CALL from an ecological perspective: How a teacher perceives affordance and fosters learner agency in a technology-mediated language classroom

Abstract

The possibility of exploiting technology for more robust and meaningful learning and teaching has invoked messianic responses from the language education community. Yet to be explored are teachers’ pedagogical choices based on the perceived technological affordances as well as interactions between teacher and student agency mediated by these affordances in the ecology of a classroom. This qualitative case study adopts an ecological approach, aiming to address rather than factor out the broader social context in a physical classroom. With data collected from 30 hours of classroom observation and 10 post-observation interviews with the participant teacher, the study makes an attempt to show how the ecological model of language learning can provide a theoretical lens through which to explore teachers’ practices of CALL that aim to encourage learner agency. The analysis centers on three focused extracts that illustrate interaction between and among the affordance of technology, the teacher participant’s pedagogical considerations, and her goal of encouraging learner agency. The result of the study emphasizes the teacher’s role from an ecological perspective and classroom learner agency mediated by technology, which provides useful insight that can contribute to language teaching practice with technology in the classroom.

Using Learning-Oriented Online Assessment to Foster Students’ Feedback Literacy in L2 Writing During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case of Misalignment Between Micro- and Macro- Contexts

“…The contrast between students’ positive perceptions of LOA-related resources/activities and their less positive views of the mandated online mode of learning indicated that the teacher should adopt a holistic systemic perspective (Cowie & Khoo, 2018 ) when facilitating student feedback literacy development. As a key agent in creating learning resources in the classroom ecosystem (Q. Liu & Chao, 2018 ), the teacher needs to not only foster synergy between different components of the classroom ecosystem, but also align classroom and sociocultural contexts, given the negative impact of misalignment identified in the study.…”

“…On the one hand, student feedback literacy development depends on four levels of contextual factors, including textual level (e.g., features of feedback), interpersonal level (e.g., learners’ relationship with the teacher), instructional level (e.g., methods of assessment), and sociocultural level (e.g., educational policy in a society). Teacher, as a key agent of the classroom ecosystem, creates learning resources that are likely to be used by students (Q. Liu & Chao, 2018 ) in each of the four levels. Moreover, an ecological perspective emphasizes the interplay among resources in the classroom ecosystem and the interaction between micro-level (e.g., classroom instruction), meso-level (e.g., school community), and macro-level contexts (e.g., wider sociocultural contexts) in a holistic–systemic manner (Bronfenbrenner, 1979 ; Cowie & Khoo, 2018 ).…”

Tecnología para la enseñanza y el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras: revisión de la literatura

“…Así, el estudiante aprovecha estos ofrecimientos o affordances haciendo uso de su capacidad de agencia (dentro de una comunidad y en el marco de una situación comunicativa dada). Mostrar, proporcionar y gestionar estas oportunidades de aprendizaje es, en este sentido, la tarea fundamental del docente en un contexto de aprendizaje (Haines, 2015;Richards, 2015;Liu, y Chao, 2017), del mismo modo que la interacción entre espacios/lugares, eventos, personas y tecnología genera de por sí affordances (espontáneos o buscados a través del diseño instruccional) fuera del contexto formal de aprendizaje, los cuales pueden potenciar o promover experiencias comunicativas de gran valor educativo (Zheng et al, 2018).…”

Designing and Launching a Year-Long Executive Education Programme at Lse Confucius Institute for Business London – Chinese Language and Culture for Business (Clcb)

“…Using a mix of traditional education practices with a modern technology, BL combines the face-to-face instruction and asynchronous/synchronous online learning, which is strongly advocated by educational practitioners (Wu, Tennyson, & Hsia 2010). As widely recognized, BL approach tends to maximise learning opportunities and build engaging learning experiences from an ecological perspective (Diep, Zhu, Struyven, & Blieck 2017;Liu & Chao 2018).…”