Wired New Learning: Blogging Malay Literacy

This article examines the function of wired literacy and rejects skeptical accusations that it is just empty talk. Selected Malay blog entries and follow-up emails will be examined to show that wired literacy simulates asynchronous learning support. The infusion of wired literacy with new learning through the use of blogging, it is argued, engenders effective self-paced language learning. Within a new learning paradigm, there is decentralizing of one teacher, one narrative and one chapter, at a time; the conventional wisdom of learning as knowing is replaced by the notion of learning as doing. As a pedagogical approach distinct from the standard lecture-tutorial approach, the new learning paradigm advocates doing, in place of knowing, by blending process with content. Practicing wired new learning in the form of blogging, assists language learners to further develop their Malay linguistic intelligence acquired in class. Furthermore, the practice of journaling in online learning offers a reflective avenue for activities to be recorded in the foreign language. It is proposed that this form of online journaling therefore becomes a stimulating input motivating students towards language acquisition. The conclusion is that new learning is blended into new literacies to enable a confluence of offline and online modalities in foreign language acquisition. 1 Culturally intelligent – somewhat It has been proposed that understanding culture through its accompanying linguistic intelligence facilitates the development of a discerning mindset regarding other linguistic-cultures. Introducing the notion of cultural intelligence (CQ), Earley, Ang & Tan say that major multinational companies such as IBM and Shell are interested in a multicultural outlook (2006). Explicating further, Earley et al. use the term cultural autism aptly to describe people with behavioral deficits in a foreign culture. Such people exhibit low behavioral CQ, which is proposed to be a common factor behind cross-cultural conflict. It is argued that approaching language learning as developing a concept described as new discourse intelligence could lead to recognizing cognitive aspects of culture of the speech community being studied. I argue that Malay language may be a semiotic means to know the collective worldviews of the Malay speech community. The worlds of nature, human beings and supernatural are three pertinent spheres identifiable from scrutinizing standard Malay literature and discourse in Southeast Asia (Tham, 1990). A decade after the millennium, awe for nature and supernatural remains prevalent in the repercussive performance of Riau Malay (Sew, in press). Further afield, the Malays in the archipelago northwest of Perth distinguish inhabitable places from barren islets giving rise to the difference between pulu (island) and cagos (small island) (Asmah Haji Omar, 2008). These Cocos Malay morphemes reflect an urge towards survival in the collective consciousness of Malay sea farers in the Indian Ocean. I argue that understanding a foreign language L2 as different ways of describing and seeing the world is not an isolated or isolating phenomena. The understanding of the L2 itself is influenced Wired New Learning: Blogging Malay Literacy 303 and colored by the learner’s first language L1. In the EFL experience of Spanish speakers the acquisition of English does not erode the learner’s identity (Brooks-Lewis, 2009). One does not shed the Spanish-self to meet the linguistic-cultural norms of the target speech community. Naturally, to make a simplistic and straightforward correlation between bilingualism and biculturalism would be a highly suspect supposition. At the same time, the writer is aware that perceiving cultures as complete and separate reveals a latent false superiority concerning one’s own particular culture (Kumaravadivelu, 2007). This is not least because a culture is in reality a cluster of cultures (Frascara, 2006). It is inherent in all culturally-specific discourse, either in spoken, print, or digital formats contains a preferred viewpoint of an author or institution. Whilst the acquiring of L2 enhances the awareness of the target culture leading to a level of CQ enhancement this quality of awareness should not be confused with enculturalization. Indeed, successful acquisition of Malay does not entail an unconditional embracing of Malay culture. Rudimentary CQ awareness may be induced by means of L2 acquisition, e.g. an appreciation of Malay politeness and a sense of a close relationship with nature. CQ is a relevant external quality in human interaction even within a speech community. In this respect, L2 pedagogy may consider a CQ-enhanced curriculum as a means to foster culturally intelligent exchanges in human interactions. Designs for learning incorporating CQ-enhanced content may it be argued be a foundation for developing the conation of citizens of the future because they could be an investment in the cognitive capital of individuals. This could then be regarded as an employability criterion in transnational corporations selection processes (cf. Claxton, 2002). 1.1 The psycholinguistics of late bilingualism I begin with a more basic question in language learning, namely how does a mind during the learning process decode and understand a foreign language. Learning a L2 presupposes that two discourse intelligences are at play, i.e. discourse accommodation and discourse production. The first concerns the use of a ready supply of inner text (Tomlinson, 2003) as a basic thinking pattern to decode foreign terminology or text. Against the backdrop of the L1, the L2 learning begins with a constant evaluation of L2 input (orthography, phonology, semantics and syntax) against an overarching L1 cultural-linguistic system (Schwartz & Kroll, 2006). The underlying L1 of a local Singaporean learner, for instance, could be either English, or an Asian or European language (mother tongue). In this respect, Malay freezes, such as nasi lemak and layang-layang, for example, are exotic scripts to the basic L1 textual lens of the learner. Whilst both the XY and XX morphology may have similarities as at universal level the comprehension of such double-word structures in L2 is not automatic. The nature of L1-L2 intersubjectivity is a consequence of inter-linguistic processing and this is part of the semantic accommodation invoked in the knowing and acquiring of L2. This runs counter to the ancient blank slate theory of language acquisition and the notion that semantic analysis occurs in a vacuum. The development of L2 accommodation is rooted in, and affected by, the underlying L1 linguistic system. It may be argued that foreign language teaching and learning inevitably involves the mediation of L2 with L1. The development of applied psycholinguistic linguistic processes, including linguistic knowledge analysis and the control of linguistic process (Bialystok, 1991), are thought to accommodate and develop L2 concepts during successive and late bilingualism. It is possible to make a distinction between the term, successive bilingualism, which refers to the acquisition of two languages one after the other in childhood, and late bilingualism, which refers to the acquisition of a second language after childhood (Field, 2004). The process by which L2 concepts are understood through L1 concepts is problematic, if the information processing is predominantly based on form pairing. An example of this deficiency in the process of form pairing would be when in a Malay class, a learner wants to express ringan [LIGHT, not heavy] but selects cahaya [LIGHT, illumination] from an online English-Malay bilingual dictionary. The polysemous Malay terms for light renders form pairing a weak method in L1-to-L2 mediation. Nonetheless,