Tag Archives: IM

IM: words in the air or recorded forever?

IM: words in the air or recorded forever? How many times have you misread a text or IM, or been misinterpreted yourself? Written spoken discourse leaves itself open to misinterpretation because the suprasegmental features are not apparent and neither is body language.

When we speak face-to-face with others, we are careful about what we say for fear of misinterpretation or offending the person/people you are conversing with. We therefore carefully and diplomatically communicate our message and use body language and features of connected speak to express ourselves.

Ironically though when we message others using one of the plethora of online messaging apps and services, or a mobile phone service providers’ texting service, we often send the message before we have had time to re-read it. It seems to be the case that the immediacy that instant messaging has brought the global messaging community has affected the way we communicate.

The written word is recorded, and the spoken is ephemeral discourse in the air, yet we pay attention to the ephemeral and not the recorded!

IATEFL Birmingham 2016 – Instant messaging with learners: chilled out chatroom or creepy treehouse?

The post conference buzz is still racing around in my head after seeing so many talks, new ideas, old ideas, different takes on current ideas, and trying frantically to catch fleeting moments to talk with friends and make new ones in between a very packed IATEFL programme in Birmingham.

All in all a great conference, and for those of you who didn’t manage to see my talk; “Instant messaging with learners: chilled out chatroom or creepy treehouse?”, the British Council have kindly sent me a recording which you can watch here.

I look forward to the next IATEFL as I’m sure we all do!

“Many educators have embraced the use of mobile technologies and instant messaging with learners. But inviting learners to connect with their teacher on social media can provoke horror; what some have called the creepy treehouse syndrome. In this talk, I present contexts where I used IM and the outcome. Cautious of creating a creepy treehouse syndrome, I trod extremely carefully.”