Great parallel between Net-genders and Natives

I really enjoyed Marc Prensky’s article, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, because the parallel he does with Net-generation learners, that he so nicely called digital natives and teachers/ professors, called by him digital immigrants, is so real that I, as a second language teacher and immigrant, can say that “I`ve been there!” (in both my life and carrier). I really believe that what Dr. Bruce of Baylor College of Medicine says (“Different kinds of experience lead to different brain structures”) is true and anyone can see it on any net-generation acquaintance (students or not): how they face and solve problems, how they multi-task every single thing they do, how they are fast on their responses, but not accurate… just like a native can do with a language: a native is much more intuitive when solving a vocabulary problem, an immigrant has to trust a dictionary of some kind, not his instincts that can be influenced by his former language and his past; a native can watch TV and read a newspaper and really understand both, for an immigrant, to fully understand some news, he must pay totally attention to what he is reading or watching, doing both usually leads to misunderstanding or not full comprehension; a native uses his language much faster than an immigrant, because it’s so “natural” to use that language that, most of the time, he doesn’t think about it, what leads many times to no-accuracy, on the other hand, when an immigrant really learned a language he tends to be much more accurate, because he has to “rationalize”, to think to use his new language.

I think the process of learning, independently what, is always the same, therefore what happens with a language acquisition in natives and in immigrants, it happens with new technology in Net-genders and in all the others non-net generation ages.

So, in order to access and use this new “language” called technology, we must learn it, experience it, use it as much as possible and be in close contact with natives to learn more about it and about the way they use it, just like an immigrant must do if he wants to communicate with a native in a foreign country: he has to try to use the native’s language properly. Learning another “language” is difficult? Yes, sure, but it’s not impossible, and once you incorporate the new “language”, a whole new world of opportunities opens the door for you.