“Are you able to access this website at all?” – team negotiations and macro-level challenges in telecollaboration

Abstract

This exploratory study contributes to the underexplored area of collaborative task formats in telecollaboration. The study investigates how English as a second language (ESL) student teachers in the US and English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers in Turkey negotiated the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based English language learning tasks. The overall pedagogical goal of this spring 2014 project was to provide participants in different educational and institutional settings an opportunity to collaboratively explore and evaluate the affordances of technology tools in the design of joint learning tasks. This ethnographic case study triangulates questionnaires, telecollaboration logs, and computer-mediated communication data (blogs, emails) to examine the types of negotiation (personal, interactive, procedural) telecollaborative teams displayed at the project's micro levels (self, situated telecollaborative activity) and macro levels (institutional setting, political context). Findings indicate that one telecollaborative team, Global Team 2, effectively managed their learning as a group by making key decisions collectively about their work processes. The team's high number of procedural negotiation instances suggests a high degree of task-orientation, which may have aided their task completion. In contrast, the number of personal and interactive negotiation types was low. The latter, however, may have been called for midway through the project, when unexpected political developments in Turkey unfolded. Repercussions disturbed Turkish participants and affected social media, which were at the core of this telecollaboration. Implications focus on foregrounding personal and interactive negotiation via virtual Global Team check-ins, as well as on expanding collaborative tasks by incorporating perspectives on the wider institutional and sociopolitical contexts of participating institutions.

Technology in Second Language Education: Overcoming the Digital Divide

“…In her 2016 study, Fuchs identified that factors beyond the educational setting itself also limit the use of the ICT teachers have in a developing country. The author conducted a study in order to explore "how English as a second language student-teachers in the US and English as a foreign language student-teachers in Turkey negotiated the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based English language learning tasks" (Fuchs, 2016(Fuchs, : 1152. The aim was for the student-teachers to telecollaborate through Google Sites, a shared wiki platform.…”

“…Another aspect regarding training and development is teachers who are reluctant to the implementation of CALL and who generally receive training from technology enthusiasts (Chamber & Bax, 2006). Therefore, various authors consider that the best way to implement training sessions on ICT would be through collaborative peer work, as opposed to top-down instruction from a technology expert/enthusiast (Kessler, 2006;Fuchs, 2016). Concerning this, Fuchs (2016: 1153) states that telecollaboration, or collaboration through ICT, is a part of CALL training "from which pre-service and in-service teachers can benefit a great deal."…”

“…Regarding this factor, some of the teachers interviewed by the authors expressed the need of proper CALL training as they do not perceive workshops to be the best solution, as Kessler (2006) formal education on ICT for the L2 class might be a difficult goal to achieve, as teachers always fall short in terms of time to evaluate their pupils, attend meetings, create and adapt materials, in addition to their personal lives. However, teachers could overcome these limitations through CALL programs that integrate distance, collaboration and small action research projects (Kessler, 2006;Brudermann, 2010;Fuchs 2016), whereby they can complete further education within their available times.…”

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“…Scholars have reported the developmental trend from asynchronous communication to synchronous. For instance, in recent years, telecollaboration has advanced into a more mature and diversified stage, involving e-mail, blogs, audio-conferencing, or social networking (Fuchs, 2016).…”

Teacher’s Presence in Synchronous Mobile Chats in a Chinese University

“…Again, Chinese students, affected by the Confucian culture, are sensitive to other individuals' feelings and care about their face. Fuchs (2016) reported that US students appeared to be more task-oriented instead of relationshiporiented. Perhaps the current study reinforces the cultural stereotype of individualistic and collectivistic culture as Chinese students expressed great concerns about their relationship with the teacher and other students.…”