Looking Into the Mirror: Chinese Childrenfs Responses to Chinese Childrenfs Books

As educators are learning to relate whole language theory and philosophy to literature-based instruction, children\u27s books are finding their way into reading classrooms (Pace, 1991). Not only has literature-based instruction become a common theme in recent national conferences and journals in the field of reading but the use of literature has also been mandated in some places (English-Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools, 1987). Significantly more class room teachers are adopting children\u27s books for literacy instruction than previously (Harris, 1993)

E-learning and the development of intercultural competence

This study presents findings on the efficacy of an online learning environment developed to foster EFL students’ intercultural competence via reading articles on topics of their own culture and communicating their responses with speakers of another culture. The project offered opportunities for EFL students to use their own societal and cultural practices as the focus for EFL learning. In addition, with the help of an e-forum, the learning environment allowed the students to exchange their views with speakers of the target language. Two e-referencing tools were made available in the system while students were reading and writing. The findings showed that all EFL participants were able to communicate fluently in the target language without much help from corpora-based e-referencing tools provided in the system. The use of the online dictionary decreased drastically after the first two readings. The online concordancer, instead of being used for learning different kinds of cultural meaning on the levels of lexical, syntactic, and textual organization as originally intended, was used by the students to link to articles of similar topics for further explorations of culture and language learning opportunities. Despite some technical difficulties with the computers, the collaboration between the two groups of students was successful, as can be seen from the positive and complimentary comments from the participants. The students’ e-forum entries demonstrated four types of intercultural competences: (A) interest in knowing other people’s way of life and introducing one’s own culture to others, (B) ability to change perspective, (C) knowledge about one’s own and others’ culture for intercultural communication, and (D) knowledge about intercultural communication processes

Listening to the multiple voices in an intercultural telecollaborative multilingual digital storytelling project : a bakhtinian perspective

Although a growing number of studies have recently been focusing on the affordances of digital storytelling as a multimodal tool, relatively little attention has been given to the collaborative process during digital story construction and how that may affect what the participants gain from the experience. This paper focuses on an intercultural telecollaborative multilingual digital storytelling project between pre-service French as-asecond-language teachers in Canada and university-level EFL students in Taiwan. The researchers lean on Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism and Fairclough’s concepts of assumption/intertextuality to look into how the international partners negotiated to accomplish digital storytelling assignments, how their own voices were expressed during the telecollaborative writing process, and how this affected their completed digital stories. The findings of this study unveil both interpersonal and sociocultural dimensions of negotiation of meaning in technology-mediated collaboration. Based on the findings, the paper discusses pedagogical challenges and prospects of using multilingual digital storytelling as a transformational tool for intercultural learning, creativity, and language development, as well as a space for voicing selves through creative literary articulation

The use of computer-based literature and small group interaction for second language acquisition

Vita.This exploratory study investigated fourteen limited English proficient children's social, verbal, and hands-on interaction as well as literary responses within a computer-based literature reading environment. The children's interaction during the reading of ten titles of Discis Books were videotaped, transcribed, and analyzed to reveal the patterns of verbal and social interaction. The children's individual written responses were collected and analyzed in terms of levels of stance and personal understanding. The children's group verbal responses after reading were also videotaped and analyzed inductively to reveal major response categories. The clicking action was coded by a hands-on interaction matrix. The findings of the study indicated that the children were active in choosing the books that they wanted to read and were conscious about their own rights to the control of the computer. Despite occasional squabbles, the children managed to complete the reading and demonstrated cooperative/helping behaviors. Quantitatively, the verbal interaction pattern varied from one group to another. However, with groups combined, the amount of computer-related talk decreased and the story-related talk increased as more books were read. The verbal exchanges encompassed a variety of language functions that exhibited linguistic complexity. The written responses demonstrated a primarily aesthetic stance and the level of personal understanding did not go beyond the literal meaning of the story. The group verbal responses, nevertheless, showed more association between personal experiences and story events. The hands-on clicking was mainly to advance the reading of the book; Clicks on pictures and words were due to playfulness not to the deciphering of texts. Based on the findings, the educational implications are: (1) group computer book reading can be a useful supplement to traditionally structured second language instruction in promoting social and verbal interaction; (2) computers should be used to assist learners in assuming a role that is cognitively, linguistically, and socially active; (3) interpersonal skills associated with effective cooperative strategies should be identified, transmitted, and reinforcement by teachers; (4) ESL teachers can select computer software that incorporates literature reading to foster language use at the cognitive/academic level

Emerging Technologies for Autonomous Language Learning

Drawing on a lengthier review completed for the US National Institute for Literacy, this paper examines emerging technologies that are applicable to self-access and autonomous learning in the areas of listening and speaking, collaborative writing, reading and language structure, and online interaction. Digital media reviewed include podcasts, blogs, wikis, online writing sites, text-scaffolding software, concordancers, multiuser virtual environments, multiplayer games, and chatbots. For each of these technologies, we summarize recent research and discuss possible uses for autonomous language learning

Listening to the Multiple Voices in an Intercultural Telecollaborative Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project: A Bakhtinian perspective

Although a growing number of studies have recently been focusing on the affordances of digital storytelling as a multimodal tool, relatively little attention has been given to the collaborative process during digital story construction and how that may affect what the participants gain from the experience. This paper focuses on an intercultural telecollaborative multilingual digital storytelling project between pre-service French as-a-second-language teachers in Canada and university-level EFL students in Taiwan. The researchers lean on Bakhtin's concept of dialogism and Fairclough's concepts of assumption/intertextuality to look into how the international partners negotiated to accomplish digital storytelling assignments, how their own voices were expressed during the telecollaborative writing process, and how this affected their completed digital stories. The findings of this study unveil both interpersonal and sociocultural dimensions of negotiation of meaning in technology-mediated collaboration. Based on the findings, the paper discusses pedagogical challenges and prospects of using multilingual digital storytelling as a transformational tool for intercultural learning, creativity, and language development, as well as a space for voicing selves through creative literary articulation.Nombreuses sont les études qui se sont intéressées, ces dernières années, aux affordances du récit numérique (storytelling) en tant qu'outil multimodal. Malgré cela, le processus collaboratif mis en œuvre au cours de l'élaboration numérique des récits et les apports éventuels de cette expérience constituent encore des aspects peu étudiés. Cette contribution porte sur un projet – télécollaboratif, interculturel et multilingue – de mise en récit numérique entre, d'une part, de futurs enseignants de français langue seconde (FLS) au Canada et, d'autre part, des étudiants apprenant l'anglais comme langue étrangère à l'université Taichung de Taiwan. Les participants ont eu une période de trois mois pour communiquer, prendre des décisions et compléter leurs récits, rédigés à partir de thématiques qu'ils avaient eux-mêmes choisies au préalable. Quant aux récits proprement dits, ils ont été, dans un premier temps, rédigés dans la langue commune des interactants (l'anglais lingua franca), puis, ils ont été traduits dans leurs L1 respectives (notamment le français et le chinois). Enfin, ils ont été postés sur une plateforme Wix qui permettait techniquement une mise en scène multimodale du savoir. Les données de cette recherche se composent à la fois des échanges entre les participants – tels que les discussions sur les forums et les messages postés sur Facebook – et des récits numériques multilingues proprement dits. Afin de parvenir à une meilleure compréhension de ces données primaires, nous avons également procédé à un recueil de données par questionnaire et entretien. Sur le plan théorique, nous nous sommes notamment appuyées sur les concepts de dialogisme (Bakhtine) et d'allusion/intertextualité (Fairclough), et ce dans une triple perspective : examiner les chemins de négociation empruntés par les interactants pour mener à bien la mise en récit numérique ; analyser les voies par lesquelles leurs voix se sont exprimées tout au long du processus d'écriture télécollaborative ; en étudier l'impact sur les relations entre les membres de chaque groupe. Nos résultats soulignent l'importance des échanges entre les membres d'un groupe dans la mesure où ces interactions influent clairement sur le processus d'écriture collaborative au sein des environnements numériques de mise en récit. Plus particulièrement, il s'avère que les membres des groupes qui ont opté pour une posture de dialogue socratique se sont autorisés à discuter, interroger et remettre en question les idées et suggestions des uns et des autres à parts égales. En revanche, les groupes qui ont adopté un modèle d'autorité magistrale ont laissé peu de place à l'échange, ce qui s'avère peu pertinent en termes d'interaction télécollaborative. En nous appuyant sur nos résultats, nous nous intéresserons au terme de cette contribution aux implications pédagogiques de la mise en récit multilingue et télécollaborative en tant qu'outil de créativité, d'apprentissage interculturel, de développement langagier mais aussi en tant qu'espace d'expression de soi au travers d'une tâche de création littéraire

Regards croisés sur la télécollaboration/Exchanging views on telecollaboration

Dirigé par Anthippi Potolia et Sofia Stratilak