International audienceThis paper explores how language teachers learn to teach with a synchronous multimodal setup (Skype), and it focuses on their use of the webcam during the pedagogical interaction. First, we analyze the ways that French graduate students learning to teach online use the multimodal resources available in a desktop videoconferencing (DVC) environment to monitor pedagogical interactions with intermediate level learners of French in a North-American university. Then, we examine communicational and pedagogical aspects of this process which involves orchestrating different modalities and deploying various regulations for "semio-pedagogical" purposes. We define semio-pedagogical skills as the capacity to mediate a pedagogical interaction by combining or dissociating modalities (written, oral, and/or video) that are adapted to objectives and to the cognitive requisites of the task. We posit that these skills have to become part of the professional repertoire of future teachers, as they will increasingly be required to exploit the multimodal potentialities of online communication in their teaching. The study draws on screen capture recordings of teacher trainee-student interactions and is completed by semi-directive interviews with teacher trainees (n = 5). It aims (1) to identify the importance of webcamming in the share of the pedagogical range available to teachers and (2) analyze the non verbal dimension of pedagogical communication via DVC. The outcome of this study is the identification of five degrees of utilization of the webcam medium: there a certain gradation in the way webcamming is used (with a more or less significant use of image) when compared to other modalities. The different uses that are identified vary according to the perceived usefulness of webcamming to monitor teaching and to the teacher trainees' capacity to manage different workspaces
This study concerns the development of autonomy in adult learners working on an online learning platform as part of a professional master's degree programme in “French as a Foreign Language”. Our goal was to identify the influence of reflective and collaborative dimensions on the construction of autonomy for online learners in this programme. The material used was 27 self-analysis papers in response to an assignment which asked students to review their distance learning experience (reflective dimension) and to highlight the role of others, if any, in their learning (collaborative dimension). In addition to these two major points, the analysis by category of the body of results shows principally that in qualitative terms, the factors of autonomisation for online learning are interconnected and include: the difficulties related to distance learning and the strategies that learners develop to face those difficulties, the importance of interpersonal relationships in social and emotional terms in overcoming those difficulties, the specific modes of sociability developed for distance learning and the related development of a new type of autonomy that is both individual and collective. The discussion examines the creation, over the course of time, of a new “distance learning culture” that is nonetheless never easy to create and share.
This paper discusses the design and implementation of a task-oriented collaborative learning (and training)
experimental project that was carried out with future language teachers. More specifically, a class of sixteen French students
enrolled in a Masters of Education course were asked to create multimedia resources for a group of Australian students with no prior
knowledge of French. This paper deals only with issues concerning French
students’ multimedia creations, not with the second phase of interactions with the Australian target group.
The theoretical background is situated and collaborative learning and training: the French students worked in pairs,
creating multimedia activities based on their culture for real students in a different location. They communicated with each
other during weekly classes and via a groupware tool. A triangulated data method
was used incorporating the students’ multimedia outcome, questionnaires and semi-directive interviews. The following
issues are discussed: what is the effect of such situated learning settings on motivation, commitment and computer literacy?
What image did the French students have of the Australian students and which cultural aspects did they try to convey?
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