Creating a Micro-Immersion Environment Through Telecollaboration

This chapter offers an innovative approach for implementing telecollaborative activities in order to enable students to connect with peers in real-time, with the goal of creating a micro-immersion experience called a “Virtual Language Exchange”. This chapter describes and compares two intermediate Spanish classes participating in Virtual Language Exchanges via Skype: one paired with peers from the target language and culture, and one paired with peers from within the class itself. Students from both groups participate in meaningful interactions in the target language in order to complete the assigned task-based activities. The chapter argues that finding new ways to bring the target language to life by using technology, like the Virtual Language Exchange experience described here, can benefit students' foreign language development in multiple ways.

Beginning Chinese as a Foreign Language Online Course Design

The explosive worldwide growth of the internet inspired the initial emergence and further implementation of distance teaching and learning in a multitude of areas, including languages (Harasim, 2000; Holmberg et al., 2005; White, 2003, 2006; Blake & Delforge, 2007; Hampel & de los Arcos, 2013). The change from the traditional classroom environment to a more diversified and flexible distance setting has been embraced by many educators, administrators, and students, yet it has also generated doubt and resistance from others. Students may potentially benefit from more efficient uses of multimedia resources with increased critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving skills (Tricker et al., 2001; Felix, 2002; Spangle, Hodne & Schierling, 2002; Levy & Stockwell, 2006). Meanwhile, critics also highlight the potential drawbacks for distance learning students, including isolation from peers, lack of engagement, and insufficient technical support (Shield 2000; Muilenburg and Berge, 2005; Simonson et al., 2009; Berge 1999; Hara and Kling 2000; Bower, 2001; Wang & Chen 2013). This chapter concerns the ways in which distance online learning content can be designed and developed through the utilization of multimedia and cultural-enriched materials for first-year-level College Chinese Foreign Language (CFL) courses. Discussions about employing virtual interaction, including student-content, student-instructor, and student-student interaction in course design and course design development. The chapter will end with discussions of the current challenges and new directions for a better practice of teaching and learning of Chinese language courses at a distance.

Reflection

This chapter is a commentary on the state of foreign language education in the digital age.

Mexican Heritage ELL and Native English Speaker Interaction

This case study explores 1) the potential of a dual language program that provides an English Language Learner (ELL) and a Spanish Learner (SL) with opportunities to engage in authentic as well as mutual language exchange; and, 2) the multiple types of language strategies employed by adolescents to teach and learn language from one another in tandem learning situations. Findings from a transcription analysis of 12 English and Spanish videotaped sessions of one dyad reveal novel and in depth information about strategies utilized in compensatory, administrative, and social ways to extend the flow of communication in tandem learning. Findings indicate that tandem language learning not only provides a space for language learners to engage in plural strategies to promote teaching and learning, but also learner metacognition when peer learners employ interlingual and plurilingual measures to compensate for language gaps. Implications for the study of online tandem language learning are also highlighted.

Developing Key Competences for Life-Long Learning through Virtual Collaboration

This study presents the findings from a group of forty-nine fourth year undergraduate students who were trained in a blended learning environment over two months in order to acquire base knowledge and hands-on experience about information and communication technologies (ICT) and their possible applications to the EFL classroom. The course was taught in English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) and participants worked in a wiki designed specially to facilitate discussion and collaboration in the foreign language. Data were gathered from the participants' answers to an end-of-course questionnaire that featured eight five-point Likert-scale questions and five open-ended questions; quantitative and qualitative analyses were then performed upon the answers. Our findings and discussions elaborate on the impact the course had on the participants' perceptions regarding the acquisition of key competences for life-long learning.

Teaching Spanish in the Digital Age

Many hybrid programs have been created in higher education institutions in the US for the last 15 years, most of them consisting of the combination of classroom instruction and an online platform. However, the flipped classroom has become very popular recently as a result of this hybrid model of instruction. The purpose of this chapter is to respond to the following questions: What is a more recommended model for teaching Spanish in the digital age? What kind of activities should we focus on, as instructors, in the classroom? What works best for students to study and practice outside of the classroom? Both models will be described with their advantages and disadvantages so that instructors can choose the one that better fits their courses.

The Structural and Dialogic Aspects of Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs)

This case study contributes to the growing body of research on Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs) by examining their structural aspects (i.e., layout and format) and dialogic nature (i.e., interaction and negotiation) from the language learner's perspective. This exploratory study draws on data from 15 student teachers of English as a Second/Foreign Language at a private graduate institution on the East Coast of the U.S. As required by their technology elective, participants who were enrolled in a beginner-level LMOOC of their choice kept a log of their learning process/progress over a period of eight weeks. At the end of the course, they were invited to fill out a post-project questionnaire to reflect on their overall experience. The goal of the project was to educate student teachers on the pedagogical underpinnings of LMOOCs while exposing them to online language learning. In this study, the focus was primarily on self-reported system interaction and profile data since the Author was not involved in the design of any of the LMOOCs. Data collection instruments included a needs analysis, weekly LMOOC logs, and a post-LMOOC questionnaire. According to the questionnaire results, student-teachers' motivation was “satisfactory,” and only four out of 15 student teachers completed their LMOOCs. Results further showed that structural aspects (i.e., content, materials, and procedures) rank higher than dialogic aspects (i.e., scaffolding and feedback). This questions the over-reliance on content transmission and instructivist (or teacher-instruction) approaches in LMOOCs, especially since MOOCs enrolment numbers rely heavily on learner's self-motivation to sign up and complete a course.

The Role of Multi-Media in Expanding Pre-Service Teachers' Understanding of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Classrooms and Furthering Their Professional Identities

This chapter details a qualitative study conducted with pre-service elementary school student teachers enrolled in a Masters course on cultural and linguistic diversity at one university teacher education institute in France. The study aimed to evaluate the impact of the course on the student teachers' understanding of culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms and questioned whether the use of multi-media resources throughout the course could contribute to fostering a greater sense of empathy towards their future culturally and linguistically diverse students. The data analysis reveals that the use of video in particular, in combination with theoretical readings, was highly instrumental in helping the students to understand the concepts linked to second language acquisition and in providing them with strategies for their linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. The authors question whether the use of multi-media is sufficient to foster a sense of empathy in students and suggest further pedagogical interventions.

Globalization and Possibilities for Intercultural Awareness

This case study explores the teaching and learning of Arabic at one Catholic university campus, with a focus upon the complex interactions between language and culture in a postmodern globalized context. Specifically, it examines the use of “multimodal culture portfolios” as a means to engage students both linguistically and culturally in classroom and community discourses. Through their interactions and co-construction of knowledge with other participants, these students are led to think about the multiple communicative contexts that are shaping and being shaped by them. Data collection was conducted through survey questionnaires and students' responses to the assigned culture portfolio. The participants were made up of students enrolled in first year Arabic courses during the 2012 spring semester. The purpose of this exploratory case is to attempt to understand students' investments in Arabic and their cultural knowledge of the Arab world pre and post their enrollment in the Arabic courses. It also seeks to understand their socialization into the culture assignment and the main challenges they faced in accessing, interacting with, and reflecting upon cultural aspects related to the Arab world. This study's findings are significant for enriching the general conversation on intercultural proficiency in classroom discourse, curricular decisions, roles and challenges of teachers, and the involvement in target language communities, particularly in less commonly taught languages such as Arabic.

Challenges and Perspectives of Language Education Technology in Brazil: From Confronting Native Language Loss to Implementing EFL Classes

Our chapter aims to explore the challenges, advances, and perspectives of language-education technology in Brazil. Language-education is an extremely important topic for Brazil because many indigenous languages are nearing extinction due to the legacies of colonization and the fact that Portuguese, the national language of Brazil, is the only official language and thus the single most utilitarian method of communication. This issue is further complicated by Brazil's increasingly globalized economy, which, for many individuals, demands the acquisition of a foreign language in order to compete. The English language has been introduced into the curriculum of the vast majority Brazilian public schools over the course of the past few decades. Additionally, several private, for-profit English learning enterprises now have widespread services throughout the country. But rates of English (and even Portuguese) fluency still vary greatly among the population. This raises a number of critical questions that will be discussed in this work. Why is learning a new language such a challenge? Which methodologies can be utilized to increase language acquisition and build fluency? What are the new technologies that are used in teaching a second language in Brazilian schools, and how is their impact being measured? Are Brazilian teachers prepared to integrate new technologies and innovative methods of teaching and learning? Our methodology involves bibliographical research including a literature review, a case-study, and participatory research through semi-structured interviews. Our results have shown that several technologies are being implemented in Brazil, and that as a theoretical framework, educational communication has been recognized as a powerful tool to incorporate such technologies in language education. Overall, the use of learning technologies is common and growing among students, while it is increasing at a more institutional pace among teachers.