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TESOL Matters Vol. 9 No. 6     (December 1999/January 2000)

From the column of the TESOL Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section
by Catherine Null

North (1987) divided the field of composition studies into eight specializations. He named people who work in one of those specializations practitioners. According to North, practitioners are the people who practice the craft of teaching in classrooms all over the globe and who trade the lore of their craft in the hallways between those classrooms. This all makes sense if there are hallways, but ESL teachers' workplaces may have variations on those hallways. For one thing, many ESL teachers find themselves among the ranks of adjunct professionals who practice their craft from a portable classroom and may not even have an office. A teacher in a small ESL program may be the only pronunciation teacher or the only writing instructor. And EFL teachers may have hallways but may work with very few other ESL professionals, leaving not much chance for exchanging lore. Enter technology: If ESL professionals have access to a computer and an Internet connection, the list server or mailing list can be their best friend.

According to whatis? (http://www.whatis.com/).

A list server (mailing list server) is a program that handles subscription requests for a mailing list and distributes new messages, newsletters, or other postings from the list's members to the entire list of subscribers as they occur or are scheduled. Two commonly-used list servers are listserv and Majordomo.

This is how it works. Someone, somewhere creates a mailing list by requesting the creation of the list from a list server program. The users subscribe to the mailing list by sending an e-mail message to the list server, and the list server program then distributes all of the messages that are sent to the mailing list to the subscribers.

When I explain this to my students, I draw a picture of a server in the middle of the white board (see Figure 1). This is where the list server program resides. Then I draw pictures of tiny computers floating around the server, which represent the subscribers to the list. A message sent from one of the subscribers, for example, from Subscriber A, is represented by an arrow from Computer A to the server. Then arrows coming from the computer in the middle going out to all the other computers floating on the periphery represent the message as it is sent out to all the subscribers of the mailing list, Subscribers B, C, D, E, and F. In a way, the mailing list is the hallway that many ESL professionals just don't have. The messages that are distributed to the subscribers are the lore of the craft.

There are three types of mailing lists: unmoderated, moderated, and restricted. An unmoderated list allows all messages sent by all subscribers to go out to all other subscribers of the list. On a moderated list, all of the messages go to the list owner first, who posts the messages to the list as the owner sees fit. Messages on a restricted list are sent to the owner, but only the owner of the list can write messages to the subscribers.

The mailing list becomes an asynchronous forum for the discussion of lore. Most ESL professionals are familiar with the TESL-L mailing list. TESL-L has spawned many other lists that serve the various interest sections of TESOL. However, there are many more lists out there. One good source, or list of lists, is Liszt, the Mailing List Directory (http://www.liszt.com/). "Liszt is an enormous directory of Internet discussion groups: mailing lists, newsgroups, and IRC chat channels. . . which Yahoo Internet Life recently named one of the 10 essential websites" (About Liszt, 1998). This list of lists can be searched by topic or by category. Another good source is Search the List of Lists (Neou, 1998). Mailing Lists Related to TESL/TEFL and Foreign Language Teaching (Kitao and Kitao, 1996) is also a very useful list created just for ESL professionals.

A Word of Advice

It is not enough to just subscribe to a mailing list. Just as you would not stand in the hallway listening without ever contributing to the conversations, you can only lurk on a mailing list for so long. You should be an active contributor to the lore. Support your list mates by responding to their questions, and they will be there for you when you need advice and information.

John Higgins recommends that teachers also subscribe to lists that are on the boundaries of their professional interests, such as the ED-TECH list, "so that we raise our heads above our professional parapets occasionally" (personal communication, June 23, 1999). And of course teachers can look to mailing lists to support their off-hour pursuits for fun or hobbies as well. Just don't spread yourself too thin over too many communities, or your electronic mailbox will become a place to avoid instead of a place to engage.

References

About Liszt. (1998). Retrieved October 25, 1999, from the World Wide Web: http://www.liszt.com/about.html.

Kitao, K., and Kitao, S. K. (1996). Mailing lists related to TESL/TEFL and foreign language teaching. Retrieved October 25, 1999, from the World Wide Web: http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/ /staff/visitors/kenji/kitao/int-tefl.htm.

Neou, V. (1998). Search the list of lists. Retrieved October 25, 1999, from the World Wide Web: http://catalog.com/vivian/interest-group-search.html.

North, S. M. (1987). The making of knowledge in composition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Catherine Null is a lecturer at Western's English as a Second Language (WESL) Institute, Western Illinois University, in Macomb.