Volume 23 Number 3, October 2019 Special Issue: New Developments in Virtual Exchange in Foreign Language Education
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ItemDeveloping intercultural competence through study abroad, telecollaboration, and on-campus language study(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)Although a number of studies have investigated study abroad or telecollaboration separately, none to date has included both methods with the aim of differentiating their impacts on the development of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Using mixed methods, the current study compared foreign language learners’ perceived ICC development under three different conditions over 6 weeks: 1) a study-abroad program (n = 52) in Korea, China, Japan, France, and Spain designed for American undergraduates; 2) telecollaboration (n = 54) between Korean students of English and American students of Korean; and 3) on-campus language study (n = 44) among Korean students of English and American students of Chinese who were learning languages at their home institutions. Data from 150 students were collected from pre- and post-study questionnaires measuring cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of ICC; reflective writing; exit essays; and interviews. The results indicated that the study abroad and telecollaboration groups exhibited significant improvement in perceived cognitive, affective (engagement and confidence), and behavioral aspects of ICC over time, whereas the on-campus (control) group showed little change in any aspect of ICC. Although the study-abroad group displayed significantly higher levels of intercultural knowledge than the telecollaboration group, both groups showed similar degrees of improvement in the affective and behavioral aspects of ICC. We argue that online interactions with members of the target culture can be as beneficial as studying abroad and that it is at least more beneficial than traditional classroom language learning in the development of L2 learners’ perceived ICC.
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ItemTelecollaboration for content and language learning: A Genre-based approach(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)While many studies have documented the growth of second language abilities and intercultural knowledge as a result of participating in telecollaboration, research has not sufficiently investigated the development of content knowledge in this learning context. In response, this study explores content learning in a university-level, genre-based business German course. Two dyads and two triads of students conducted synchronous audiovisual interviews with Berlin-based entrepreneurs in order to expand upon their existing knowledge of German business culture. The study examines the extent to which L2 German learners were able to perform the genre ‘oral interview’ via synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and whether performance afforded learners the opportunity to: 1) display previously acquired content knowledge and 2) acquire new content knowledge. Discourse analysis of four hours of transcribed speech shows that all groups were able to navigate the generic stages of the oral interview. Furthermore, participants used both explicit and implicit means to refer to knowledge gained prior to the exchange and during the exchange. These results provide evidence that genre-based pedagogy can foster integrated content and language learning in SCMC-based telecollaboration by helping learners demonstrate attention, link existing knowledge to new knowledge, and create meaningful connections between different topical areas.
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ItemEngagement and Attitude in Telecollaboration: Topic and cultural background effects(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)This study examines the linguistic resources by which foreign language (L2) learners express their ideological positions in online discussions taking place in a telecollaborative encounter during one semester. More specifically, the study attempts to decipher how L2 learners discuss and argue their points of view regarding their first culture, their second culture, and the topic in general, depending on the issueunder discussion (immigration and nationalism or patriotism) and to the country where the learners were based (US or Spain). Twenty-four learners, organized into six groups, each with two students from the US and two from Spain, participated in three online forums. For the analysis,learners’postings were subjected to quantitative and qualitative content analysisapplying two discourse-semantic subsystems of the Appraisal framework, Engagement—the linguistic resources used to reflect the writer’s position and willingness to recognize alternative positions—and Attitude—the linguistic resources used to indicate positive or negative assessment of people, places, things, and states of affairs. This study concludes that there were clear differences in the discursive styles between both setsof learners and topics. Overall, for instance, the learners employed more monoglossic statements when discussing nationalism or patriotismrather than immigration and Spain-based learners made more use of judgment markers than their US-based counterparts did.
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ItemTowards a Comprehensive Model of Negotiated Interaction in Computer-mediated Communication(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)In this paper we explore and identify emerging patterns of synchronous digital discourse trajectories between dyads of native (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS), with a particular focus on (absence of) negotiated interaction. We will present a new model of L2 learning interaction that is a schematic representation of two main types of hearer response that have been found after a trigger of non- understanding: Task-appropriate response (TAR) and face-appropriate response (FAR). In addition, we outline five different discourse trajectories. The model we propose is based on data derived from interactive task performances of groups of Dutch and Australian students in two telecollaboration projects. The discourse trajectories represented in our model provide us with useful insights into the complexities of digital interaction in an L2-learning environment and show that NNS-NS communication is more complex than traditional negotiation of meaning models suggest. We expect our model to contribute to a better understanding of L2 learning processes related to interaction in digital settings.
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ItemExperiential learning of telecollaborative competences in pre-service teacher education(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on how prospective foreign language teachers can learn to be successful telecollaborators. We investigate Polish and German TEFL students’ perceptions of how they develop the competences, attitudes, and beliefs described by O’Dowd (2015) through experiential learning in a virtual exchange. Using grounded theory as its research methodology, our study used data from three different sources: (a) a pre- and post-project survey investigating students’ changing perceptions of the relevance of telecollaboratively taught classes for their professional and personal development, (b) a survey and ethnographic observation focusing on students’ perceptions of and attitudes toward distributed teaching presence in the exchange project (cf. Turula & Grau, 2018), and (c) a case study employing a survey and a semi-structured interview with a participant who carried out her own telecollaborative project in a primary school. The necessarily tentative results of this small-scale investigation point toward the suitability of the experiential learning approach for the development of organisational, digital, and pedagogical telecollaborative competences, potentially shaping prospective teachers’ attitudes and beliefs.
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ItemCritical incidents and cultures-of-use in a Hong Kong–Germany telecollaboration(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)This study explores critical incidents regarding differing cultures-of-use in telecollaboration against the backdrop of Hong Kong and German teacher education contexts. The rationale for the exchange was to model technology use and task design with the ultimate goal of internationalizing teacher education and supporting global citizenship. Participants in this project are 58 English majors in a graduate-level sociolinguistics course at a public research institution in Hong Kong and 15 EFL student teachers in a language teaching and new media elective course at a public education university in Germany. Using social media tools for interaction such as Facebook, Skype, WeChat, and WhatsApp, 11 telecollaborative teams engaged in three sequential tasks: (a) engaging in topical exchanges using Facebook, (b) writing a literature review in Google Docs, and (c) making recommendations on team websites using Wix. Research questions focus on critical incidents identified by participants during these tasks, particularly in relation to tool engagement. Data triangulation includes reflections, surveys, and online interactions. Findings indicate that the majority of Hong Kong teams cite low experience with certain tools, unfamiliarity with alternative tools (e.g., WeChat), and differences in tool access and use as constraints in achieving effective communication. Implications address sensitizing participants to their partners’ tool socialization through implementing the critical incident technique.
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ItemThe formative role of teaching presence in blended Virtual Exchange(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)This paper presents the findings of a three-cycle action research study (Nunan & Bailey, 2009) that investigated the role of teaching presence (TP) in nurturing a Community of Inquiry (CoI) in a teacher training virtual exchange delivered in blended format. The study covers three iterations of such an exchange between three different cohorts of Polish and German EFL student teachers working on international teams to design technology-based intercultural tasks for their future educational contexts. Furthermore, we focus on the impact of TP on students’ self- and co-regulatory learning accounted for in the newly emergent concept of learning presence (LP). Qualitative analysis of various data sets from the three research cycles reveals that students’ LP, and with that their “transformation of participation” (Rogoff, 1994), is nurtured if instructors engage in various pedagogical interventions on the levels of design, discourse and instruction (Garrison, 2006). We identify the various types of such interventions and link them to different virtual exchange project phases. We also highlight the modelling role of TP in blended formats in the context of a teacher training virtual exchange. Modelling, delivered through such interventions, can be formative for future teachers’ professional competence.
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ItemReview of Comunicación mediada por tecnologías: Aprendizaje y enseñanza de la lengua extranjera(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)
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ItemReview of A guide to using corpora for English language learners(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)
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ItemReview of Corpus linguistics for vocabulary: A guide for research(University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2019-10-17)