Telecollaboration: foreign language teachers (re)defining their role

Abstract

This study uses mixed methodology adapted from Nexus Analysis (Scollon & Wong Scollon, 2004) to analyse the development of in-service and pre-service foreign language teacher identity and their perception of their roles with a potential normalisation of personal digital devices (Bax, 2003) and telecollaboration (O'Dowd, 2009) in the classroom. Diverse institutional, personal, professional and informal discourses were traced to determine a nexus of practice with its constitutive discourses in place, interaction orders and historical bodies. Transgressive, conservative or transformative uses of technology or practices were noted. In an attempt to challenge current visions of possible selves (Kubanyiova, 2009), the teachers were asked to imagine alternative scenarios of technology integration and telecollaboration. Findings suggest that teacher identity results from a complex interplay of institutional, professional, and informal discourses which may be both obstacles and bridges to pedagogical transformation. Confronted by a globally connected classroom, these teachers experience difficulties to redefine their roles and to envisage a foreign language curriculum which integrates new unfamiliar literacies and skills. Telecollaboration, we suggest, should be considered in the context of a digitally mediated networked cultural revolution and may be used as a means to leverage a profound transformation of education.

Impactos del programa institucional Teletandem en el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en la Universidad Técnica de Cotopaxi, extensión Pujilí

“…This challenge determines the development of tele-collaborative activities. (Simon, Kleban, & Rodrigues, 2017).…”

Nexus Analysis as a Tool for Investigation of Digital Literacy and Digital Competency in Using LMS Labeled to Unlock Textbook Taught at King Khalid University

“…Is it so much part of the historical body the person sometimes wonders why it isn't as enjoyable as it used to be or as anticipated? 7 Phenomenon-based learning approaches, which put weight on activities and languages in their context should be implemented in teaching language context.These changing emphases are promoted in educational policies and are reflected in the curricula in relation to transversal competences, among other things. The changing focus of language pedagogy is further transforming the expectations set for teaching professionals (Dufva et al 2014).…”

“…Nexus analysis can be considered a suitable strategy for developing language teaching. Ensor (2017) suggests that teacher identity results from a complex interplay of institutional, professional and informal discourses, which may be both obstacles and bridges to pedagogical transformation. Kuure (2016) combined cultural-historical activity theory with nexus analysis showing how the language students' past experiences of language learning in formal contexts were interwoven with their pedagogical choices and visions.…”

Towards a shared vision of language, language learning, and a school project in emergence

“…What influences language teachers' understandings and visions about learning and teaching a language is the kind of educational discourses they have experienced and participated in as learners in their own past (Norris 2014;Murphy 2015;Moodie 2016, 38;Kuure et al 2016). Pedagogical transformation emerges from a complex interplay of institutional, professional, and informal discourses that may function as hindrances but also as bridges for new practices (Ensor, Kleban and Rodrigues 2017). Thus, the appropriation of new understandings and practices through an interplay of theoretical consideration and hands-on work is a complex process that evolves multimodally (Koivistoinen, Kuure and Tapio 2016).…”