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Telecollaboration : what have we learnt? Marie-Noëlle Lamy The Open University 1 Telecollaboration in University Foreign Language Education León, 12 February 2014
Telecollaboration : what have we learnt?Marie-Noëlle LamyThe Open University
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Telecollaboration in University Foreign Language EducationLeón, 12 February 2014
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what is ‘the intercultural’ in the context of
learning online in collaboration with others?
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Outline of the talk• Lessons learnt from research and
practice
• Interrogating ‘the intercultural’ (again!)
• Headline issue: identity
• A model for ‘the intercultural’ online
• Implications for telecollaboration
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Outcomes and recommendations: INTENT report, Oct 2012 (Guth, Helm & O’Dowd)
1. More TC in lesser-taught languages2. Multilingual speakers3. Transversal skills development4. TC to go outside Europe and USA5./6. How to find partnerships7./8. Better teacher education in TC techniques9. Stronger institutional support10. Develop assessment tools for intercultural learning11. Management of ‘sensitive’ issues 12. The long-term ‘stick’ value of intercultural learning
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Challenges and tensions in TC
Negative grammatical-pragmatic transfer: Blake and Zyzik (2003)
Sociopragmatic differences: (Ware 2005, Ware and Kramsch 2005)
Age differences: Lee (2004)
Differences in local learning values: (Ware 2005)
Institutional and professional misalignments: Belz and Müller-Hartmann (2003) and O’Dowd (2005).
Practical constraints: Ware (2005)
Psychological pressures due to synchronicity: O’Dowd (2006)
Mismatches between teaching and assessment: Greenfield (2003)
Tension-creating influences from the wider scontext of use:Thorne’s (2003)
Teacher workload: Rösler (2004)
Political incompatibilities: (Ware and Kramsch 2005, O’Dowd 2005)7
Kimmons and Veletsianos’ (2014) data from online educators:
• they only showed what they believed ‘acceptable’ to their audience
• they viewed this as part of expressing their identity BUT
• they felt this to be only a small ‘fragment’ of their identity
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Samburskiy, in Meskill 2013
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Lund, in Meskill 2013
Keep a straight course through successive
disturbances
• Photo rights http://www.blipfoto.com/TerryS365
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Rathje , S. (2007)
Three approaches ( Piller 2011, quoting Scollon & Scollon 2001, my underlinings added)
• ‘Studies in cross-cultural communication “start from an assumption of distinct cultural groups and investigate aspects of their communicative practice comparatively”.
• Studies in “inter-cultural communication” mostly also start from the assumption of cultural differences between distinct cultural groups but study their communicative practices in interaction with each other.
• Finally the inter-discourse approach “sets aside any a priori notions of group membership and asks instead how and under what circumstances concepts such as culture are produced by participants as relevant categories for interpersonal ideological negotiation.”
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Fan fiction site: My Little Pony
Steven. L. Thorne ‘The intercultural turn in language learning in the crucible of new media’ in Guth and Helm (eds.) 2010
Participants are interculturally-engaged in ‘symbolic’ work, in remaking the world for themselves in that fan-fiction community.
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An INTENT project student:
Je n’ai pas vraiment vécu la télécollaboration comme une rencontre interculturelle mais comme une rencontre tout court.
(I did not really experience telecollaboration as an intercultural encounter, more as an encounter full stop.)
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INTENT Report p 44.
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The co-presence window
what have we learnt about ‘the intercultural’ in the context of
learning online in collaboration with others?
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1. More TC in lesser-taught languages2. Multilingual speakers3. Transversal skills development4. TC to go outside Europe and USA.5./6. How to find partnerships7./8. Better teacher education in TC techniques9. Stronger institutional support10. Develop assessment tools for intercultural learning11. Management of ‘sensitive’ issues 12. The long-term ‘stick’ value of intercultural learning
