Learning is a Social Activity 4

Teaching and learning in the project has made me realize that learning is a social activity. I have noticed improvement in grades of the project students, as they get an opportunity to grapple with reading and writing in both the project and the English classes together. Also, the flexibility and freedom they have in the Sharing Cultures Project classes enhances collaboration, which is transferred from the computer labs to the English classes. The project provides social situations where the students learn to share experiences about their cultural world through language. There is tremendous interaction within the NMMU group of students and between NMMU and CCC, and students gain information, which could form part of the necessary background knowledge for writing and learning in English and other subjects.

I have discovered that students are more excited about writing now that they write for a real audience. Before the project started, students were writing for the teacher and an imagined audience, and they were not as motivated to write effectively as they are today. Posting essays into the discussion board has changed the students' attitude towards writing. They can edit their essays while writing, as the computer also indicates their grammar mistakes. Students put an effort into the writing task to avoid negative comments from other students. Comments on each essay also are posted in the form of discussion board responses. So, everything is done openly together and students have learned to accept comments from other students. It is easy for students to compare the teachers' and students' comments and understand their mistakes. At NMMU, we have a programme called English for Everyone (E4E) on the intranet this year. It gives them extra information about reading and essay writing. So we guide them to use this programme to improve their work, which has made writing in the computer labs task they enjoy. The number of students who want to write their essays on paper first before typing is decreasing. Students seem to be mastering the task of thinking while they type. Only the first time users of computers who do not want to risk losing information are still writing on paper before typing.