Negotiating cultures in cyberspace

In this paper we report findings of a multidisciplinary study of online participation by culturally diverse participants in a distance adult education course offered in Canada and examine in detail three of the study's findings. First, we explore both the historical and cultural origins of "cyberculture values" as manifested in our findings, using the notions of explicit and implicit enforcement of those values and challenging the assumption that cyberspace is a culture free zone. Second, we examine the notion of cultural gaps between participants in the course and the potential consequences for online communication successes and difficulties. Third, the analysis describes variations in participation frequency as a function of broad cultural groupings in our data. We identify the need for additional research, primarily in the form of larger scale comparisons across cultural groups of patterns of participation and interaction, but also in the form of case studies that can be submitted to microanalyses of the form as well as the content of communicator's participation and interaction online

Innovation and identity in distance language learning and teaching

doi: 10.2167/illt45.0Innovation in distance language learning and teaching has largely focused on developments in technology and the increased opportunities they provide for negotiation and control of learning experiences, for participating in collaborative learning environments and the development of interactive competence in the target language. Much less attention has been paid to pedagogical innovation and still less to how congruence develops between particular pedagogical approaches, various technologies and the skills, practices, actions and identities of language learners and teachers. In this article I explore the process of innovation in distance language teaching from the point of view of key participants in the process, the teachers, and the ways in which their identities are disrupted and challenged as they enter new distance teaching environments. Innovative approaches to distance language teaching are analysed for the insights they provide into the sites of conflict and struggle experienced by teachers, experiences which have a major impact on their selves as distance teachers and on the course of innovation. To conclude I argue that attention to issues of identity can deepen our understanding of innovation, of the tensions that are played out in the experiences and responses of teachers, and of the ways they accept or resist the identity shifts required of them

Intercultural Communicative Competence and Employability in the Languages Curriculum at the Open University UK

In recent years, higher education in Great Britain has undergone considerable change, most markedly the increase in fees from about £9,000 for a BA degree to £27,000 in 2012 in England. This fee increase has led to more questioning of the benefits of university education and a stronger focus on whether the students' financing of their education achieves a return on investment. The increased earning over a life time are estimated to range from £100,000 to £500,000 (Anderson) and, as repaying their student debt has become a major preoccupation for new graduates, employability has become a key theme in university publicity: "Enhance your employability" is a key message given to prospective students by the most popular degree course at the Open University, an open and distance higher education provider in the UK, ranked 14th overall in a national league table for the employability of its graduates. Research (for example Araújo et al.) has demonstrated that knowledge of a second language increases employability across Europe. The importance of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) for working in multicultural teams is widely acknowledged and recognised by employers (CBI 32,39) and so is intercultural dialogue for social cohesion (CoE, White Paper 5). Degrees in modern languages, especially when they integrate the development of ICC, therefore present strong employability benefits. This paper presents the approach the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University in the UK has taken to integrate both employability and ICC skills in its curriculum and enhance the skills base of graduates and their chances of finding work in the national or international graduate workforce. We will describe the design principles and development of our detailed framework and supporting resource - designed to span our entire modern languages programme, in five languages, from ab initio to degree level - and demonstrate how our innovative learning design implements the framework and supports the training of highly employable multilingual global citizens able to articulate the range of skills they have developed

Global Technical Communication and Content Management: A Study of Multilingual Quality

The field of technical communication (TC) is facing a dilemma. Content management (CM) strategies and technologies that completely reshape writing and translation practices are adopted in an increasing number of TC work groups. One driving factor in CM adoption is the promise of improving quality of multilingual technical texts, all the while reducing time/cost of technical translation and localization. Yet, CM relies on automation and privileges consistency¯an approach that is problematic in global TC with its focus on adapting texts based on the characteristics of end-users. To better understand the interdisciplinary dilemma of multilingual quality in CM, during my dissertation project I conducted a twelve-month long qualitative case study of multilingual quality at a leading manufacturer of medical equipment who had adopted CM strategies and technologies to create technical texts in several languages three years before my study began. In my study, I drew upon an interdisciplinary theoretical base (genre ecology framework, activity theory, actor-network theory, and Skopos theory) to examine the construction of multilingual quality understandings and approaches by global TC stakeholders who are employees and contractors of the company and the role of CM in their practices. Examination of the extensive data I collected through observations, interviews, questionnaires, document collection/content analysis, and software exploration uncovered the staggering disconnects in understandings of and approaches to multilingual quality. These disconnects resulted from the lack communication between stakeholders and were promoted by the different relations to CM technology and the mediating work of the new genre, chunks of content. Inhibited knowledge sharing, risk of expertise invisibility and loss, and constrained new ideas about improving multilingual quality were some of the rhetorical, social, and political implications of these disconnects. As a result of my analysis, I sketched strategies for achieving contextualized multiple-stakeholder approaches to multilingual quality and outlined leadership possibilities for technical communicators in global information development. This analysis provides TC practitioners with strategies for improving multilingual quality in CM contexts; TC educators with ideas for expanding teaching approaches by combining digital and cross-cultural literacies; and TC researchers with opportunities for rhetorical action through critiquing, theorizing, and innovating CM

Distance learning of foreign languages

doi: 10.1017/S0261444806003727This article provides a critical overview of the field of distance language learning, challenging the way in which the field is often narrowly conceptualised as the development of technology-mediated language learning opportunities. Early sections focus on issues of concept and definition and both theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on the field. Emphasis is placed on evident shifts from a concern with structural and organisational issues to a focus on transactional issues associated with teaching/learning opportunities within emerging paradigms for distance language learning. The next section reviews choices and challenges in incorporating technology into distance language learning environments, foregrounding decisions about technology made in particular sociocultural contexts, the contribution of ‘low-end’ technologies and research directions in developing new learning spaces and in using online technologies. The investigation of learner contributions to distance language learning is an important avenue of enquiry in the field, given the preoccupation with technology and virtual learning environments, and this is the subject of section six. The two final sections identify future research directions and provide a series of conclusions about research and practice in distance language learning as technology-mediated interactions increasingly come to influence the way we think about the processes of language learning and teaching

‘It becomes increasingly complex to deal with multiple channels’: materialised communicative competence and digital inequality in English-medium higher education in the digital era

This article explores university students’ communicative competence for English-Medium Instruction (EMI) at a Swedish university in the era of digitalisation and blended learning. Based on a linguistic ethnography, we present an argument for communicative competence as repertoire assemblages orchestrating digital materiality and human language to construct meanings. The study shows how diverse digital multimodalities and AI-language tools are essential features of spatial repertoires for academic communication, and how they cooperate with and mediate students’ personal repertoires to accomplish interactive learning tasks in EMI contexts. The study also highlights how digital diversity in EMI causes a ‘digital divide’, potentially impacting power relations among students. These findings underline the importance of acknowledging the communicative value of digital materiality and negotiating difference and normativity for intercultural academic communication in EMI

Inclusive Pedagogies

Building on the principles explored in Foundations of Intercultural Teaching, this resource introduces educators to educational strategies that can foster more inclusive, equitable, and just classroom environments

Faculty and student feedback of synchronous distance education in a multi-university learning consortium

The Texas Learning Consortium (TLC) began as a partnership between the foreign language departments at 5 small, private, liberal arts universities, where each specializes in a small number of different world languages to increase the course offerings to their students without the expense of adding additional faculty on every campus. Each university offers their language courses to consortium students in a real-time, interactive, distance education format. In Fall 2017, the consortium expanded beyond foreign languages, and the first engineering course, Statics, was offered in this synchronous, distance format. As background, this paper will provide an overview of the technology used in the classrooms and some of the administrative obstacles that were overcome in scheduling, registration and information technology. The paper will also reflect on the impact of this particular technological implementation on various teaching styles in both foreign language and engineering courses, especially compared to other distance engineering education in the literature, with a purpose of analyzing the model’s suitability for expansion into other engineering courses or a fully accredited consortium based engineering program. Student and faculty satisfaction surveys will additionally provide insight as to whether this distance format is the right fit for campuses used to high-touch learning environments.Cockrell School of Engineerin

University Professors\u27 Perceptions on Blogging as Course Assignments in Southwestern Ontario: A Multiliteracies Framework

In light of contemporary trends and practices, namely the impact of globalization and the integration of new technologies being promoted in the field of applied linguistics (Byrd Clark, 2012; Kern, 2006; Malinowski & Kramsch, 2014), this study explores the perceptions of professors, who teach graduate courses in Education on the impact and adaptation of new technologies on their pedagogy; namely the use of blogging as an educational activity. This study analyzes the traditional or innovative pedagogical practice of today’s graduate professors. This qualitative case study is based on a multiliteracies theoretical framework and incorporate the following methods: a survey and semi-structured interviews. This study seeks to make an important contribution to both the field of research and to practice with its emphasis on the integration of new technologies in graduate language and literacy education. Many graduate programs highlight the importance of originality, creativity and thoroughness (in other words, alternatives to traditional approaches) however there appear to be few multiliteracy options available in courses. Through the implementation of a survey (N=5) and semi-structured interviews (N=2), perceptions of graduate professors of blogging as an educational activity were investigated. Participants revealed the innovative pedagogical practice of today’s graduate professors. However, there are still various issues in practicality that need to be addressed