One post I found to be of particular interest was his entry Listening - UGC (User Generated Content) from February 12th of this year. In this post, he discusses a new 'tool' for English language education. The tool is based on YouTube videos of a contest hosted by HP Computers titled Getting Personal: You On You where contestants made entries by submitting headless videos of themselves while giving a short biography about themselves. Deubelbeiss explains how he would use these videos in the classroom by letting EFL/ESL students watch them and record the information and try to identify the contestants. This would put into practice their listening comprehension skills and also their grammar skills in terms of verb tenses and syntax when re-supplying the information from the individuals in the recordings.
He goes into more detail on that activity but also suggests another use of the concept where the students produce their own videos of themselves. This is a more interactive use of the idea that allows students to not only listen and record, but practice original composition of their own. If you haven't followed the link to the video I am discussing, it is embedded below.
A second point of interest is the author's statement about the future, and even the present, of the language learning classroom. Here he says that the age of the textbook is over, and the "white men" who publish and profit from these are at the end of the road. He implies that activities such as that discussed above have replaced the need for structured, dictated learning. While I agree the days of the physical, paper-based textbook are indeed numbered, the notion that formal, published learning aids are obsolete is a stretch at best and possibly dangerous to rush to such a judgement. Based on substantial research by many language acquisiton experts, such as Fotos and Ellis' examination of task-based approaches to grammar-skill acquisition (TESOL Quarterly, 25, 605-628), formal learning methods based on explicit instruction of linguisitic forms and rules is necessary for many aspects of language learning. Of course, there is no authority on what materials are used to guide this explicit instruction. However, as helpful and convenient (and indeed beneficial) internet tools and user created educational approached are, they do not guide a course of instruction. Whether a textbook is found on paper or a disc, they do provide (a well written, carefully reviewed book, of course) a framework to evolve from beginning learning to proficiency. And, yes, the best textbooks would be ones that encourage and even incorporate those non-traditional means of education discussed above.
So while you may be first in line to trash those heavy, expensive, environmentally un-friendly books, just make sure you keep a .PDF on your hard drive first!
