2005 INTERNET-MEDIATED INTERCULTURAL FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION

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    Introduction: Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language educaction and the intercultural speaker
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Belz, Julie A. ; Thorne, Steven L.
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    A critical look at technologies and ideologies in internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Train, Robert
    This chapter provides a critical perspective on the Internet-mediated intercultural projects presented in this volume. Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (a.k.a. telecollaboration) is presented as a site of critical intercultural discourse shaped and mediated by the technologies, ideologies, and practices that inform the complex ecology of foreign language education in general.The focus on the global term “education” is intended to conceptualize the ecological character of the endeavor, such that foreign language learning and second language acquisition are not viewed as separate from the teaching of foreign languages (i.e., instruction, pedagogy, curriculum) or from issues of sociocultural identity, educational policy, and teacher education. A critical reflexivity is outlined with special attention to the educational project of critical awareness of language, culture, community, and identity through intercultural interaction with peers. Some key ideologies of foreign language education are examined in socio-historical context with respect to the technologies and ideologies of standardization that have constructed the Native Standard Language as the dominant model for language, with its hegemonic implications for notions of culture, identity, and community in local, national, and global contexts. Ideologies of learner identity grounded in the concept of (Non)Native Speaker are critically discussed as contested sites of standardized and standardizing competence and language use (e.g.,“communication,”“negotiation,”“interaction,” and “error”).The possibilitie for new intercultural conceptions of learner and teacher identity, expertise, and agency emerging in the telecollaborative practices described in this volume are considered.
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    At the intersection of telecollaboration, learner corpus analysis, and L2 pragmattics: Considerations for language program direction
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Belz, Julie A.
    The research on Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education to date has examined a variety of topics ranging from the development of L2 grammatical competence to intercultural tension to networked models for language teacher education.The theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches applied in such examinations have been equally wide-ranging, including socio-cultural theory, interactionist approaches to language learning, intercultural communicative competence, appraisal theory, cultural studies, action research, and grounded theory.Very few studies, however, have explored the application of the burgeoning field of contrastive learner corpus analysis to networked intercultural foreign language instruction.The aim of this essay is to encourage language program directors and foreign language teachers to consider the inherent synergy between telecollaborative pedagogy and learner corpus analysis as well as the ways in which their interillumination may influence the development of L2 competence in general and L2 pragmatic competence in particular.
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    Conflicts in cyberspace: From communication breakdown to intercultural dialogue in online collaborations
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Schneider, Jeffrey ; Von der Emde, Silke
    This chapter addresses problems of misunderstanding and conflict that arise in online collaborations between native speakers and language learners. Rather than devising strategies for avoiding conflict, it establishes a dialogic paradigm for making conflict and tension a valuable component of intercultural learning.To demonstrate the practical effects of this theoretical shift to a dialogic model and away from strategies embodied in the communicative competence model, we present a qualitative analysis of online discussion transcripts, face-to-face class discussions, and student postings gathered during a MOO collaboration in fall 2003 between fifth-semester students studying German at Vassar College in New York state and advanced students studying applied linguistics and English at the University of Münster in Germany.As our data suggest, online exchanges are most successful when they include a coherent, intercultural content focus with the potential to raise issues of cultural difference, meaningful project work, and regular opportunities for reflection on the exchange and meta-reflection on intercultural learning.
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    A study of native and nonnative speakers' feedback and responses in Spanish-American networked collaborative interaction
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Lee, Lina
    Networked collaborative interaction (NCI) promotes the negotiation for meaning and form that plays a crucial role in the development of language competence. This chapter reports and discusses a study that focused on the examination of relationships among error type, feedback types, and responses in synchronous communication between native teachers and nonnative speakers (N = 26) working on two tasks—an open-ended question and a goal-oriented activity.The results revealed that differences were found not in the various types of negotiation moves but in the proportional use of particular moves.The native speakers had an overwhelming tendency to use recasts to provide corrective feedback. This feedback also had the positive effect of drawing learners’ attention to form, which led to the repair of errors. Successful uptake, however, does not guarantee second language acquisition. In addition, lexical rather than syntactical errors were the main triggers for negotiation moves generated by both groups of interlocutors. NCI as a form of written visual communication facilitated the response to corrective feedback. Learners generated high rates of repairs for both lexical and syntactical errors. Overall, this study demonstrates that NCI is a powerful communication tool for the enrichment of language learning.
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    Morphological development in Spanish-American telecollaboration
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Dussias, Paola E.
    The present study examines the linguistic consequences of computer-mediated communication between foreign language (L2) learners of Spanish and native Spanish speakers.In particular, it investigates whether the benefits attributed to intercultural computer-mediated interactions are transferable to face-to-face communication by examining whether e-mail and chat-room interactions that took place over a period of three months resulted in increased linguistic gains. L2 learners of Spanish were assigned to either an experimental group or a control group. Participants in the experimental group engaged in computermediated interactions with native speakers of Spanish residing in Almería, Spain. The learners in the control group interacted electronically with other learners of Spanish of similar proficiency. Linguistic gains were assessed by examining the transcriptions of OPI interviews that were conducted immediately before the learners began the computer-mediated communication sessions and after the last session ended three months later. The results reveal that learners in the experimental group showed increased linguistic control in the use of overt-null subjects in Spanish as well as greater communicative fluency, relative to learners in the control group. These findings suggest the beneficial role of telecollaborative interactions between native speakers and nonnative speakers with respect to linguistic competence.
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    The use of videoconferencing and e-mails as mediators of intercultural student ethnography
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) O'Dowd, Robert
    As part of the search for effective methods for developing language learners’ intercultural communicative competence, this chapter explores the possibilities of engaging learners in ethnographic research with distant peers through the use of networked communication tools such as videoconferencing and e-mail. The chapter begins by providing a review of the literature on the use of ethnographic techniques in foreign language education and by outlining what videoconferencing has been seen to offer network-based language learning to date. Following this, the outcomes of a semester-long networked exchange between two university classes in Germany and the United States will be presented. In the exchange, the German group of EFL learners and the American students of Communication Studies put into practice the skills of ethnographic interviewing to which they had been introduced earlier in their classes. The classes used both e-mail and videoconferencing technology in their interaction together. The qualitative analysis of transcripts, interviews, and questionnaires collected during this study revealed two central outcomes. First, it was seen how synchronic and asynchronic communication tools can contribute to very distinct aspects of ethnographic interviewing and intercultural learning. Second, the German students were often unwilling to take on the role of ethnographic interviewers during the exchange and regularly choose to reject alternative cultural beliefs and behaviour as being inferior to their own.Reasons for this reaction to the online contact are explored.
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    Learning how to teach intercultural communicative competence via telecollaboration: A model for language teacher education
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Müller-Hartmann, Andreas
    Much of the research on Internet-mediated foreign language education to date has focused on how participation in telecollaborative partnerships facilitates the development of intercultural or linguistic competence in the foreign language learner. In contrast, this chapter focuses on the ways in which participation in such a partnership might facilitate the development of both intercultural communicative competence and critical media literacy in the foreign language teacher. Because Internet-mediated intercultural exchange is a highly complex social activity, teachers cannot be adequately prepared for their crucial role in such exchanges by simply reading the relevant academic literature in a typical pre-service teacher education seminar; instead, they must build their knowledge base via experiential learning and model teaching, two practices that will afford them the opportunity to become intercultural speakers themselves before they will be required to facilitate the processes of intercultural learning for their own future students.Within a reflective practice model of teacher education, this chapter explores how preservice teachers of English in Germany as well as in-service teachers of various foreign languages in the United States began to build their knowledge base with respect to Internet-mediated foreign language education, critical media literacy, and intercultural communicative competence via participation in a two-tiered, project-based telecollaborative exchange with international partners during their pre- and in-service education.
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    The Cultura project
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Bauer, Beth ; DeBenedette, Lynne ; Furstenberg, Gilberte ; Levet, Sabine ; Waryn, Shoggy
    This chapter presents an intercultural project designed at M.I.T.that makes use of Internet communication tools to develop students’understanding of the values and attitudes embedded in a foreign culture.Initially designed for an intermediate French class, Cultura has now been developed in Russian, Spanish, and German and has been used at various levels and institutions across the United States, connecting learners in foreign language classes with students living in France, Germany, Mexico, Russia, and Spain.Written by five faculty members from three different institutions, M.I.T., Brown, and Brandeis, this chapter describes the goals, approach, materials, and methodology of Cultura, and provides a detailed description of the ways in which students construct their understanding of other cultures in electronic interactions. It identifies the challenges of implementing such a project, the roles of learners and teachers, the tools and technologies used, and the issues surrounding assessment. Finally, the chapter presents two detailed case studies, a Russia–U.S. exchange and a Mexico–U.S. exchange, which highlight the challenges of adapting Cultura to new languages, cultures, and institutional settings.
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    Pedagogical and praxiological lessons from Internet-mediated intercultural forerign language eduaction research
    (Heinle Cengage Learning, 2005-01-01) Thorrne, Steven L.
    This essay describes research findings, pedagogical methods, and theoretical frameworks emerging from and contributing to Internet-mediated intercultural foreign language education (ICFLE).ICFLE emphasizes participation in intercultural dialogue and development of the linguistic and metacommunicative resources necessary for doing so.Various models of ICFLE are described and ICFLE studies that address processes of intercultural communication from linguistic, interpersonal, and developmental perspectives are reviewed. A number of exigent dimensions of ICFLE are also presented, in particular the challenges of implementing successful ICFLE projects, issues of cultural contestation, and variability in the cultures-of-use of Internet communication tools used to mediate ICFLE interaction. Throughout, the aim of this chapter is to introduce ICFLE to new audiences and specifically to address the concerns of language program directors and instructors.In conclusion, a case is made for the potential of ICFLE to re-orient foreign language education from a focus on communicative competence to a focus on intercultural competence.