Chronotopic translanguaging and the mobile languaging subject: insights from an Algerian academic sojourner in the UK

This study discusses the impact of spatial, temporal and virtual mobility on how mobile individuals talk about language in their world, and how they use language offline and online to communicate over time and across space. We introduce the notion of chronotopic translanguaging to highlight the significance of merging time and place in sociolinguistics. Doing so, we present a rather stretched understanding of time to include references to real time, online compressed time, linguistic ideologies and practices carried over time and challenged in recent times, as well as understanding time as an ecological factor. We interviewed Ekram, an Algerian academic sojourner, and observed her Facebook profile before and after coming to the UK. Our findings suggest that the networked lives of the participant beget fluid translanguaging practices that are constantly (re)negotiated depending to the ecology of interaction. Through entering and existing multiple time-space frames, Ekram found herself reunited with communicative repertoires she has not used for years. She also developed new relationships with other repertoires. This study concludes by emphasising the usefulness of chronotopic translanguaging as a conceptual tool that permits, and accounts for, the time-place influence on how mobile individuals deploy their communicative repertoires.

What Skills are Involved in Open Virtual Mobility? A Students’ Perspective from Italy and Spain

Virtual Mobility can enhance curriculum development in Higher Education by promoting international co-design and collaborative work among students and lecturers through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). During the spread of COVID-19 pandemic, virtual forms of students’ mobility increased considerably, allowing learners to continue or start VM experience even if boarders and campuses around the world were closed. The recent outbreak in interest and activity related to VM requires educational researchers to study this learning practice in depth in order to provide data and effective indications in terms of skills promotion. During the academic year 2020-2021, a team of lecturers of Teacher Education programs from the Roma Tre University (Rome, Italy) and the University of the Balearic Islands (Balearic Islands, Spain) agreed to work in open digital environment, organising specific VM activities for 38 university students. Specifically, students were asked to meet online, design and collaboratively create, in groups from the two countries, Open Digital Resources (OERs) to be used in international online contexts with their future pupils. This paper presents the design of the learning experience together with self-assessment results of the professional and transverse competences promoted. Conclusions also reflect on the new improvements to be done for new editions of the activity.

How Digital Inclusion Increase Opportunities for Young People: Case of NEETs from Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey

This paper examines the perspectives of rural NEETs in the information society. Our analysis focuses on the situation of three European countries—Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey—characterized by a high share of rural areas and a population of NEETs. From a methodological point of view, we use alternative research methods (secondary data analysis) with statistical methods (simple linear regression). From a theoretical point of view, we will opt for a multidimensional analysis perspective: the theory of digital divide, digital inclusion, virtual mobility, etc. Through data analysis, we expect to obtain a more complete and detailed picture of the ICT situation in rural areas (level of digital skills, level of digital inclusion) to demonstrate the importance of ICT in optimizing virtual mobility for the living conditions of the population, especially the NEET population.

From real to virtual mobility: Erasmus students’ transition to online learning amid the COVID-19 crisis

This study explores international students’ perceptions of the transition to the online learning environment while they were studying on an Erasmus+ Study Mobility Programme at host universities in Europe during the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. Applying the theoretical framework based on the affective, behavioural and cognitive aspects of adaptation in the case of international students, this study reveals what adaptive responses and decisions sojourners made, and how their study experience and learning capabilities were challenged by the restrictive measures introduced at host universities due to the state of emergency declared in the host countries. Fourteen semi-structured interviews with both incoming and outgoing international students were conducted. Results reveal that studying online with reduced social interaction was a real challenge to Erasmus students. They were lacking cultural knowledge of the destination country as well as the insights typically arising from face-to-face teaching and social interactions. However, findings also expose students’ satisfaction with their academic accomplishments. In this regard, specific proposals are made for universities that consider virtual mobility programmes for international students in the future.

Virtual Exchange to Develop Cultural, Language, and Digital Competencies

Many researchers have underlined the benefits of student mobility in strengthening their communication skills. Studying a foreign language and fostering knowledge about behavioural attitudes are the most common research cases. One of the major issues of mobility, by its very nature, is that it implies significant travel and accommodation costs. Virtual mobility, or Virtual Exchange (VE), can be introduced as a proactive alternative solution. This work presents an evaluation of a telecollaborative online course model organised as a VE between German and Moroccan universities. It was established to explore the benefits of integrating a VE experience by practicing some 21st-century knowledge elements as tools for the development of intercultural, language, and digital competencies from the perspective of mobility. In this paper, we present a VE model and its design, structure, and progress. Then, we evaluate this first experience to overcome some challenges that similar future experiences could face. We analyse the tools proposed in this design, the interactions between the different actors, and their feedback. The evaluative study shows the acquisition of awareness of cultural differences and the improvement of language skills through practice in addition to the development of some digital skills.