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K. Jauregi (Utrecht University & Fontys University of Applied Sciences)R. de Graaff (Utrecht University)

New perspectives in processes & outcomes of telecollaboration in foreign

language curricula

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Telecollaboration

Intercultural

Language

Acquisition

The TILA Project

Funded by: European Commission

Term: 2013-2015

•Background•Project description•Survey results pilots•Case study on intercultural communication

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Background to TILA

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Need for a change in Language Teaching?

Video communicationAdobe connect

Open SimSecond Life

3D Virtual Worlds

NIFLAR 2009-2011

Focus on Tertiary Education (some pilots at secondary education)

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NIFLAR 2009-2011: Results in tertiary education

Sessions were fun and instructive.

Positive impact on:- communicative skills (Canto et al., 2013), - motivation (Jauregi et al., 2012) - intercultural awareness Canto et al., 2014)

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NIFLAR 2009-2011: Results of pilots in secondary schools

Very positive experiencesBUT: • Difficult to organise & coordinate sessions • Universities did most work & when support finished teachers went back to traditional teaching

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Background

Most experiences and research results reported so far on telecollaboration refer to tertiary language education (Pol, 2013).

Need to focus on secondary education in order to find out whether the positive research

results on telecollaboration related to adults at tertiary education do apply to teenagers who are learning languages in quite a different educational setting.

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What is TILA about?

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Tools for synchronous telecollaboration in TILA

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Video/Audio Communication BigBluebutton (Skype, Google Hangout)

3D virtual worlds Open Sim(ulator)

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Tools for asynchronous telecollaboration in TILA

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Forum Blog

Wiki Journal

MoodleSocial media

VoiceThread

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Activities undertaken

Analysis of teachers’ needsTeacher training modules & sessionsTelecollaboration pilots

December – February 2014

Pilots in 5 target languages (Sp, En, Fr, Ger, Catalan)

212 learners, 20 teachers, 8 schools

Most pilots: synchronous communication (BBB & OpenSim)

Tasks have been developedResearch approaches & tools

developed

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Organizing telecollaboration pilot sessions

Challenges:

Contextual: school philosophy, timetables,Pedagogical: views on teaching,Intercultural: collaboration with teachers from other cultures > different expectations, styles,Technological: not up-to-date hardware, firewalls, internet connections, insufficient IT support,Different views on privacy issues related to teenagers,Pairing telecollaboration peers,Telecollaboration format: Lingua Franca / Tandem.

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Voorbeeld TILARecordings

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Research data:

Recordings Student questionnaires Interviews with pupils Teacher questionnaires Interviews with

teachers15

Pilots (December 2013-February 2014)

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Telecolaboration

Intercultural

Language

Acquisition

The TILA Project

Funded by: European Commission

Term: 2013-2015

•Background•Project description•Survey results pilots•Case study on intercultural communication

© 2014 TILA

Learner surveys

Background survey User experience questionnaire

Technical quality Suitability of the environment used Suitability of tasks Communicative performance Motivation

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Research participants

77 students 8 secondary schools

They like languages, particularly:

Speaking 3.98/5 Learning about other people (3.85/5)Pronunciation (3.85/5)

Grammar (2.99/5)

18

DE

FR

NE

UKES

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Research participants

64 %17 %

9 %

BBB

OpenSim

Skype

Telecollaboration tools

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Research participants

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60 %40 %

TandemLingua Franca

Interaction mode

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Sound was good (if applicable) 2,75

I like to communicate and interact in this tool environment 4,11I like to meet students from other countries in this tool environment

4,3

I like to learn in this tool environment 4,12I like to be visible in a video 3,68I like to see the others in a video 4,06II like to be an avatar 3,53I like to speak with an avatar 3,53I felt comfortable in the interaction 3,77I felt satisfied with the way I communicated 3,53I felt the tool environment affected my communication positively

3,58

I enjoyed communicating with students from another country 4,30I found it motivating to communicate with students from another country

4,18

It was important for me to be understood 4,17It was important for me to understand the other student(s) 4,23It was important for me to learn about the other students’ life and culture

3,91

It was important for me to get to know students from another country

4,07

I was able to learn something about the other students’ life and culture

3,76

I enjoyed the online task 4,08I found the online task interesting for interaction with peers of other countries

4,15

I found the online task useful for my language learning 3,99The online task helped me discover new things about the other culture

3,81

I would like to use online tasks with students from other countries more often

4,15

77 respondents (20 OpenSim)

5 points Likert scale

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Results

Lowest scores: sound quality (M=2.90, SD=1.08) Likert scale (1-5)

Positive assessment of the activity “I would like to use online tasks with students from other countries more often” (M=4.07 and SD=0.84)

Students like… • to communicate via the Internet (M=4.06, SD=0.75)• to meet students from other countries (M=4.35, SD=0.63) to

learn in this medium (M=4.04, SD=0.87). The tool used does not seem to have an impact on the scores

but students feel more at ease in OpenSim (M=2.77) compared to Skype (M=3.00) and BigBlueButton (M=3.38).

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Telecolaboration

Intercultural

Language

Acquisition

The TILA Project

Funded by: European Commission

Term: 2013-2015

•Background•Project description•Research results pilots: surveys•Case study on intercultural communication

© 2014 TILA

Case study: interaction analysis

Focus on how learners negotiate intercultural meaning in interaction with peers (Kroon, 2014), taking into consideration that:

understanding in interaction is the result of collaborative construction of shared meanings that can be achieved through the use of meta communicative strategies (Bahtina et al. 2013).

RQ: How do teenagers use meta communicative strategies that lead to intercultural understanding during synchronous telecollaboration sessions through VC?

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Method:

Pilots from two schools (NE, ES)January 2013-February 201418 learners participated (volunteers)Telecollaboration format:

Tandem with Lingua Franca (Spanish / English)

Language proficiency level:Spanish: native / A2English: B1 / B2

2 tasks were carried out once a week: getting to know each other / Feasts & customsEnvironment used BBB (videocommunication)

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Corpus

Mode Quantity Duration (min)

ELF (Task 2) 4 152 NS/NNS (Task 1) 4 205

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Method

Triangulation of methods consisting of:

Quantitative analysis of the transcribed and coded interactions,

Discourse analysis, Interview to teacher Survey to pupils

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Method of analysis. Meta-communicative devices:

Bahtina et al. 2013: MCD1 focuses on the situation and the development of understanding

regarding the assumed set of actions that must be taken to achieve a shared (social) goal; task orientedness ("What we need to do is X.")

MCD2 focuses on having a shared system of orientation in time and space (II: "If you read this card you should read from left to right.")

MCD3 provides understanding in the field of linguistic realizations in the discourse and gives meanings to words ("What does this word mean?" Or "That is called X and Y means").

MCD4, a multifunctional mechanism which is used as interlocutors do not understand each other ("You mean X?"); misunderstandings can be prevented or rectified.

An additional MCD was added: MCD0: negotiations due to technological problems

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Examples

MCD0: comprehension problems due to technology

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SP1: (2.30) WHAT? What? NL1: I've been in Thailand on VACATION↑. (3.0) YEAH? (3.0) ((laughs)) (1.0) Could you hear that? SP1: E::h. NL1: ((laughs))

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MCD1: content / task orientation

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SP1: I:::, (2.0) I don't think that I am (the best). NL1: Sorry, what did you say? (1.0) Wha/ ((laughs)). Are we talking about your basketball? (1.30) Yes, right? SP1: I what? NL1: (0.5) Are you good or not good?

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MCD2: space and time orientation

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SP1: TU INSTITUTO.. NL1: Répitelo↑ Oh e:::h mi instituto es NSG, en Nimega, (0.4) ehm es una ciudad/

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MCD 4 (indicates lack of understanding) + MCD3 (linguistic strategies to clarify meaning)

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SP2 YO estoy (.) estudiando (.) alemán. NL1 (6.5) Hm? SP2 YO ((risas)) <YO ESTOY ESTUDIANDO alemán>. NL1 ¿Sí? Ah BIEN ((risas), yo TAMBIEN

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Average quantity of MCDs

MCD ELF (Task 2) NS/NNS (Task 1) Total 0 28.5 (0.20) 32.0 (0.15)

60.5 1 18.0 (0.10) 21.0 (0.10) 39

2 6.5 (0.05) 6.5 (0.05) 13 3 20.5 (0.15) 19.5 (0.10) 40

4 22.0 (0.15) 22.0 (0.10) 44

Total 95.5 (0.65) 101 (0.5) 196.5

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Conclusions

Pupils are very positive about synchronous telecollaboration, in spite of technological challenges (“newness” effect?)

Telecollaboration provides opportunities for the use of meta-communicative devices both in Tandem and in Lingua Franca

In a non-optimal telecollaboration conditions, a lot of MCD use consists of negotiations related to technological problems (MCD0)

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Conclusions

The technological environment in conjunction with the tasks offers pupils the opportunity to create utterances at different meta-communicative levels, by comparing cultures with respect to time, space and habits, while checking understanding and clarifying meaning, which all contribute to the development of intercultural understanding.

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Indicate that telecollaboration appears to be of added value in FLT, as pupils from different countries are brought into contact to carry out interaction tasks through technology in which they frequently use communication strategies to achieve intercultural understanding. & they are positive about the experience.

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Conclusions

A long way to go for synchronous telecollaboration in secondary education to be implemented technologically and logistically successfully Powerful environment for authentic

communication if preconditions are met sufficiently

Need for more research studies ((a)synchronous collaboration, interaction, tasks, motivation)

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Thank you for your attention!!

Join us at www.tilaproject.eutila@uu.nl

#tilaproject

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References

Bahtina, D., Thije, J. D. ten & F. Wijnen (2013) Combining cognitive and interactive Approaches to Lingua Receptiva. Special Issue on Receptive Multilingualims. International  Journal of Multilingualism. 10(2), 159-180

Canto, S., de Graaff, R. & Jauregi, K. (2014). Collaborative tasks for negotiation of intercultural meaning in virtual worlds and video-web communication. In González-Lloret, M. & Ortega, L. (eds.) Technology and Tasks: Exploring Technology-mediated TBLT. Amsterdam /Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Canto, S., Jauregi, K. & van den Bergh, H. (2013). Integrating cross-cultural interaction through video-communication and virtual worlds in foreign language teaching programs. Burden or added value? In ReCALL, 25/1, 105-121.

Jauregi, K., R. de Graaff, H. van den Bergh & M. Kriz (2012). Native non-native speaker interactions through video-web communication, a clue for enhancing motivation. In Computer Assisted Language Learning Journal, 25.1, 1-19.

Kroon, van der I. (2014). Intercultureel begrip in het vreemdetalenonderwijs. Unpublished Master Thesis. Utrecht University.

Pol, L. (2013) Telecollaboration in Secondary Education: An Added Value? Unpublished Master Thesis. Utrecht University.

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