Qendresa Dobratiqi Tomas Tonzar Independent Project with Specialization in English Studies and Education

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CULTURE-LANGUAGES-MEDIA

Independent Project with Specialization in English

Studies and Education

15 Credits, First Cycle

Implementing telecollaboration in a second language context

Implementerandet av telecollaboration i en andraspråkskontext

Qendresa Dobratiqi

Tomas Tonzar

Master of Arts in Primary Education: School Years 4-6, 240 credits

English Studies and Education

Examiner: Chrysogonus Siddha Malilang

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Abstract

During the last decades, a shifting paradigm has occurred in the classroom in connection to the technological evolution. Due to digitalization a student in Sweden can discuss with a counterpart on the other side of the globe. The aim of this study is to examine how the role of telecollaboration has been researched in a primary school context. The study will include several methods that could benefit the use of virtual exchange projects. This investigation will briefly explain the terminology and history behind telecollaboration and how it can be used in a modern classroom environment. An explanation on how the findings have been explored will be included in the methodology component. Thereafter, the study will present the research from the chosen articles connected to the aim and research question. The presented research will further be compared and connected to each other. In the following component, the data found will be connected back to the

theoretical hypothesis mentioned in the introduction as well as the Swedish syllabus for English education in the primary school. The implications from investigating this subject were due to the lack of thoroughly conducted research on younger participants, the outcome rendered inadequate. An evidence on the insufficiency was that hardly any prior investigations used control groups to validate their findings.

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Individual contributions

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1. Introduction

The view on education has constantly evolved, from a traditional educational system to a virtual education-oriented system. The digitalization of the whole society has affected the Swedish schools over the last decades. Nowadays there is a density of technological support in the Swedish classroom with almost every student having access to a digital tool, e.g., laptop/Chromebook/tablet. Kjällander and Riddersporre (2019) investigated digital resources in school. Their findings indicate that language teaching is positively affected by digitalization.

Due to the Internet communication tasks like writing to pen pals has expanded into email correspondence crossing both cultural and national borders. O’Dowd (2016) explains the transition from penpals to ‘e-pals’ or ‘key-pals’ as a modern way of exchanging letters through emailing, particularly in the younger years. Synchronizing forms of communication through virtual education models are opportunities offered by the access to the Internet. Communication beyond national borders for students, is no longer solely asynchronous. Virtual education models e.g., telecollaboration has enabled schools to interact regardless of the distance. The Internet has thus enabled the school to broaden their connection to the surrounding world. That consolidates in the Swedish Curriculum that states that students should gain an understanding of the internationalization of the Swedish society. Furthermore, the Swedish Curriculum proclaim that pupils should be given opportunities to use digital tools to promote and develop knowledge as well as to gain global contacts. (Skolverket, 2018)

At Malmö University the students participating in the teacher training programs are trained to understand and use telecollaboration as an educational tool for their future teaching. Based on an experience during a teaching practice at a Swedish primary school, an encounter with telecollaboration occurred. The telecollaboration was conducted between the Swedish pupils and their partner-school in Portland, Oregon. The students were

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student, who rarely engaged himself during the lessons, found the telecollaboration sessions motivating since his English level proficiency was high and pronunciation was close to native-like. However, an unfavourable outcome of the telecollaboration was due to the group constellations. As a result, pupils who felt insecure when speaking English remained silent during the bigger parts of the video conversation.

1.1 What is telecollaboration?

Virtual education can portray many forms, but the main focus of this study is

telecollaboration. The term telecollaboration has its origins in the Greek prefix “tele” that can be translated into “distance”. Tele and collaboration thus, becomes collaboration at a distance (Dooly, 2017). The creation behind telecollaboration can be traced back to Celestin Freinet in the 1920s France. The concept behind Freinet’s idea was that the students were to create their own newspapers using current technologies available at the time. These newspapers, together with local flowers and photos, were then exchanged with schools from other parts of France, as a cultural exchange. Freinet’s idea was furthermore developed in the 1960’s by the Italian Mario Lodi. However, in comparison to Freinet, Lodi’s aim with creating their own newspapers was for the students to develop a critical literacy (O’Dowd, 2016).

According to O’Dowd, Sauro & Spector - Cohen (2020) virtual exchange or

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1.2 Telecollaboration in primary schools.

The use of telecollaboration with younger pupils could be beneficial for the learning process according to the theory of Critical Period Hypothesis. The CPH entails, as explained by Lightbown & Spada (2006) that children amidst ages 2 to 13 have the possibility to accomplish pronunciation similar to native speakers. Animals, along with humans, are genetically designed to gain knowledge and abilities at certain timespan of their lives. After the timespan, the ability to learn aggravates with time. Having the CPH in mind, the students will be given an opportunity to further develop their language

acquisition by mimicking native speakers through the telecollaboration model tandem, as an addition to the teacher’s oral competence. Hence the teacher tends to be the only exposure of native-like speaking for the children in second language education (Lightbown & Spada, 2006). Although, the aim with the telecollaboration is not that the children are to speak like native speakers but rather to expose them to native-like English.

Children learn linguistic skills such as speaking and listening, when using the language together with others (Björk & Liberg, 1999). Language acquisition is shaped by the context and collaboration with peers (Kjällander & Riddersporre, 2019). When there is a difficulty in making sense, particularly in a second language context, the ability of negotiating meaning is essential. Particularly when the children are collaborating through twinning, with peers in their targeted language. Lightbown & Spada (2006) explains that negotiating meaning occurs when the student finds other paths to make themselves understood. The theory of functional perspective (Tudor, 2001) highlights that language promotes the acquirement of specific pragmatic aims. In other words, capacities or abilities develop when language is being used in a social learning context. Thus, language serves a purpose for young learners in social interactions, telecollaboration is in line with Lev Vygotsky’s

perspective on learning. Vygotsky argues that language develops beneficially when students socialize in a supportive environment (Lightbown & Spada, 2006).

Most countries have a curriculum that their schools follow in order to achieve their

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learning a second language at a young age might feel unmotivated and disappointed if they do not see any progress in their language learning acquisition. This can be an issue in the telecollaboration projects if students feel intimidated that their counterparts have similar English proficiency despite having studied English for a shorter period. However, according to CPH a younger learner is less likely to feel embarrassed in communication with strangers, in comparison to older or adult learners. The errors that occur and the simplicity in the communication between younger learners is often disregarded and thus accepted. Older learners are more likely to feel insecure with their knowledge when

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2. Aim and research questions

The focus with this research will be to investigate if virtual educational methods could prosper the younger pupil’s communicative competence. The main angle of approach is how synchronizing telecollaboration, as a tool, may benefit the individual linguistic ability. This study will aim to find out what research findings show regarding the difference in communicating with native speakers in comparison to communication through a lingua franca. The research highlights the scaffolding methods the students use to overcome obstacles and how they negotiate meaning. Furthermore, the study hypothesizes what methods could be more profitable for younger second language learners.

The research question:

• To what extent can interactive virtual communication, in particular

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3. Method

The material found for this research was primarily collected from searching through educational databases to investigate the correlation between virtual education and

communicative competences. In addition to the results from the educational databases, this research includes relevant literature. Results and discussion will be presented under

separate headlines. The majority of the articles found researching this topic, had an absence of control groups.

3.1 Search Delimitations

The databases that have been predominantly used in this research for relevant articles have been Education Research Complete (ERC) and ERIC via EBSCO. Searches have been conducted on the database SwePub, however, the relevant search results had already been found on ERC or ERIC. The articles that have been used for this research are peer reviewed and available as full texts through Malmö University.

The search terms used were divided into four categories and their connected

subcategories. The subcategories served as a purpose of synonyms to broaden the results found from the main categories. Telecollaboration and pronunciation were the first search terms applied in the beginning of the research. The combination of those words gave zero results in the database ERIC and two French articles in the database ERC. The search results, thus, needed to be wider and more aligned with the aim of this study. To broaden the results, synonyms for telecollaboration and pronunciation were added as

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3.2 Inclusion Criteria

Regarding the research of telecollaboration being relatively new, the time span when the research was conducted will be irrelevant to the inclusion and exclusion criteria in this study. However, the earliest article read for this research was from 2009 and the latest was from 2020. Since there was a lack of research found in primary school, this research will inevitably have to include articles based on University students. Considering that University students are still in the learning process, the findings in those articles might be beneficial to this study. The articles included in this research have English as their targeted language. Due to this research focusing on the communication competences, all chosen articles include direct video communication. Articles with Swedish primary students were prioritized, however, insufficient research was found on Nordic countries. Instead, EFL and ESL learners with similar English-speaking backgrounds were sought after to compensate for the limited results found on Swedish students.

3.3 Exclusion Criteria

Initially this research was solely intended to be based on EFL learners in the primary schools. Therefore, the findings related to University students were supposed to end up in the exclusion criteria. University students had to be included in the search due to the fact that there was insufficient research found that was conducted on younger learners. Articles involving pre-service teachers and teachers have been ruled out, for the reason that their focus being on connections and receiving an insight of telecollaboration, instead of on communicative competences.

Another exclusion criteria are articles based on the asynchronizing forms of virtual communication hence the study’s primary focus is upon synchronizing oral

communication. Therefore, synchronizing communication solely throughout email

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Area of interest Total number of references used

Total number of references

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4. Results

The results will be based upon how telecollaboration influences the shaping of ESL

students communicate competences. The results will be organized into two sections, article summaries and article results. The first summarizing section will include the article's research question, a description of participants, the structure and methods used in the telecollaboration, and in conclusion, the outcome of the study. In the second section, the articles summaries will be compared and connected to one another, in regards to the research aim. The section will include subheadings as clarification concerning the subject in question.

4.1 Article summaries

4.1.1 Natalia Ramírez-Lizcano & Maria Alejandra Cabrera-Tovar

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4.1.2 Nick Austin, Regine Hampel, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme

The hypothesis with this research by Austin, Hampel, Kukulska-Hulme (2017) was to investigate the importance of expression of voice and the use of multimodal resources in a synchronous video environment. The participants of this research were amidst the ages six and seven. One group consisted of six EFL learners located in England with English as their L2 and Urdu and Punjabi as their L1. The second group consisted of six Portuguese EFL learners in an international school with Portuguese as their L1 and English as their L2. The two groups interacted in a synchronizing video chat via a telecommunication

application. However, the number of students that interacted varied, due to

telecollaboration sessions being held during their lunch break. The article highlights

misunderstandings that occurred during the video chat due to lack of eye-contact hence the placement of the camera. The authors conclude that the students developed their

communicative skills once they managed the video chat independently. The expression of children's voices varied depending on the topic of the session i.e., Justin Bieber, teddy bears. The children found methods to make themselves understood by supporting the spoken word with body language, facial expressions and materialistic tools.

4.1.3 Melinda Dooly & Nuriya Davitova

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on transcription from one lesson. The results show how the students discussed their interests. The children might have discussed the assignment in other sessions, but the outcome was not presented in their article.

4.1.4 Yi-Ti Lin

The purpose of the article by Yi-Ti Lin (2016) was to enhance the students oral reading skills by peer-assisted feedback during synchronous online communication. The

participants taking part of this research were 30 Taiwanese students and 15 Australian students, in fifth grade. The telecollaborative tasks were to read and perform a book to their online friends. While the Taiwanese children read the book in English with assistance from their peers in Australia, the Australian children read the same book in Chinese with their counterpart supporting them. It is worth mentioning that the Australian children did not have any classes in Chinese. The reason behind the peer-assistance of the reading was for both groups to be given an opportunity to assist and to be assisted. The pupils were both given possibilities to receive native-like support on their respective reading and thus enhance their oral reading ability. The Taiwanese student’s oral reading fluency was tested before and after the telecollaborative project. The results of these tests showed an

improvement in speed, accuracy, and expression.

4.1.5 Anne Bannink & Rose van der Zwaard

The main purpose for this study by Anne Bannink & Rose van der Zwaard (2014) was to highlight the differences and difficulties that occur with video-chatting and synchronizing texting between native speakers and non-native speakers and how the students can go on about negotiating when misunderstandings and obstacles appear. This research was conducted between eight Dutch and eight Australian undergraduate students. The procedure of the telecollaboration was arranged with some students taking part of the assignment in text communication while other students took part through

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4.1.6 Ana Sevilla-Pavón

In this article by Ana Sevilla-Pavón (2019), the difference in the development of the communicative competences of students with L1 and L2 are of main focus. This study is based on the hypothesis that a distinction in the results of the L1 and L2 would occur in different competences or abilities. Those competences and abilities in focus were learner autonomy, digital literacy, collaboration, intercultural abilities, linguistic abilities and Language for Specific Purposes learning (LSP). The participants were 15 University students from the United states of America, 32 University students from Spain and 78 University students from Cyprus. Spain had separate telecollaborative sessions with the American students and the Cyprus students. In the L1 telecollaboration, the American students and the Spanish students switched languages between Spanish and English. In the L2 telecollaboration, the students from Cyprus and Spain used English as their lingua franca. The level of proficiency was thus mismatched between the sessions. The participants were given assignments every week before the telecollaborative online interactions. The outcome was that the L1 students experienced the project as more

achieving in comparison to the L2 students. The native speakers developed their teamwork, linguistic competence, learner autonomy and LSP learning. The second language learners however, enhanced their intercultural ability.

4.2 Article Results

The article's summaries reveal how telecollaboration unites participants from different countries and continents in educational interaction. The only continent not being represented in this research is Africa. Article results further reveal how telecollaboration can unite participants regardless of age and linguistic competence. The educational context differs from pupils in the primary school to students at the University. The

telecollaborative projects in the articles are based on the models twinning or tandem.

4.2.1 Negotiating meanings

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misunderstandings. Austin, Hampel & Kukulska-Hulme (2017) illustrates how multimodal reinforcement could prosper lexical gaps, maintaining the pupils' roles in interactions and complement the meaning of the spoken language as lack of linguistic knowledge occurs. The study furthermore exemplifies how the use of a teddy bear can compensate for the lack of communicative competences. During a telecollaboration, a student is shown carrying a teddy bear and displaying it to the interlocutors through the camera. The visualization of the teddy bear, through a visual media, shows as a representation of the silent language that symbolizes the feelings and thoughts of the child. A study conducted by Dooly & Davitova (2018) further demonstrates the use of multimodality to enhance the communicative understanding. In a virtual exchange, the students struggled while swapping their social media accounts and they found the chat function of Skype as a useful tool. As an act of affirmation that they found each other on social media they displayed their cellphones towards the screen. The cellphones served as a beneficial tool all through the communication process, in this study.

Communication through visual media contains body language and facial expressions, in addition to the spoken words. Austin et. al (2017) conveys that the cognitive state of the speaker is not always congruent to the visual appearance. Using a webcam as the

communication tool can thus sometimes complicate rather than support the

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4.2.2 Theme

Working with task-based language learning could establish positive outcomes during telecollaborative exchanges. Austin et. al. (2017) indicates that engaging in a theme could benefit the participants in the transition from formal to informal communication.

Considering that the partakers being strangers to each other, the thematic instruction may function as an icebreaker. Eventually as the strangers become acquaintances, the interaction will become more natural and self-reliant. A commonly used icebreaker is humour which plays a central thematic role in the study conducted by van der Zwaard & Bannink (2014). The Australian partakers in this study were given instructions to present unique cultural jokes to their counterparts. These jokes were difficult to understand for anyone who were not Australian. The Australian students would eventually have to negotiate the meaning of the jokes to make the Dutch students understand. However, in a study by Ramírez-Lizcano & Cabrera-Tovar (2020), culture learning was the thematic centerpiece to make virtual education more meaningful. The pupils experienced the process as valuable due to awareness of the correlation between language learning and cultural concerns. The

correlation between language and culture is reinforced by Austin et. al. (2017) who claims that young EFL learners' personal knowledge, language and culture, used in a meaningful context, could expand the development of resources and tools in creating meaning.

The importance of a well thought out theme is concretized by the different outcomes presented in the articles by Yi Ti Lin (2016) and by Dooly & Davitova (2018). In the research by Yi Ti Lin (2016) a bilingual children's book called ‘Where are you going’ was the thematic centerpiece of the designed task. The Taiwanese EFL learners were peer-assisted in their oral reading by English native speakers from Australia. The findings indicate that oral reading fluency can be achieved by peer-assistance throughout

telecollaboration. However, in the study by Dooly & Davitova (2018) the outcome of the presented findings did not show a correlation between their intended theme and the results. The theme of the project was to discuss and work with tasks and activities concerning the immigration situation with Syrian refugees in Europe, through

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for communication. However, the chosen theme seems to have a successful outcome if it is in line with the interests of the pupils.

4.2.3 Communication differences

A key factor that might support ESL learners' communicative competences is through peer assistance. Sevilla-Pavón (2019) claims that to overcome communication barriers,

assistance from more capable peers is needed. In the research by Yi Ti Lin (2016) the peers receive the opportunity to be both the learner and the educator through a telecollaborative exchange. The partakers will thus be more comfortable in their abilities and knowledge without having to feel inadequate while learning a new language. Hence, Yi Ti Lin (2016) hypothesize that peer-assisted learning, with both parties being educators as well as educated, is an achievable method when developing learning competences. However, Sevilla-Pavón (2019) highlights that group divisions must be taken into consideration when teachers prepare for the telecollaboration. It could be beneficial having students with different English level proficiency in a virtual collaboration.

All the articles have included either twinning or tandem in their telecollaboration projects. The studies conducted by Yi-Ti Lin (2016) and by Bannink & van der Zwaard (2014), both involved telecollaboration through the form of tandem. Both studies aim to improve second language learners’ communicative competence by interacting with native speakers of the targeted language. The articles investigated by Austin, Hampel & Kukulska-Hulme (2017), Cabrera-Tovar & Ramirez-Lizcano (2020) and Dooly & Davitova (2018) are all based on the telecollaborative model twinning. The aim with twinning is that the

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5. Discussion

Telecollaboration may lead the pupils in finding purpose to their language learning. The beneficial outcomes of peer-assisted learning have developed the ZPD to include the learning process between students. The concept of the Zone of Proximal Development has evolved from solely focusing on the learning context between teacher and student, to between student and student. Depending on the goal with the virtual exchange, the constellation of groups is a key-factor for a successful outcome. The learning context between teacher and student is equivalent to the telecollaboration model, tandem. The ambition with implementing tandem is for the students to gain peer assistance by the native speakers in their targeted language to enhance their oral fluency. On the other hand, the learning context in between student and student is equivalent to the telecollaborative form of twinning. The intention behind twinning is for the participants to be able to apply their targeted language in a challenging educational environment. Depending on the desirable result, it can be beneficial to carefully think through which method to use in

telecollaboration. However, both twinning and tandem can lead to positive consequences if the learning occurs within the zone of proximal development (Lightbown & Spada, 2006).

The articles presented demonstrate different ways of using virtual exchange in an educational environment. As described in O’Dowd (2016), both Freinet and Lodi both used thematic methods in their telecollaborative exchanges even though they had different aspirations for their outcome. The usage of themes has been a common denominator in the selected studies for this research. However, it is important that the chosen theme is aligned with the interests of the children as well as their zone of proximal development. In the research conducted by Dooly & Davitova (2018) the children neglected the chosen theme regarding the Syrian refugees in Europe and preferred to speak about social media. The topic concerning refugees might have been too challenging for the children to discuss with strangers. The Swedish Curriculum (2018) states that the content of the

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own topic. Furthermore, the functional perspective by Avlan Tudor (2001), advocates that the language learning will progress in a purposeful environment.

Even if there are rewarding outcomes with applying telecollaboration into the English lessons in Swedish primary schools, there are linguistic obstacles that will occur. To overcome the language barriers, the children need to have the ability to negotiate meaning. A carefully designed theme in a telecollaboration project could stimulate conversations between the interlocutors and support them into finding methods to negotiate meaning (Chapelle & Sauro, 2017). In the presented articles tools and strategies have been used to assist the negotiation of meaning. In the research conducted by Bannink & van der Zwaard (2014) the facial expressions signalized whether the information was received or not. In Dooly & Davitovas (2018) article, the cellular phone was used as a digital tool to assist the linguistic obstacles. A teddy bear and a book were the utilized tools to clarify meaning of the communication in the research written by Austin, Hampel, Kukulska-Hulme (2017). Additionally, negotiating for meaning is a strategy to further develop their linguistic skills (Lightbown & Spada 2006).

Negotiation of meaning is an important aspect in the Swedish Curriculum for the English education. Although the term multimodality is not mentioned in the English syllabus, they highlight that students need linguistic strategies to make themselves understood when the language is insufficient (Skolverket, 2018). The English syllabus (2018) for the primary schools furthermore states that the pupils require strategies to ensure mutual understanding to become an active part in conversations. In addition, the Syllabus (2018) promotes how communication can be made clearer and improved to enhance the language. Some of these language expressions are articulation and common English phrases.

Telecollaboration is a tool to connect the Swedish pupils with students across the globe. It is, thus, important to keep in mind that the different schools are regulated by their

Curriculums. How the teaching of English is organized differs between different countries. When the instruction of the English language begins could differ. Therefore, the age and the similarity in English level proficiency is necessary to consider while planning a

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Hypothesis (CPH). The idea behind the CPH is that the ultimate period for gaining

knowledge is between the years 2 and 13. Younger students have it easier to achieve native-like articulation and dialect when learning a second language in comparison to adults. Lightbown and Spada (2006) reveals that there is an extent of time when obtaining a second language is the same for obtaining a native language. Virtual exchanges might therefore be purposeful to include into the planning of English lessons in the Swedish primary schools. The students will attain language skills in their L2 in a challenging educational environment, allegedly at the right age.

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6. Conclusion

The aim with this study was to investigate if research findings support the claim that telecollaboration affects the communicative competences of second language learners in primary school. Throughout our research we encountered several key-factors for a prosperous virtual collaboration. The first key-factor is the importance of being able to negotiate meaning. The pupils will become challenged in a telecollaborative environment where they will need to find tools to overcome obstacles. The findings revealed that the pupils used their linguistic competences, body language and multimedia in overcoming the obstacles. Furthermore, the research displayed that theme is another key-factor while planning a telecollaborative project. We believe that working thematically is preferable when engaging in virtual exchanges with pupils in the elementary school. It is important to adapt the theme based on the interest and the English level proficiency of the pupils. Whilst planning the project it would be wise to consider how the groups are divided. The motivation, the courage to speak and the language level differences are all factors in gaining a positive group dynamic. Having the theory Zone of Proximal Development in mind, the students are more likely to have prosperous results with appropriate amounts of scaffolding and peer assistance in their collaboration. If the gap in level proficiency is substantial, the students might find the project too demanding and challenging.

The lack of control groups in the studies made it challenging for us to properly evaluate the results. We could see that the outcome from the projects were somewhat positive, however seeing that there were no control groups, there is no way of knowing if the

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