Charlene,

Sometime back in the 1970's I was on an airplane sitting next to a Caucasian gentleman reading a book in Japanese. I greeted him in that language in which I am somewhat functional. He said, "Oh I don't speak Japanese, I just read it." Of course, in a pictographic language, he could look at the script and read it directly into English.  We got in a conversation with the usual American first questions, "What do you do." I told him that I taught English as a second language. He replied to the same question from me, " I work for IBM and it makes me sad to tell you that you will be replaced before too long by computers."

Here it is, almost 40 years later and I'm back in the classroom after some administrative adventures, teaching English as a second language to immigrants. I absolutely believe that for the majority of people, particularly language students, their teachers will never be replaced. The direct human interaction between teachers and students, as well as students with their classmates, still seems to be far more of a successful learning adventure than people with machines. In over four decades in this field I have only met three non-linguists who have actually learned English on their own. One was a Buddhist monk in a temple in Thailand with lots of time to think and learn. This is not a question of  "discipline," whether we are talking about computers, audio devices or whatever. It is humans working with other humans.

Ted
www.tedklein-ESL.com


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Charlene Salazar 
  To: assessment at nifl.gov 
  Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 8:46 AM
  Subject: [Assessment 1649] Re: Assessment Digest, Vol 41, Issue 13



  All - 

  The Del Mar College GED Program does not offer on-line classes. In my opinion, the majority of GED students are not disciplined enough to carry out an on-line class and the fact that many of them do not own or have access to computers is another obstacle. There is no better instruction than sitting in class and be able to communicate with your teacher face to face. I believe once students get into college and have a more structured academic plan an on-line course may be something they can commit to and handle. 

  Charlene Salazar 




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  -------------------------------
  National Institute for Literacy
  Assessment mailing list
  Assessment at nifl.gov
  To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/assessment
  Email delivered to taklein at austin.rr.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/assessment/attachments/20090204/fd707494/attachment.html