iTECLA International Conference on Intercultural Learning in the Digital Age: Building up Telecollaborative Networks

 

Guest keynote speakers

 

Marina Orsini-Jones, Coventry University

Reflections ‘in’/’on’ and ‘for’ action: MOOCs, Telecollaboration and Gamification for a Holistic Approach to Language Teacher Education

Despite the fact that many innovations, like mobile phones, have become normalised in our daily life, there is evidence that language teachers in the tertiary sector are still not at ease with the idea of embedding technological innovation in their practice. Some language teachers would also appear to hold strong negative beliefs regarding blended and online learning. This talk explores ways in which language teachers can be supported in adopting a holistic and reflective process-oriented approach to the embedding of technology in their practice.
Examples will be provided of case studies which also aim to counter the marginalisation of technology in the professional development of language teachers. Most key texts used in language teacher education (e.g. Richards & Rodgers, 2014) do not appear to fully address the online dimension, its affordances and how transformative effective engagement with technology can prove to be for teachers’ agency. Moreover, many teacher training textbooks (both theoretical and practical) reinforce language teachers’ scepticism regarding technology and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), by relegating the subject to a separate chapter, so that the embedding of technology is presented as an ‘add on’, an optional extra.
The first case study reported, BMELTET (Blending MOOCs into Language Teacher Education with Telecollaboration) illustrates how reflecting on blended and online learning ‘in action’, ‘on action’ and ‘for action’ helped some postgraduate students involved in teacher education with reconceptualising their understanding of technology and dispelling their fear and/or scepticism regarding its embedding into their practice.
The second case study presents an innovative way of embedding Augmented Reality (AR) into the teaching of English at B1 level with a manga-style narrative created by a multidisciplinary team of staff and undergraduate students: the British Council SPARK project, also supported by telecollaboration. This example of educational gamification illustrates how powerful a full immersion active learning experience can be for students on a teacher education course and how effective the language learning experience can be for the learners involved.
The talk will conclude with some recommendations on how to support language teachers in their holistic journey of discovery and acquisition of the critical digital competences needed in the 21st century.

Bionote

Prof Marina Orsini-Jones is Associate Head of School International and Course Director for the MA in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics in the School of Humanities, Coventry University. Marina carries out research on Education Technology in blended settings (e.g. MOOCs and Virtual Exchanges) , on Threshold Concepts and on Intercultural Communicative Competence. Her most recent project is ‘BMELTT – Blending MOOCs for English language teacher training (British Council ELTRA)’. Marina is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

 

Margarita Vinagre, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Pedagogical approaches to intercultural learning: Linguistic landscapes in telecollaboration

Recent studies have emphasized the importance that the linguistic landscape, understood as the use of language as it appears in the public space, can have for language learning since, in this space, language, culture and identity unequivocally intertwine (Blackwood et al. 2016). This language takes the form of “public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings” (Landry and Bourhis, 1997, p. 25). Other authors describe the linguistic landscape as the ‘word on the street’ (Foust and Fuggle, 2011) or ‘cities as texts’ (Mondada, 2000). From this perspective, cities are dense and feature signs that must be deciphered by the citizens who participate in the dynamic, literary display of the metropolis. These signs structure our interaction with the public space telling us where we are, what to do or how to be. They index our linguistic and social environment and our relationship with the world, thus contributing to the symbolic construction of the public sphere (Shohami 2015). Readers may decipher what the texts intend to communicate, interpret the rapport between the writer and intended reader and consider the social and cultural repercussions of the messages (Colletta et al, 1990). The presence or absence of languages also sends direct and indirect messages with regard to the centrality versus the marginality of certain languages in society (Shohamy, 2006). At the same time, “the signs can be a display of identity by certain language groups and the use of several languages in the linguistic landscape can contribute to its linguistic diversity” (Cenoz and Gorter, 2008, p.268). Together with these aspects, the linguistic landscape can also add information about “societal multilingualism by focusing on language choices, hierarchies of languages, contact-phenomena, regulations, and aspects of literacy” (Gorter, 2013, p.191). In the linguistic landscape, anyone can become a language learner and a learning opportunity may occur anywhere.

This presentation aims to offer a framework that allows for the incorporation of the linguistic landscape to promote intercultural learning, provide examples of language learning activities in and with the linguistic landscape and offer suggestions regarding the integration of the linguistic landscape in virtual exchanges in order to trigger discussions about language status, power, social representation and (cultural) identity, that may encourage students to reconcile their own knowledge and experience with those of their partners.

Bionote

Margarita Vinagre is an Associate Professor at Autónoma University of Madrid where she teaches Educational Technologies and English Language and Linguistics. Her main research interests are the integration of technologies in the foreign language classroom, computer-mediated communication, and the implementation of intercultural exchanges for the development of linguistic and generic competences. She has published widely on these topics and is currently the coordinator of the VELCOME project on the integration of virtual exchange for key competence development in higher education, with 20 participating researchers from 5 countries.

 

 

 

Upscaling virtual exchange in university education: Moving from innovative classroom practice to regional

 governmental policy

 

Dr. Robert O’Dowd

University of León, Spain

robert.odowd@unileon.es

 

Virtual exchange is an educational practice which involves the engagement of groups of learners in extended periods of online intercultural interaction and collaboration with international peers as an integrated part of their educational programmes and under the guidance of educators and/ or facilitators.  Despite over 20 years of research and recent large-scale initiatives such as Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange, this approach continues to have a limited impact in higher education. 

Based on the qualitative and quantitative data of EVALUATE (http://www.evaluateproject.eu/results/) an Erasmus+ KA3 European Policy Experiment which brought together practitioners, researchers and ministerial policy makers from five European countries and autonomous regions, this article examines the challenges involved in implanting and upscaling an innovative practice such as virtual exchange in university internationalisation practices. Barriers to take-up and integration at classroom, institutional and policy levels are identified in the data. Following this, a case study from a Spanish regional autonomy is used to illustrate how an international practice such as virtual exchange can gain recognition and support though the coordination of bottom-up and top-down initiatives.

The EVALUATE Group. (2019). Evaluating the impact of virtual exchange on initial teacher education: a European policy experiment. Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2019.29.9782490057337

 

             

Dr. Robert O’Dowd comes from Ireland. He is associate professor in English as a Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics at the University of León, Spain. He has taught at universities in Ireland, Germany and Spain and has published widely on the application of Telecollaboration and Virtual Exchange in university education. 

His most recent publication is the co-edited volume Online Intercultural Exchange Policy, Pedagogy, Practice (2016) for Routledge. He has participated in many international projects and recently coordinated INTENT – a project financed by the European Commission aimed at promoting online intercultural exchange in European Higher Education (www.unicollaboration.eu). He recently coordinated the Erasmus+ Key Action 3 project Evaluating and Upscaling Telecollaborative Teacher Education (EVALUATE). 

His publications are available here: http://unileon.academia.edu/RobertODowd and you can follow him on twitter: @robodowd