at OU, it was determined that a platform is necessary to be built. This
platform would build an environment for learners reaching out to the community of native
language speakers, to know each other and to practice the languages they are learning. An
online community would solve the distance problem between the north campus and the south
campus at OU.

B. Purpose / Goals.

Based on the language needs of the ESL students (Native speaker of Mandarin Chinese) and
the CSL students (Native speaker of English), an online exchange language learning
community would help learners reach out to each other. This would solve the problem of the
students’ different schedules, and the building distance between south campus and north
campus.

The purpose of the learning community is building a platform for the two language groups who
are interested in second-language nation culture, and are willing to practice their language
skills. The community will help these learners to reach out to the native language speakers at
any time. Members in this community could exchange their language knowledge and skills in
writing and speaking, and post anything which refers to the language. They could even find a
language partner if they want. In other words the function of the learning community is
providing a communication platform for learners. Any person in this community can be in the
role they want to be, facilitator, learner, teacher, etc. The community would offer some online
resource, but all learning activity is based on learners’ interaction with the other members.
The community’s goal is: Building a platform for second language learners to learn through
interacting with the other native language speakers.

C. Learners / Community Members.

In this community there are two main group members:
• Students in Sooner Jump Start program
Students are high school graduates. All of them have been learning English as a second
language since they were young. They have at least 6 years of English experience in
China. They are able to understand an ESL class. They have language communication
skills such as greetings, asking questions, and briefly explaining something. They are
eager to learn English and American culture better, have desire to practice their English
in writing, and especially in speaking, and using their English skills live in the U.S .
• American students who are interested in learning Chinese.
Students who are interested in learning about the Chinese culture, learning the Mandarin
Chinese language, and who have motivation to practice their Mandarin Chinese outside
of the classroom. I would recruit them in these ways:
a. Seek CSL teachers’ help, having their support would help to spread out the news;
b. Contact with the Institution of Confucius, seek support from them, such as post the
information of VLC on their website page;
 c. Create flyers and posted on the bulletin board;
d. Create Facebook page, and invite students;
e. Recruit several volunteers who are taking Chinese class to help for spreading the
Virtual Learning Community.

ESL teachers and CSL teachers at OU main campus would be invited to the community,
they are the “experts” of the community. Having their participation would help learners learn
the second language better. Also through participation in the community, teachers would be
able to know their students better, like their interests, confusions, etc.

D. Contextual Information.

The domain content would be forums for members. Based on a learners’ need, the forum
folder would have three sections which are focused on writing, culture activity, and speaking
skills.
There are three reasons why the focus is on these three parts:
First, both groups I have heard from, want to know why their essays were full of grammatical
errors. Teachers usually tell them that their grammar usage was wrong, but they were too
busy to explain to the students why it was wrong one by one. Learners wish to know why
they were wrong and how they can fix it.
Also, the content would focus on understanding the culture differences.
Lastly, they want to know native speakers of the second language they have been learning.
They want to find a language speaker partner to practice their language skills.

For the speaking forums learners could post their contact information, which could be emails,
Skype, WeChat, Facebook, etc. The forums support members to post what they are
interested in related to language speaking.

Resources: members will be given simple examples of what tools that they could use.
Activities: all activities are from the members in this community. But mainly resources are from
learners who participated to the Forums activity.

Proposed Design

E. Design.

(a) Type of the community: this will be a knowledge-based community. Members in this
community exchange their language knowledge through interacting with the others.
Learners learn from each other through these forums, and shape their language
knowledge. Since this is an exchange language learner community, so any members in
this group could be a facilitator, a learner, a participant, a teacher, and a partner. The
common interest in language learning, tie them together in the community.

(b) Describe the structure of the community

Content & Structure

The website would be created in English. There are five contents in the VLC: Home,
We, Forums, Resources, You. Forums is the domain content.
• Home: It is a welcome page. On this page it would briefly introduce what the
online community is. The goal of this page is to make potential community
members feel welcomed, and eager to explore more about this community.
• We: Detailed introduction on what the mission statement of the VLC is, what
groups that we serve.
• Forums: in this content there will be three created forums. Members could post
anything they are interested in or needed according to the description of the
forum.
o Writing Activity: members could post anything which refers to their
writing skills in their second language learning. Learners could also
interact with others by relying the others’ posts.
o Compelling culture: members could post anything which is related to the
learning language culture( Mandarin Chinese and English). Such as post a
class on teaching.
o Find Language Partner: members could post their contact information for
finding a native language speakers for their practice in speaking of the
second language.

• Resource: members could retrieve language learning resources in this area, it

which could be someone’s language learning experience, strategies, or a lesson.
They would be posted by the administrator or editor of the website. Learners
could comment these materials (videos, blogs), express their thoughts or
interactive with others.
• You: it includes Survey Form and Contact Us Form.

Tools:
It would use a couple tools to support these contents. These tools include: pictures,
discussion boards of Forums, videos, etc. Since both of the groups know English, and
it is a website which serves for an American college groups. ESL leaners who are
native speaker of Chinese have been learning English 7 years even more, they have
English read ability. For considering their vocabulary limited, the website content
would written by the easy and understandable texts.

Support:
A website page, was created on Weebly, will present the community.

Members Activities:
The activities depend on the members in this community. Anyone could start a
discussion activity, post anything which refers to his/her culture and they are masters
of. Some members who are recommend by the instructors of ESL and CSL, or
members who are very actively involved and contributed to the community, and
applied to be the “moderator” would be assigned to be moderators for any of the
forum. Any members from ESL and CSL group have chance to be a moderator. Two
 teachers (ESL& CSL) who are willing to engage to the community, would be invited
as Editors who have authority to upload and start a discussion on the Resource.

(c) Recruit Activity

I will recruit members by sending emails to all Sooner Jump Start students. Later I will
give a presentation at group meetings to introduce the VLC.
I will also send invitations to the ESL and CSL teachers by email and flyers, and invite
them to attend and share the news of the VLC.
To notify more people about the website, I would contact the website administrators
from both the Sooner Jump Start and Confusion of Institution to post the news on their
website.

(d) The role of the teacher / facilitator, students, and the role of the technology.
Like I mentioned that any members in this group could be a facilitator, a learner, a
participant, a teacher, or a partner. The common interest is language learning, tie them
together in the community.
There are two ways to be assigned as moderators: ESL/CSL teachers’ recommendation,
or active members who are actively posting discussion topics, will be invited to be a
moderator. The moderators must be someone who is willing to make commitments to the
VLC. Moderators could take turns to select and host a weekly topic in each branch of this
community.
The role of all the technology is the method of “communication.”

F. Theoretical Rationale.

Communities of practice: Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in

a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor (Wenger).
Members in this community learn from others through the forums. Through the forums,
learners go from not knowing something in the language to understanding. All the
learning activity was taken place in the interaction among learners. For example, a ESL
learner doesn’t know what “touch-down” mean in a football game. He thought “Touch
down” means they have chance to throw the ball, so he post his understanding in the
Forum, Compelling Culture. The other members responded his post and explained to him
what “ touch-down” mean in American football, and elaborate it with several video links.
So the learner later understand what “touch down” mean in American football, and
through the interactive activity he also learned how many times of “touch-down” that OU
football team had in the last game.

Situated cognition is the theory that people's knowledge is embedded in the activity,
context, and culture in which it was learned. Learning is social and not isolated (Brown,
Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Leaners start a forum in the community, it drives from their
needs in their real life. A learner start a topic because his needs or interest in the topic. For
example, a student asked why the waitress doesn’t understand him when he asked “ tomato
sauce” in a McDonal restaurant, how could he let the waitress not confused about what he
 wants. In this case, the learner wants to know an English terminology or English speaking
skills because he was in a situation and he needed to know.

G. Tools.
Conversation and Collaboration Tool:
The Forum and Resource sections, both of them support discuss. On the discussion board
of the VLC, members access to the discussion board, share information which they are
interested, and interact with the others through discussion of the topic. Online text
discussion boards create the opportunity to have collaborative learning for learners. I will
still give the same example, “touch-down” in American football. I don’t understand what
“touch down” means in American football. By posting a question in the VLC, several
members can explain to me what a “touch down” is. “

Visualization Tool
Cognitive tools may help learners to better represent the problem or task they are
performning (Jonassen, 1999). In this VLC learners could represent the problem through
offer the link of a video or picture to present the problem, and start the discussion with the
others.

Reference

Etienne Wenger. Excerpted with permission from Wenger, E. (n.d.). Communities of practice: A
brief introduction. http://www.ewenger.com/theory/communities_of_practice_intro.htm

Brown, J., Collis, A.,Duguid, P., Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning, (1989).
Educational Researcher, Vol.18, No.1. (Jan.-Feb., 1989), pp.32-42.

Part II – Appendices
Instructional Activities, Strategies, and Materials

Required Components:
1) Instructions for facilitators/instructors/administrators’ involvement – how to use this site,
how to facilitate online discussion, how to …

Brief Instructions:
a. The structure of VLC (Virtual Learning Community).
 Home We Forum Resource You

b. Overall brief functions of the five sections:

• Home: Welcome page

• We: About us which includes mission statement, groups that are served.
• Forums: members’ discussion area.
• Resource: Language learning resources.
• You: members’ feedback, it includes survey form and contact form.

c. Supportive sections: support information about the community without learners’

participation. See below for the orange sections.

Home We Forum Resource You

d. Participation Sections which support and need members to participate, see red sections
below:

Home We Forum Resource You

e. Structure of participated section:

Forum You Resource

Writing
Survey Form
Activity

Compelling
Contact Us
Culture

Find a
language
Partner
 f. Brief introduction of each of the functions in Forum.

Writing activity: Learners can post any questions in this section which are related to
language writing; members can also post their essays for assistance with writing
problems enabling them to learn from collaborative learning.
Compelling Cultures: members can post anything which is related to the language’s
culture. They could start a discussion which is related to movies, novels, etc.
Finding a language Partner: members can leave their contact information to help them
find a language partner to practice their second language. They could also post topics
about speaking the language or make friends.

g. Brief introduction of each functions in You:

Feedback about this website, which includes the technology support, questions, or
concerns.

How to Use it?

By clicking the buttons of this VLC, the process would be as shown below:

Scroll down, and

Log on to the Click "View Redirected to We
click "start" Forum Page
page more" button page
button

Click Resource
Start your topic Click on a forum Become a
button for
by clicking "Start Look around you want learn memeber by
exploring more
a topic" more about signing up
information

Click "You" Click any button Become a

button to give to go where you memeber by
feed back want to signing up