Strategies to engage teachers in telecollaboration projects: insights from the TILA project

Kristi Jauregi Ondarra (Fontys University of Applied Sciences & Utrecht University) Martine Derivry-Plard (University of Paris 6)

TILA: Telecollaboration for Intercultural language Acquisition

(2013-2015)

Project goals

• (1) to innovate, enrich and make foreign language teaching programmes more attractive and effective by encouraging the implementation of telecollaboration activities in secondary schools across Europe;

• (2) to empower teachers and innovate teacher training programmes in order to assist them in developing ICT literacy skills as well as organisational, pedagogical and intercultural competences to guarantee adequate integration of telecollaboration practices; and

• (3) to study the added value that telecollaboration may bring to language learning in terms of intercultural understanding and motivation amongst younger learners and pedagogic competence development. 3

Partners

4

6 countries represented in

the consortium. Each country collaborates

with a secondary school & a

teacher training institution.

Consortium Partners

5

P1 Utrecht University (NL)P2 Berlage Lyceum

P3 U Roehampton (UK)P4 The Godolphin & Latymer School

P5 Steinbeis Transfer Center Language Learning Media P6 Gymnasium Saarburg (DE)

P7 Universidad de Valencia (SP)P8 IES Clot del Moro

P9 Université de Paris 3 and Paris 6 (FR) P10 Collège La Cerisaie

P12 Palacky University (CZ)P11 3DLES (NL)

42 associate partners

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Activities undertaken

• Analysis of teachers’ needs• Development of teacher training

modules and • Teacher training sessions• Telecollaboration pilots

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EuroALL 2013

Tools for audio-visual synchronous telecollaboration in TILA

8

Video CommunicationBigBlueButton

3D virtual worldsOpen Sim(ulator)

Challenges:SchedulesTechnical concerns

Hardware / Software Broadband internet connection (cable not Wifi) Headsets with microphone Technical tests not only at your school but also at the

other school and common connection checks (interdependence)

- Organisation of sessions: not all learners can participate 1x1 simultaneously (connection overload)

Asynchronous communication

9

Forum Blog

Wiki Journal

Moodle

Chat

Pilots on secondary education (December 2013-February 2014)

Pilots in English, French, German and Spanish Participants: 212 learners & 20 teachers from 8 schools Most pilots: synchronous audiovisual communication Challenges scheduling meetings Small group of students Many technical problems with sound Teachers aware of time & energy investment for

organising & carrying out synchronous voiced telecollaboration projects

Student questionnaires (very positive) Interviews with pupils: in spite of technical problems

learners very positive Teacher questionnaires 10

Voorbeeld TILA

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Examples

OpenSim

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Sound was good (if applicable) 2,75

I like to communicate and interact in this tool environment 4,11I like to meet students from other countries in this tool environment

4,3

I like to learn in this tool environment 4,12I like to be visible in a video 3,68I like to see the others in a video 4,06II like to be an avatar 3,53I like to speak with an avatar 3,53I felt comfortable in the interaction 3,77I felt satisfied with the way I communicated 3,53I felt the tool environment affected my communication positively

3,58

I enjoyed communicating with students from another country 4,30I found it motivating to communicate with students from another country

4,18

It was important for me to be understood 4,17It was important for me to understand the other student(s) 4,23It was important for me to learn about the other students’ life and culture

3,91

It was important for me to get to know students from another country

4,07

I was able to learn something about the other students’ life and culture

3,76

I enjoyed the online task 4,08I found the online task interesting for interaction with peers of other countries

4,15

I found the online task useful for my language learning 3,99The online task helped me discover new things about the other culture

3,81

I would like to use online tasks with students from other countries more often

4,15

110 respondents: 90 using BBB & 20 using OpenSim

Likertscale 5 punts

Intercultural telecollaborationwithin a learning/teaching and research environment

Target languages

Researchers

Teacher Trainers

Teachers

Learners

Target Cultures

Intercultural telecollaborationwithin a learning/teaching environment

• Teachers belonging to different teaching cultures and modes of organization. All teachers volunteered but within different teaching contexts

• Promoting Intercultural telecollaboration through an intercultural learning/teaching environment

5 languages6 „national“

cultures

Organising telecollaboration among teachers : challenges• Language Cluster Manager (LCM) vs Country Manager (CM)

• Getting X teachers in TILA languages in one country

LCM = CM• Organising

meetings in one TILA target language

LCM ≠ CM

Overlapping

• French teacher in Spain with a Spanish teacher in France

• 2 ≠ LCM• 2 ≠ CM

• Lingua franca LCM follow pairs of teachers in the TL + online training and CM provide FtoF training and dissemination• Tandem2 LCM and 2 CM

Objectives Roles Tasks

Organising telecollaboration among teachers : European Challenges for implementing an intercultural/plurilingual/cultural learning environment

• A complex European learning environment : engineering the emerging system requires clarifying the intercultural/plurilingual/cultural meshing of the learning-teaching (Learnching) environment

5 languages6 „national“

cultures6 teaching contexts

Language Cluster

Manager

Country Manager

School Manager

Teachers

Teacher Trainers

Researchers

Organising telecollaboration among teachers : an engineering problem-solving approach

• TILA pilots: some experience in perceiving, defining and outlining major challenges :• Matching different modes of organisation and teaching cultures• Clarifying overlaps (LCM/CM/Lingua

franca/Tandems/Trainers/Researchers)• Overcoming a common individual attitude among teachers for working

and teleworking together on tasks planning and tasks designing through a step by step follow up of partners, tailoring feedback to their circumstances and interests.

• TILA results: present at the end of the experiment a European working model for an intercultural learning/teaching environment :• a more detailed planning of all the stages for implementing

intercultural telecollaboration among researchers, among teachers and among researchers and teachers.

Organising telecollaboration among teachers : two major challenges

• Use of technology in the classroom, the availability and appropriateness of the facilities, and technical assistance have been addressed in a former paper :

• Jauregi, K., Melchor-Couto, S., & Vilar Beltrán, E. (2013). The European Project TILA. In L. Bradley & S. Thouësny (Eds.), 20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future. Proceedings of the 2013 EUROCALL Conference, Évora, Portugal (pp. 123-128)

• Facilitating intercultural telecollaboration, creating a third culture for teachers with different teaching cultures to work together on task planning and task development is going to be explored.

LCM/CMTrainers

Researchers

organising telecollaboration among teachers : developing and facilitating interculturalities

• Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and Culture in Language Teaching, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

• - (2001). Intercultural communication in R .Carter and D. Nunan (eds.). The Cambridge Guide to Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Just like classrooms of FL are third spaces, telecollaboration among teachers from different countries and teaching cultures will develop as many third spaces as there are matching teachers. So, a close look at the way teachers work or do not work together or partially work together is important as success means they will be better equipped to implement collaborative and telecollaborative tasks for their learners.

Research

who are TILA teachers?How do they work?

• Methodology should be ethnographic (multimodal with questionnaires, interviews, analysis of task descriptions, online interaction …) : another challenge for ethnography to be online.

• PILOT : 11 teachers out of 20 teachers answered the two questionnaires.

• Background questionnaire : 4 respondents• Teachers’ views on telecollaboration for intercultural language

learning : 7 respondents

• PILOT interviews will complement this information.

Teachers’ background• female teachers = male teachers• experience (0-4 years) to more

than 25 years• Master’s degree and usually a

teaching license as they all work in a state secondary school.

• Their learners are from 12 to 18.• They teach one language or 2

languages or up to 3 subjects• Half of them have worked in a

foreign country where they have taught

• Lack of support for computer technologies and Internet .

Teachers and schools

• a willingness for schools and teachers to engage with intercultural perspectives and at the same time, harsh realities are : lack of support from hierarchy

Teachers and the cultural dimensions

Everyday/once a week

Once a month

• Bringing facts/ exchanging about FL countries and cultures (news/experience)

• Pointing out Stereotypes

• Describing own culture

• Comparing• Exploring• Analysing• Learners’

background as a resource

Teachers and the cultural dimensions

• Never /once in a while

• Invite people from TC (Target countries and cultures)

• Bring objects from TC• Deal with an aspect of TC regarding which

they feel negatively disposed• Work on monolingual/bilingual dictionaries

and translating aids to point out intercultural perspectives

• well qualified, working in state secondary schools• do not feel getting all the support they need for integrating technologies

and intercultural/cultural dimensions in their practices : they need time for meetings, exploring tools and tasks with learners and partners

TILA teachers openness and willingness to explore on technologies and

intercultural dimensions

Challenges : an intercultural, plurilingual learning environment online

• More guidance is needed• The Language Cluster Manager or Country

Coordinator have essential roles in :• liaising the teachers working in pairs;• suggesting change of pairs and situations (from

tandem to Lingua franca and vice versa).

• More teacher training sessions online and face-to-face are needed : to monitor the mediating process of teachers collaborating and working online.

Challenges : an intercultural, plurilingual learnching environment online

Education Board

Head of school

Teacher Teacher

Head of school

Teacher

experimenting the future of language learnching and strategies

• Language learning and teaching is about • communicating, working with people from different backgrounds,

cultures, and languages• engaging in the intercultural dimension of communication in

teaching contexts which are national grounded (national education systems)

Experimenting the future of language learnching

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Join us in TILA!tila@uu.nl

www.tilaproject.eu@tilaproject

www.scoop.it/tila

Thank you!Martine Derivry

Kristi Jauregi