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In preparing students for life beyond the university, higher education must develop graduates who are culturally competent and understanding of the world beyond their own region. An appropriate context to address this area of need is Virtual Exchange (VE). Following the Global Partners in Education (GPE) model, this practice report presents the process used by a collaborative international project design team to develop two ‘Global Understandings’ (GU) courses; one in business and one in education. It further presents an extension of an established general education multilateral (more than two international partners) VE GU course by using it as a model to develop topic specific VE courses in high interest and high capacity areas within the partner institutions. After undertaking the initial steps for developing topic specific VE courses in business and education, program designers found that planning workshops, team leadership, clear organizational documents and processes, clear communication policies, logistical support, and faculty enthusiasm and buy-in were key factors in effective course design and implementation in the initial project stages. In addition to sharing the project design process, this practice report also presents the lessons learned along with considerations for future implementation.

This article aims to describe how technology can help address the methodological challenges that can be found in the organization and collection of data during telecollaboration among foreign language students. The study investigates the interactions of secondary school learners of English as a foreign language during task-based telecollaboration with secondary school learners of English from a different cultural and linguistic background. The research focuses on two telecollaborative projects in which the same participants from Bulgaria and students from two different schools in Spain participated in synchronous videoconferencing sessions on culture-related topics. Various data collection instruments were used to provide the triangulation of the findings, namely, video recordings of the telecollaborative interactions, interviews, questionnaires, and field observations. The data was processed with the help of MAXQDA software (https://www.maxqda.com). The article reveals numerous challenges for the participating students and teachers, as well as for the investigators in the organization and implementation of telecollaboration in educational projects. These findings are valuable and could help students, teachers, and researchers to predict and solve such challenges before starting an online intercultural exchange project in school setting. This article also presents a case study of using MAXQDA data analysis software to assist qualitative analysis of the data from learners’ interactions in a telecollaborative learning environment. We demonstrate that MAXQDA enables comprehensive and in-depth analysis from multiple perspectives when analyzing students’ online interactions in an intercultural setting. Importantly, MAXQDA permits us to code and analyze audio and video files without transcribing them.

In the past decades, foreign language classrooms at the university level have witnessed an ever-growing presence of technology. Teletandem, a collaborative and virtual medium for foreign language learning (TELLES, 2009; BENEDETTI; CONSOLO; VIEIRA-ABRAHÃO, 2010), offers language learners opportunities to receive modified input, negotiate for meaning, receive corrective, and produce modified output, all essential to second language (L2) development (LONG, 1996; GASS, 1997; GASS; MACKEY, 2007). However, an assessment of Teletandem empirical studies has revealed not only a dearth of empirical evidence in regards to the effects of this medium on L2 development, but, furthermore, a lack of research comparing Teletandem and face to face (FTF) contexts as effective media for L2 development. The present study investigates whether type of medium (Teletandem vs. FTF) has an effect on L2 learners' oral development of lexical accuracy and global complexity. Participants were 40 advanced learners of Spanish who were randomly assigned to either a Teletandem group or a FTF group over the course of two months. The results revealed that both Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (SCMC) and FTF interaction had positive impacts on oral complexity, with no significant difference between the two groups. However, the results indicate that there was an advantage for Teletandem in terms of the L2 development of lexical accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teletandem is implemented in several universities, and different learning scenarios are designed for meeting the manifold needs of a changing society. Intercompréhension Orale et Teletandem (IOTT), a telecollaboration project developed by University of Lyon 2 and University of Salento, responds to this challenge by aiming to develop the receptive, productive, and interactive skills required when communicating with a speaker/writer of a different but related language to one's own (e.g., speakers of Spanish and French: romance languages). IOTT also develops theoretical knowledge and metacommunicative skills necessary to highlight and analyse strategies for solving communication problems - that is, how concepts and meanings can be mediated. This is accomplished using a macrotask named MINTT, i.e., a sequence of tasks promoting students' reflectivity, encouraging a propensity for formative critical thinking. After discussing the notion of Intercomprehension, IOTT learning design is described, highlighting areas of potential learning of this Teletandem-based Learning Scenario. Video recordings of Teletandem Oral Sessions and learner diaries, written by students after each session, are mentioned to show how students perceive such a challenging experience, how they resolve communication problems during Teletandem Oral Sessions and how they analyse processes of meaning negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to present and outline reflections on Teletandem in the institutional modality integrated into the Spanish Language Teaching Major Course - at the State University of Paraíba, developed in the elective Curricular Component "Linguistic-Cultural Exchange Practices via Teletandem". To this end, we held discussions about Teletandem, its principles and guidelines for the interaction sessions and mediation and, later, we discussed the track taken to develop the curricular component with regard to the discussions in the in-service training of future Spanish teachers, the partnership with Profesorado Superior de Lenguas Vivas and the organization and implementation of interactions between Brazilian and Argentinian learners. Thus, we highlight the advantages and limitations found throughout our experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports findings from a study carried out in 2018 on the implementation of teletandem in a Bachelor of Arts in English Language Teaching (ELT) program in Mexico, as part of a learning autonomy course. The goals of the semi-structured teletandem exchange were to provide learners with the opportunity to 1) gain cultural and linguistic learning as a result of the interaction with native speakers and 2) develop and exercise their autonomy to learn English. Although all students enrolled in the course participated in the exchange, only 8 of them were selected to investigate the extent teletandem helped them develop and exercise their autonomy. Data come from the analysis of interviews with students. Findings revealed that the implementation of teletandem in the course made participants more aware of their autonomy and provided opportunities to exercise it. However, areas of improvement were identified to enhance the development of autonomy in teletandem. This study may be of interest to language teacher educators who seek to promote the development of autonomy in other learning scenarios apart from the language classroom. It could also be useful for language instructors and staff at language centers who are willing to improve the practice of telecollaboration in their own contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional internationalization processes are a constant concern among university researchers worldwide, considering the urgent demand that the academic community contribute to solving the problems of contemporary society (BRENNAN; KING; LEBEAU, 2004) and especially considering pandemic and post-pandemic scenarios. This study discusses the research that has been developed on the dissemination of culture, language and literature in contexts of virtual exchange (O'DOWD; LEWIS, 2016). The activities are developed in partnerships between universities, among which there is already a history of activities related to the "Teletandem Brasil" project (TELLES; VASSALO, 2006). These studies are linked to the Capes-Print-Unesp Program's international research network project "Dissemination of culture, language and literature in contexts of telecollaboration". The reflections undertaken in this work address the following concerns: (a) how studies on telecollaboration have contributed to the internationalization process of the institution involved; (b) what are these studies' contributions to the democratization of access to cultural, linguistic and literary capital. The importance of these discussions resides in the constitution of a space for studies on the processes of institutional internationalization and allows for outlining plans to face future challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at describing the processes and outcomes of a virtual exchange initiative carried out by the International Language Center of the State University of Northern Paraná (UENP), Brazil, in partnership with UGMEX Campus Pluviosilla, Mexico, considering its contributions and challenges for the development of learners' linguistic and intercultural awareness by means of transnational partnerships, English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication, and internationalization at home policies. The partnership was held during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted the students and teachers' regular routines in both institutions. The case study presented here is theoretically grounded on studies on virtual exchange practices, internationalization and English language teaching, conducted by authors such as Telles and Vassallo (2009), Salomão (2020), O'Dowd (2017, 2018), Cavalari (2018), and ELF authors such as Jenkins (2000, 2006, 2009), Kirkpatrick (2006), Seidlhofer (2001). The research methodology is based on a qualitative approach of analysis of the data generated through Google applications, by the instructors and participants, such as the sessions diaries. The analysis indicated some limitations in asynchronous activities proposed and the pedagogical potential and demands for the consolidation of the virtual exchange between the institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Telecollaboration has allowed access to peoples and languages, crossing geographical barriers and providing significant experiences to build language knowledge, develop autonomy, and intercultural competence. Teletandem, a context that provides for bilingual communication between learners of different languages using software such as Skype and Zoom, has facilitated significant pedagogical practices. After the interaction, a teacher/researcher/mediator conducts the mediation sessions with the group of participants to promote sharing of experiences and to encourage reflection. The present work, under a qualitative methodology, focuses on data from mediation sessions with Brazilian students conducted in 2016. Thus, based on theories of telecollaboration, tandem, and teletandem, we examine occurrences of non-separation of languages in interactions, reported by the students in mediation sessions, to understand it and aiming to reinforce procedures and alignment as a whole. The results point to the imbalance established by mixing languages, which can endanger the actions between peers, generating discomfort and interfering in the other principles, reciprocity and autonomy. The importance of conducting mediation sessions is pointed out as an alignment context and also the mediator's role in supporting and enhancing the experience among peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frequency of hesitational phenomena, such as Filled Pauses (FP) are inversely correlated to the perceived fluency of L2 learners (e.g., DERWING; ROSSITER; MUNRO; THOMSON, 2004; LENNON, 1990; ULLAKONOJA, 2008). The current study investigated the production of these FPs by 66 naive Spanish L2 learners with an L1 of English in two types of oral tasks and compared their frequency in regard to task type and whether they participated in Face-to-Face or Telecollaboration (Teletandem) communicative dyads. Results indicate that while the medium of the tasks did not impact fluency, the task type did. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to investigate linguistic gains and crosslinguistic influence (CLI) from English and Spanish on the oral production of postsecondary L3 Portuguese learners, comparing the effects of two pedagogical approaches: oral synchronous telecollaboration between Portuguese learners and native speakers (Teletandem), and group work among learners in the L2 classroom. Participants met weekly for eight weeks, after which gains in oral proficiency were measured using an Elicited Imitation Task (EIT) and a listening comprehension test (LCT). Linguistic development was also measured by various indices of oral complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). Results showed significant improvement in proficiency and all CAF measures over time, but no differences between groups. Spanish CLI was significantly higher than English CLI for both groups and the only type of CLI to significantly decrease. Participants' perceptions and beliefs, and the lack of differential performance across groups is discussed, considering different pedagogical and theoretical approaches to telecollaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual exchange (VE) is an umbrella term used to refer to the engagement of groups of students in sustained online intercultural interaction and collaboration with international partners under the guidance of their teachers. In the computer-assisted language learning literature, telecollaboration and eTandem approaches to VE have been researched extensively. However, this research has principally focused to date on learner gains and the impact on teachers has been much less explored. This paper identifies the impact of VE on foreign language teachers' practices and their professional development by examining the results of a qualitative study of 31 teacher trainers who engaged their classes in VE projects as part of a large-scale European project. The findings of the study suggest that participation in VE projects provides teachers with valuable experience in continued professional development and methodological innovation. In particular, VE was seen to open up opportunities for teachers to develop new professional partnerships, collaborative academic initiatives, to develop their own online collaboration skills, and also to introduce more innovative approaches in their current teaching practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rapid development of virtual exchange in foreign language education, its use in the field of Chinese language education is still rather nascent. Adopting a mixed-methods research approach, this study focuses on examining the pedagogical benefits of a Chinese-American virtual exchange as mediated by students' self-reported data. Two Chinese language classes (i.e. one at the elementary level and one at the intermediate level) at a small liberal arts college in the United States and a group of Chinese-speaking English majors at a Chinese university in Shanghai participated in the exchange. Analyses of four sources of qualitative data (i.e. WeChat group cultural discussion transcripts, Skype conversations, reflection journals, and end-of-program interviews) gave rise to four benefits of the exchange: promotion of cultural learning, improvement of Chinese language skills, enhancement of learning motivation, and establishment of a language learning community. Quantitative analyses of the end-of-semester questionnaire items show that the benefit regarding cultural learning, on average, received the highest rating, followed by community building and motivation enhancement, with improvement of Chinese skills being rated the lowest. Moreover, intermediate-level students evaluated all four benefits with higher ratings than elementary-level students. In particular, the two groups' quantitative evaluations in terms of Chinese skills and motivation differed significantly. However, both groups enthusiastically endorsed the benefits of cultural learning and community building. The pedagogical implications of these results are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizing the importance of multinational telecollaboration and form-focused instruction in computer-assisted language learning teacher education, this article investigates teaching English grammar through a seven-week-long telecollaborative project with 41 pre-service language teachers from the United States (US), Poland, and China. The telecollaboration was a pedagogical intervention in which the US participants taught grammar to their non-native-speaker peers. Specifically, the study aimed to trace pre-service teachers' grammar instruction techniques applied in the communication-oriented context of online exchanges and responses to this instruction, the grammar forms attended to in the exchanges, and the participants' evaluations of the usefulness of telecollaboration for teaching and learning grammar. Utilizing data from the participants' emails and results of a post-project survey, this mixed methods study reveals that (1) the implicit technique of modeling was the most frequently applied; (2) the grammatical forms used in both implicit and explicit teaching reflected the communicative orientation of the exchanges; (3) the levels of uptake (i.e. attempts to follow the models provided in the input), and the forms attended to by the learners, reflected their proficiency levels and linguistic background; and (4) participants reported positive opinions about the value of telecollaboration in grammar instruction and in teacher training. The data thus underscore the benefits of online exchanges in giving prospective teachers hands-on experience with communicative grammar teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Lengua para Fines Específicos is the property of Revista de Lengua para Fines Especificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Lengua para Fines Específicos is the property of Revista de Lengua para Fines Especificos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Domínios de Lingu@gem is the property of Dominios de Lingu@gem and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Other Modernities / Altre Modernita / Otras Modernidades / Autres Modernités is the property of Altre Modernita and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background and Aim: Although 80% of people with epilepsy live in low and lower-middle-income countries (LMIC), epilepsy surgery (ES) has reached very few of its potential beneficiaries in these nations. This imbalance could be overcome by telecollaboration ES, aided by the burgeoning digital penetration in LMIC. We aimed to propose a telecollaboration-mentorship model for resource-limited LMIC environs to initiate, sustain, and expand ES centers. We also aimed to assess the model's feasibility and provide a proof of concept. Materials and Methods: Five mentee centers (level 3 epilepsy centers) across three LMIC under the mentorship of a tertiary comprehensive epilepsy care center (level 4) were part of the telecollaboration-mentorship model. This model was used for surgical candidacy selection, intraoperative surgical support, and postoperative outcome assessment at the mentee centers, using both asynchronous and synchronous telecollaboration exchanges. Results: Nineteen patients across five centers and three LMIC underwent ES as part of the telecollaboration-mentorship program from 2018 to 2021. Sixty-eight telemedicine exchanges (average 3.5/patient), 42 asynchronous (email, text message, multimedia message), and 26 synchronous (phone call, video call, video conference) were made in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative period. Worthwhile seizure outcome (Engel Class I, II) was achieved in 17 patients (89.4%) at a mean duration of follow-up of 13.5 months (standard deviation 10.9). Conclusion: The telecollaboration-mentorship model is a feasible, sustainable scalable, and replicable mechanism to expand the outreach of surgical care in epilepsy, especially in resource-constrained LMIC environs. It holds the potential to overcome the "ES divide" between LMIC and high-income countries and reduce the surgical treatment gap with acceptable surgical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The different formats of virtual exchanges (telecollaboration) could be used to train language teachers as a practice to initiate them in the world of teaching and in order to develop their professional skills. This article focuses on the theoretical and methodological foundations for its use in the e-tandem mode, highlighting in them the main role of ICT. A case study is analyzed here as an example where future Finnish SFL teachers carried out an e-tandem with Chinese beginner-level students. The former need to acquire certain pedagogical skills while perfecting their command of the language. The latter, beginner students of level A1-A2 (CEFR), are starting to learn Spanish and need constant and real practice that reinforces their oral skills. Results show the opinion of the future Finnish teachers and the level of professional development they achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Çankaya University Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences is the property of Cankaya University Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although there is a move toward open data, with research funding bodies more frequently requiring data management plans and dissemination strategies, the data management challenges inherently linked to virtual exchange research are understudied. Data collection is often reported upon in papers addressing interaction analysis or language development, but little attention has been paid to offering critical discussion of data collection and structuration methods or practical advice to encourage data/corpora dissemination. This paper reports on two phases of the Multimodal Teletandem Corpus project (Aranha & Lopes, 2019) that structured 581 hours of video data from Portuguese-English teletandem sessions, 351 chat logs, 956 written productions exchanged between the partners (original, revised, and corrected versions), 91 initial and 41 final questionnaires, and 666 learning diaries. We describe the data management problems faced that included the organization of data collected, ethical consent, management of a large quantity of data, inclusion of sociolinguistic information, expansion of learning theories, and the solutions found. We then outline data management planning steps that, consequently, are being introduced for future telecollaboration instantiations.

This phenomenological study explores students’ perceptions about the relationship between foreign language learning and culture when using telecollaboration. Three main concerns underlie this work: the lack of studies that explore how students perceive the relationship between foreign language learning and culture in the local context, the need to explore the incidence of culture in language learning, and the role of telecollaboration in cultural exchange. Data were collected through questionnaires, focus groups, video recordings, field notes, and students’ artifacts. The findings show students’ understanding of the nature of language situated within functional and humanistic perspectives. Furthermore, participants alluded to the importance of language learning as a means to understand the scope of culture and cultural identity.

Globalisation and the advancement of ICTs invite the development of learners’ strategies and communication skills in higher education to participate fully in digitally networked societies. This paper analyses the results of a pilot study which is part of Film and Creative Engagement (FaCE), a collaborative research project between Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), UK, and Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), Campus Laguna in Torreón, Mexico. There were two main aims: (1) to create a short project that was inspiring, stimulating and enjoyable that could be transferable to other high education institutions; and (2) to provide a training that could help students shape their future, fulfill their academic potential and develop strong, social, international and professional relationships. Secondary goals included bringing Mexican and British university learners into contact via elecommunication to create contexts for interactivity and task-based collaboration. In the context of foreign language learning, the tasks were intended to develop participants’ skills on film analysis (such as cultural and intercultural awareness), and also, audiovisual accessibility (subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and audio description). This is a mixed study with 44 participants and the data was collected through pre and post-questionnaires, student self-reflection reports and task evaluations. Particularly, the FaCE project helped students, regardless of their career path or specialisation, to enhance their language competence, collaborative work, critical thinking, innovation and creativity, management of information and communication technologies, and international collaboration in virtual environments.

Interview conducted by Marco Cappellini on the 17th of October, 2019.

This study centres on the analysis of prosocial teasing during a videoconference (telecollaboration) exchange between mixed-gender adolescent secondary school students from Spain and Germany. We contend that the provocative elements present in prosocial teasing activate a play frame, in Gregory Bateson’s terms, in which seemingly hostile face acts can be interpreted as playful behaviour. We argue that successful teasing can ultimately enhance the face of the teaser and that of the person being teased and thus build up rapport between them. Our analysis of the facework in the interaction during this telecollaboration exchange is based on Erwin Goffman’s notions of face, demeanour and deference and stands in opposition to the dominant (im)politeness paradigm put forward by Jonathan Culpeper, which has its roots in Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson’s seminal work.

In recent years, telecollaboration has been gaining popularity among scholars, teachers, and students engaged in foreign language education because it facilitates the use of Internet-mediated communication tools to connect language and culture learners in geographically distant locations. Telecollaboration, as currently viewed in academic and classroom settings, places greater emphasis on the development of learners’ intercultural communicative competence. The problem with this approach is that this process may not consider the possibility that learners engaged in online intercultural exchanges could have limited or no knowledge about certain aspects of their own lingua-culture. We argue that, for learners to effectively share lingua-cultural knowledge with their online peers abroad, there must be a framework that supports the construction of learners’ own intra-cultural knowledge to provide a solid foundation for intercultural learning and communication. In this paper, we develop an inquiry-based model of telecollaboration incorporating both inquiry and online exchange based on the inquiry cycle, which includes engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation. This paper builds a case for the application of inquiry-based telecollaboration in a real classroom environment, which could not only help learners obtain and eventually share more authentic, deeper knowledge about their lingua-culture, but also promote informed intercultural exchange.

This paper reports findings from a case study of intercultural telecollaboration between elementary school students in South Korea and the United States via the social networking service Classting. The goal was to provide an opportunity for Korean students with limited exposure to authentic English language communication to interact with native speakers of English and for the US students to experience online intercultural activity in class with the hope of promoting intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in both student groups. The study applies Byram's (1997) model of ICC to analyze patterns of engagement within the communication between students. Findings indicate that although both student groups endeavored to create common ground in their intercultural encounters, there was a tendency to relate to each other by enacting a Tour Guide Approach towards their own culture and a Tourist Approach (Byram, 1997) towards the other culture. Findings also show, however, that students went beyond such approaches during "off task" interactional moments, drawing on shared small cultures to initiate more authentic interpersonal engagement and opportunities for knowledge exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the main aims of diverse education systems is the development of key competences to improve citizens' capacity for lifelong learning. However, some authors have signalled the challenge their measurement entails, among them the Learning to Learn (LtL) competence, which has also been shown to be complex to define and is under research. With a pre–post-test design and a variety of assessment instruments, this study compares the effect having an educational technology course and using telecollaboration has on the development of the LtL competence in a content and language integrated (CLIL) learning environment. Four groups of teacher trainees at two different universities took initial and after treatment surveys on LtL. Quantitative and qualitative data analysis indicated that technology boosts LtL but that telecollaboration helps develop LtL reflective concepts further in the form of processes by constructing or accomplishing learning goals in similar contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the identities produced by three L2 teachers of different backgrounds and experiences in an intercultural telecollaborative project that integrated the use of mixed-reality technology. Content-analysis (Hoffman et al., 2011) and multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, 2011) were employed to identify the identity elements produced during their multimodal interactions. Using Darvin and Norton's (2015) model of investment (MOI) as an interpretative lens, this study uncovers the different identities held by the participants, and the ways in which they aspired to become good teachers. Findings also show that mixed-reality simulated teaching provided a safe environment for exercising professional agency, thereby facilitating identity development and promoting the sense of getting there. Interactive reflection provided a site of struggle where the value of capital and imagined identities shifted. Dialoguing among the participants allowed them to reassess the value of pre-acquired capital and move to (re)imagining new teacher identities and restructuring ideological structures. Mixed-reality teaching and intercultural professional learning sensitizes the less experienced teachers to the socially and culturally complex roles required for L2 teachers. The mixed-reality simulation technology still has its limitations, mainly where classroom interaction is concerned, because the number of avatar students is small and they cannot move around physically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the rapid development of telecollaboration in foreign language education, telecollaborative exchanges involving Chinese as the target language have not received sufficient attention. Adopting an action research approach, this study focuses on examining the student perceptions as well as the challenges of a carefully designed Chinese-American telecollaborative learning program involving Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) students at a small liberal arts college in the US and Chinese-speaking English majors at a large university in China. This study drew on a variety of data for analysis, including naturally occurring interaction data (i.e., Skype conversations, WeChat group discussion transcripts), students' weekly reflection journals, informal interviews with the students throughout the semester, end-of-program interviews, student responses to an end-of-semester questionnaire, and the teacher-researcher reflective journal. The results showed that this program was, in general, well received among the CFL students at the US college. The intermediate-level CFL students evaluated this program more positively than the elementary-level students. However, this program also faced many challenges, such as scheduling and technological issues with Skype conversations, target language proficiency gap, perceived irrelevance to Chinese proficiency development, heavy workload, lack of depth in WeChat group discussion, and the demanding role of the teacher-researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the effects of group set-up in a semester-long telecollaborative discussion forum project in second-semester German. In order to explore whether group set-up affects learning in discussion forums, small groups of non-native speakers (NNS) of German were partnered either with native speakers (NS), other NNS with the same L1, or other NNS with different L1s. The study compared participation and negotiation of meaning routines between the three groups, and assessed overall writing development of the second-semester German learners as a result of forum participation. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as an analysis of the negotiation of meaning episodes (Varonis & Gass, 1985) to reveal whether any of the three groups offers a more productive language learning environment. Results indicate that the NS–NNS groups participated the most in the forum and produced the highest amount of negotiation of meaning routines. Students reached higher writing proficiency than comparable second-semester students who did not complete a discussion forum task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a case study research design, the present paper reports on a cross-cultural project (called Ibunka2019), in which the author monitored his English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classes. The project is an email-based exchange among learners of English from six countries (Algeria, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and the Netherlands). For data collection, the Algerian participants' emic perspective was accessed via their self-reports, gained by a post-project online survey; besides, their messages produced as well as the discussions with them during and after the project made valuable retrospective data for the present study. Particularly, the study discusses the merits of the project relative to the writing module, manifestations of learner autonomy, and the challenges encountered. Moreover, it tackled other relevant issues, namely the integration of interculturality, EFL learner mindset, and lingua franca perspective. This study adds to the scarce literature within the Algerian context on telecollaborative EFL teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the ways of researching the process of designing, developing, and using telecollaboration (also known as online intercultural exchange) to facilitate the learning of both linguistic and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in higher education courses in different educational contexts in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Although telecollaboration would intuitively seem to be an ideal medium for learning another language and about another culture, extensive research has shown that this learning process takes years and faces many challenges. This paper situates the research on language and culture learning within the broader scope of language and intercultural education (see Pedagogies, 8(2), for a report of an interview with Michael Byram, one of the originators of the concept of ICC). A multinational example of the integration of telecollaborative networks in European university language classes collaborating online, the INTENT project, is described. In addition, a telling case, the Cultura model, implemented in the United States, Europe, and Asia, demonstrates a successful approach (with accompanying research) to telecollaboration for language and culture learning. However, there are also invisible factors and unanticipated challenges that teachers and learners need to understand in order to benefit from these telecollaborative environments; these are examined at the end of the article.

In recent years, telecollaboration has been gaining popularity among scholars, teachers, and students engaged in foreign language education because it facilitates the use of Internet-mediated communication tools to connect language and culture learners in geographically distant locations. Telecollaboration, as currently viewed in academic and classroom settings, places greater emphasis on the development of learners’ intercultural communicative competence. The problem with this approach is that this process may not consider the possibility that learners engaged in online intercultural exchanges could have limited or no knowledge about certain aspects of their own lingua-culture. We argue that, for learners to effectively share lingua-cultural knowledge with their online peers abroad, there must be a framework that supports the construction of learners’ own intra-cultural knowledge to provide a solid foundation for intercultural learning and communication. In this paper, we develop an inquiry-based model of telecollaboration incorporating both inquiry and online exchange based on the inquiry cycle, which includes engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, and evaluation. This paper builds a case for the application of inquiry-based telecollaboration in a real classroom environment, which could not only help learners obtain and eventually share more authentic, deeper knowledge about their lingua-culture, but also promote informed intercultural exchange.

Over the past two decades, the development of computer-mediated communication technologies has modified human communication. Increasingly, representatives from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds are disposed to a constant negotiation of meanings. The main purpose of this study is to carry out a linguistically grounded analysis of the intercultural dialogue during online asynchronous written exchanges between Latvian and Cypriot students. Based on the politeness theory of Brown and Levinson (1987), which implies that all adult members of society are endowed with two universal aspects: “positive face” and “negative face”, and using the methods of content analysis and discourse analysis, this research analyses the way learners communicate or hide their position concerning sensitive cultural issues. To attain the objective of the present research, a quantitative and qualitative experimental study was conducted. The learners’ public messages in the discussion forums were juxtaposed with their private messages concerning proposed cultural topics. The findings show a strong interdependence between the politeness strategies used by the learners and the intercultural issue discussed. Thus, online intercultural discussions can be qualified as context-dependent and content-dependant. Discussion forum does not seem to be an appropriate environment to facilitate and encourage intercultural discussions about potentially controversial issues.

This study investigates how different ways of receiving peer written corrective feedback (WCF) affect learners' opportunities to actively engage in negotiation of form in tandem virtual encounters. Two types of WCF are compared, namely direct WCF plus oral metalinguistic explanation and indirect WCF plus oral prompt. During a telecollaboration programme between Italian students of English and US students of Italian, the participants (n = 16) were given several tasks to complete in dyads, including that of providing feedback on written compositions produced by their partner in the target language. The eight dyads were divided into two groups which received the same instructions for the activities, with the exception of instructions on how to provide WCF to their partner. The data of six dyads - three from each group - were analysed with regard to the quality of language-related episodes. The data analysis showed that indirect WCF plus oral prompt was more effective in leading the NNSs to actively engage with negotiation of form during the discussion phase. This result will be discussed together with other findings which emerged from the analysis, with the aim to provide useful insights on how to promote focus on form when implementing peer-review activities in telecollaboration programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to explore the outcomes of incidental pragmatics learning in the context of a telecollaboration programme, with a focus on the speech acts of criticising and suggesting. The programme involved Italian learners of English and American learners of Italian. It was organised around weekly Zoom video calls over an academic semester. Every second virtual encounter was devoted to providing and discussing feedback on written texts produced by the partner in the target language. The discussion was held in the feedback provider's L2. For this study, we focused on three intermediate-to-advanced learners of English whose data were analysed longitudinally. English native speakers' data, collected during a previous round of the telecollaboration programme, were analysed as a reference baseline. Signs of development in the linguistic behaviour of the three learners were observed with regard to the pragmatic strategies they used to comment on their partners' errors, but not in the distribution of internal modifiers and supportive moves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today’s world interactions between language learners take place not only in a direct form but also online. Online communication requires adequate forms of teaching, one of which can be learning through virtual exchanges. This paper shows how this form of learning allows to use the skills characteristic of online interactions defined in the CEFR Companion Volume. The research presented herein is based on data collected during a Polish-Italian virtual exchange. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of level A1 Italian students’ statements gathered during the project showed that participation in the virtual exchange was an opportunity for learners to use various skills related to online conversation and discussion defined in the CERF Companion Volume. The results also show that the number of statements created by the learners was significantly higher than the minimum necessary to complete the assigned tasks. Furthermore, the students demonstrated many online interaction skills ascribed to level A2, thus exceeding the level of their Italian language proficiency. For this reason, it can be concluded that virtual exchanges are an engaging form of learning for students, even at the beginner level, which allows them to unlock their potential for communicating in the target language with the use of online interaction skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the online exchanges of 28 pre-service foreign language teachers (14 in Russia, 14 in the US) as they discussed in English their opinions about cultural products, practices, and perspectives, and their study abroad experiences via voice-based telecollaboration. Informed by intercultural competence frameworks, a qualitative analysis of participants' oral exchanges revealed six intercultural learning moves performed by participants in order to develop their own and/or others' intercultural competence during interaction. A follow-up analysis of the intercultural learning moves that emerged in response to five purposefully selected discussion question prompts suggested that one prompt type—i.e. a combined Brainstorm + Reflection Question on Cultural Experiences—encouraged participants to make a higher number and a wider range of high-level intercultural learning moves. The study concluded with guidelines for developing discussion question prompts that are likely to promote the emergence of advanced intercultural learning moves via telecollaboration with global partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project (TAPP) collaborations (e.g., [Arnó, 14] [Vandepitte, 16]) to show how students in already-existing technical communication classes can join other classes in realistic transnational projects through ICT and thereby acquire and enhance various types of transversal competences necessary to students' future performance in a globalized workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the first 15 minutes of ten initial Teletandem Oral Sessions (iTOS), which means the first virtual encounter among speakers of different languages who want to study the each other’s language. Our aim is to verify iTOS genre status within a telecollaborative learning environment. We understand genres as communicative events organized in standard structures used by members of a discourse community to achieve their communicative purposes (Swales, 1990) and assume that the teletandem context is composed of a specific community with shared objectives. A study of iTOS had first been proposed by Aranha (2014), who analyzed nine iTOS and identified some recurrence in their discoursal structure. Our data, ten iTOS, are part of a previous version of MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus) (Aranha & Lopes, forthcoming) and participants are proficient in Portuguese and English. The video files were transcribed and the sessions were analyzed based on Aranha’s (2014) findings. We identified rhetorical organization for the sessions which was similar to Aranha’s, but varied depending on the learning scenarios, i.e. the learning context in which they occurred.