Student-driven telecollaborative action-research: lessons learnt from students’ contributions to

online learning projects integrated into the curriculum at Coventry University (UK)

Elwyn Lloyd and

Marina Orsini-Jones 

Applied Research Group

Pedagogical Innovation in Languages and Literature

Coventry University’s

mission statement:

“We aspire to be a dynamic, global, enterprising university. We will work in partnership with external organisations through our research and engage our students as partners in a community of learning.”

‘The Global Graduate’

Graduates able “to confront and deal with the prejudices, stereotypes and myths that they hold about other social groups and cultures and that others may hold about them” (O’Dowd quoting Byram 2007: 29).

ILLE (Intercultural Language Learning Exchanges)MexCo (Mexico City/Monterrey-Coventry)

Ariadna (León/Koblenz/Tel Aviv and Coventry)

Project Lead: Marina Orsini-Jones Project Lead: Robert O’Dowd

Moodle supported with dedicated ‘metaweb’

Moodle Supported with dedicated ‘metaweb’

Task-based and assessed (intercultural learning objects with Mahara)

Task-based and assessed (intercultural Blogs)

‘Hybrid telecollaboration’: English as a Lingua Franca but with opportunities to practise other languages

‘Hybrid telecollaboration’: English as a Lingua Franca but with opportunities to practise other languages

Semi-structured

‘Expert Student’-facilitated/moderated

Structured

Tutor-facilitated/moderated

The action research cycle, after Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988:14 and 2005

(MexCo, with reflections on Ariadna)

• Reconnaissance • Planning• Acting• Observing• Reflecting• Re-planning

(and cycle starts again)

Reflection in actionReflection on actionSchön 1983

Action Research Phases in MexCo (1) Pilot:

‘Organic’ growth, informal, not integrated into the curriculum

Dedicated Moodle area with basic forums and basic information

Analysis of data by an ‘expert student’ – MA in ELT (April-Aug 2012)

Interviews and questionnaires administered in both Mexico and UK.

Discourse analysis of exchanges (SFL).

Exploring ‘agency’. Local needs: particularity (Kumaravadivelu 2011)

Action Research Phases in MexCo (2) Phase 1:

Addressing themes of interest that emerged in phase 1

Curricular integration (development of assessed intercultural tasks based on

UG students’ ‘organic’ exchanges’) Sep 2012 – Jan 2013

‘Expert student researcher’ now become research assistant involved in

analysing data

Focus groups, questionnaires and individual interviews with students in both Mexico and the UK, feeding into Phase 2

Action Research Phases MexCo (3) Phase 2:

Collection and analysis of new data Classification of data via Nvivo and design of new environment to address issues that have emerged with more ‘expert students’ + design of tailor-made e-materials and e-tivities (Salmon) + tasks that were re-tested by new groups of students in October - November 2013 Students supported by ‘expert students’ from the year before who also created dedicated e-guides on YouTube (e.g. Prezi; Mahara) and/or on paper (for Blogger) Discourse analysis of exchanges (SFL used)

Action Research Phases MexCo (4)

Phase 3

Focus group interviews, questionnaires

Re-design of Moodle environment to address students’ needs and

wants

Repeat of assessed collaborative digital object design

Samples (with cross-fertilisation between MexCo and Ariadna): collaboration and product creation; (sample 2); (sample 3)

Telecollaboration through the ‘looking glass’of our expert students’perspectives to identify troublesome knowledge(issues identified: all those listed by Lamy in her plenary and...)

Intercultural critical incident 1: intercultural discourse issues and Big C – little c

Tips from an effective intercultural communicator (English as a Lingua Franca TC)

Overall, I think what helped me maintain discussions was:• bearing in mind that I was communicating with people whose

first language wasn’t English • bearing in mind that the point of going on the MexCo forums

was to talk to people• having an interest in learning about other cultures• having an interest in grammar and helping people with it• remembering that I was, informally, an ambassador for both

CU and the UK, which meant I aimed to be polite and friendly towards other participants (our stress)

Need to teach politeness and effective online interaction: critical incident 2

Data emerging: is Intercultural Cyberpragmatic Communicative

Competence (ICCC) a threshold concept?

“Threshold concepts lead not only to transformed thought but to a transfiguration of identity and adoption of an extended discourse.”

(Meyer and Land 2005:375)

Implications for teaching and learning• Identification of the thresholds within a subject:

staff and student perspectives.

• Creating learning activities designed to “scaffold” or support students to acquire concepts.

• Whilst students may have feeling of exhilaration brought about by acquiring a concept, they might equally experience a sense of loss or stress in the ‘liminal’ space around the threshold.

Interaction and intercultural dimension of cyberpragmatics

Language as social practice (new literacy group, Gee et al 1996; 2000)

Should we start systematically teaching the discourse features of online interaction?

Should we start seeing it as an academic digital literacy genre and helping students to notice its salient features (including ICC)?

Telecollaboration in academic settings as Digital Multimodal Genre for Specific Academic Purposes - ICC integral part of it

Problematic considerations (some highlighted in

Lamy and Goodfellow 2010)• Literacy clash (tension formal/informal practice –

academic work/SNSs interaction)• SNSs=networked individualism (compatible with co-

construction of knowledge?)• Students’ resistance to the blurring of the boundaries

between the personal and the curricular spheres in their learning

• Each person as a node

+ students’ and staff’s ‘social capital’

The 21st century outlook

Digital LiteraciesHafner, Chick and Jones (2013: 1)

They include the ability to search and critically evaluate large quantities of information in online databases; construct meaningful reading paths through hypertext documents; comment on the online writing of others in appropriate ways; construct knowledge collaboratively through online platforms like blogs and wikis; create multimodal texts that combine visual, aural, and textual information; remix online texts creatively; and interact appropriately with others in a range of online spaces.

Quite a big ‘ask’: do we prepare students for this?

Exchange from focus group interviews December 2013

• P5: We didn’t really have a lecture –

• P3: - on this.

• P4: Yeah.

• P5: On, on, on communi-, on communicating with, with the Mexicans

Tension: individualised discourse practices vs telecollaborative constructivist pedagogical

models

As a consequence of paying attention to multiple sources of potential relevance and trying to process all of them in parallel (multitasking), Internet users might develop a reluctance to devote cognitive resources to stimuli that do not offer immediate reward or involve deferred relevance

Relevance theory as partial explanation for 0 postings? (Yus 2011:12)

Sperber and Wilson: (1986;1996)

Issues for discussion• We like to be ‘guides on the side’ but are we actually

doing enough guiding?• More guidance towards developing an online savoir

être?• Development of students’ Cyberpragmatic Competence?• Development of our own ‘CC’, ICC and ICCC?• CMC norms vary between different ‘languacultures’

(Agar, 1995)

“Research into online politeness, or netiquette, is rather novel branch of CMC research.”

Sharifian and Jamarani 2013:11

• Leech (1983) – ‘politeness maxims’ Tact, Generosity, Approbation, Modesty, Agreement, Sympathy (although ‘Empathy’ would be better here)

• Awareness of linguistic norms and (cyber)pragmatic peculiarities

Summing up what we are learning from our students

• To scaffold the introduction to online interaction and discuss digital literacy requirements before, during and after telecollaborative projects with students to develop Intercultural Cyberpragmatic Communicative Competence (ICCC) (linking blocks in Helm and Guth’s model)

• To thoroughly (and critically) discuss beliefs on pedagogical and digital literacy principles with partners before we start the next project

• To work with student experts to design a cyberpragmatic guide on ‘rules of online TC discourse engagement’

…and thank you

….to all members of the MexCo & Ariadna teams – students in particular

Any questions?

• e.lloyd@coventry.ac.uk

• m.orsini@coventry.ac.uk

Selected Bibliography

Agar, M. (1995) Language Shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York: William Morrow.

Barro, A., Jordan, S., and Roberts, C. (1998) ‘Cultural practice in everyday life: the language learner as ethnographer’. In Byram, M. And Fleming, M. Language Learning in Intercultural Perspective. Cambridge UP.

Byram, M. (1997) Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Byram, M. Gribkova, B. and Starkey, H. (2002) Developing the Intercultural Dimension in Language Teaching: A practical introduction for teachers. Strasbourg: Council of Europe

Gumperz, J. J. and Roberts, C. (1991). Understanding in intercultural encounters. In J.

• Blommaert and J. Verschueren (Eds.) The Pragmatics of Intercultural Communication. (p.51-90). Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Guth,S, and Helm, F. (2010)Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, Literacies, and Intercultural Learning in the 21st Century. NY: Peter Lang

Helm, F, Guth, S. and Farrah, M. Promoting dialogue or hegemonic practice? Power issues in telecollaboration. Language Learning and Technology. June 2012, Volume 16, Number 2 , pp. 103–127

Legutke, M. And Thomas, M. (1991) Process and Experience in the Language Classroom. Harlow: Longman.  

Liddicoat A. J. and Scarino A. (2013) Intercultural Language teaching and Learning. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

Kramsch, C. (2003) From Practice to Theory and Back Again. In Byram, M. and Grundy, P. (eds.) Context and Culture in Language Teaching and Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2001) ‘Towards a Postmethod Pedagogy’. TESOL Quarterly Vol.35:4.pp.537-560

Hafner, C.A., Chick, A. and Jones, R.H. (2013) Engaging with Digital Literacies in TESOL. TESOL Quartely, 47, Vol 4, Dec. 2013 p. 812-815

Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2006). Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. London: Routledge/Falmer. 

O’Dowd, R. and Ware, P (2009) Critical issues in telecollaborative task design. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 22 (2): 173–188

O’Dowd, R. (2010) Online foreign language interaction: Moving from the periphery to the core of foreign language education? Language Teaching Journal 1-13. Available from: http://www3.unileon.es/personal/wwdfmrod/LTJ.pdf

Orsini-Jones, M., Lloyd, E. Gazeley, Z., Lopez-Vera B., Pibworth, L. and Bescond, G. (forthcoming 2014),  Student-driven intercultural awareness raising with MexCo: agency, autonomy and threshold concepts in a telecollaborative project between the UK and Mexico, in O’Dowd, R., Dooley, M. and Tcherepashenets, N. (eds)Telecollaboration and Lessons in World Citizenship. NY: Peter Lang

Sercu, L. (2004) ‘Assessing intercultural competence: a framework for systematic test development in foreign language education and beyond’. Intercultural Education, 15, (1): 74-88

Sharifian, F. and Jamarani, M. (2013) Language and Intercultural Communication in the New Era. NY: Routledge

Ware, P., Liaw, M-L, and Warschauer, M.(2012) ‘The use of digital media in teaching English as an international language’. In Alsagoff et el (eds) Principles and Practices for teaching English as an International Language. London: Routledge.

Weniger, C. and Kiss, T. (2013) Culture in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Textbooks: A Semiotic Approach. TESOL quarterly. Volume 47, Issue 4, pages 694–716.

Wendt, M. (2003) Context, Culture and Construction: Research Implications of Theory formation in Foreign Language methodology, in In Byram, M. and Grundy, P. (eds.) Context and Culture in Language Teaching and Learning. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Yus, F. (2011) Cyberpragmatics: Internet-mediated communication in context. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.