This case study explores how a Chinese-American novice teacher acted as mediator in a telecollaboration with student teacher (ST) peers in the USA who designed tasks for his English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in China. The novice teacher was instrumental in mediating the student teachers’ task design process by providing feedback regarding technological and institutional constraints, and the nuances of his target student population. He appropriated and adapted the tasks to make them relevant for his EFL learners. Against the backdrop of the three dimensions of professional capital – human, social, and decisional – the research questions explored how the novice teacher used the different types of knowledge of context (pedagogical, institutional, technical) in relation to task design, and his perception of his role as mediator. Within a sociocultural framework for telecollaboration studies, this exploratory case study shares characteristics of ethnography, action research, and narrative inquiry. Data triangulation included text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) data (Google Groups, emails), a narrative written by the novice teacher, and a semi-structured, reflective Skype interview with him. The findings indicate that he demonstrated high commitment, thorough preparation, continuous reflection, and development while navigating between his different roles of mediator, assessor, implementer, and field observer.
This exploratory study contributes to the underexplored area of collaborative task formats in telecollaboration. The study investigates how English as a second language (ESL) student teachers in the US and English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers in Turkey negotiated the design, implementation, and evaluation of technology-based English language learning tasks. The overall pedagogical goal of this spring 2014 project was to provide participants in different educational and institutional settings an opportunity to collaboratively explore and evaluate the affordances of technology tools in the design of joint learning tasks. This ethnographic case study triangulates questionnaires, telecollaboration logs, and computer-mediated communication data (blogs, emails) to examine the types of negotiation (personal, interactive, procedural) telecollaborative teams displayed at the project's micro levels (self, situated telecollaborative activity) and macro levels (institutional setting, political context). Findings indicate that one telecollaborative team, Global Team 2, effectively managed their learning as a group by making key decisions collectively about their work processes. The team's high number of procedural negotiation instances suggests a high degree of task-orientation, which may have aided their task completion. In contrast, the number of personal and interactive negotiation types was low. The latter, however, may have been called for midway through the project, when unexpected political developments in Turkey unfolded. Repercussions disturbed Turkish participants and affected social media, which were at the core of this telecollaboration. Implications focus on foregrounding personal and interactive negotiation via virtual Global Team check-ins, as well as on expanding collaborative tasks by incorporating perspectives on the wider institutional and sociopolitical contexts of participating institutions.
Computer-mediated communication (CMC), more than other media, has been associated with humor
This article presents findings from an exploratory pilot project which aimed at fostering electronic and professional literacy skills of preservice language teachers through computer-mediated peer collaboration. The research context is a qualitative case study involving cooperation via the email and chat functions of FirstClass among preservice teachers at the Justus-Liebig Universität in Giessen and the Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg in Germany. The author investigates participants’ prior experiences with regard to computer skills, Internet proficiency, and technology-based language learning and teaching. Next, she discusses benefits and challenges for preservice teachers with respect to collaborating via computers (computer-mediated communication or CMC) with their transatlantic partners. In collecting and analyzing preservice teachers’ reflections, a Grounded Theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was used. Instances of electronic and professional literacies were identified and triangulated with data from pre-course questionnaires, post-course self-assessments, logs, email and chat transcripts, and field notes. The author discusses benefits and challenges which preservice teachers encountered through the collaboration. Findings include preservice teachers’ differing levels of electronic literacy skills, tolerance for ambiguity, institutional constraints, peer feedback, and perception of the final product. Based on her findings, the author stresses the need to encourage preservice teachers’ meta-level reflections on the challenges of the collaboration and suggests conducting longitudinal follow-up studies in order to investigate if and how in-service teachers apply the knowledge they gained from their teacher education program to their own teaching.
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