{"title":"Project-Based Learning to Develop Intercultural Communicative Competence in Virtual Exchange Contexts","authors":"A. Peraza, Yumiko Furumura","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.307059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.307059","url":null,"abstract":"Higher education requires a different approach to teaching and learning since modern-day students no longer have the same learning needs as they had in the past. Project-based learning (PBL) is an active and dynamic approach to language teaching that makes it possible for the language students to gain transferable and applicable knowledge, skills and insights, and it also contributes to support and enhance virtual exchanges (VE), especially when it comes to developing intercultural communicative competence and using digital technologies. This paper is aimed at showing the results of using PBL in VE contexts to develop intercultural communicative competence of Costa Rican and Japanese EFL students by implementing some ideas from the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (FRCDC). The results suggest that implementing PBL in VE contexts to develop intercultural communicative competence of Costa Rican and Japanese EFL students had an impact on the participants’ skills, values, attitudes, and knowledge and critical understanding.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74260181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Power of Virtual Exchange as an Overarching Tool to Unify Language, Culture, and Communication","authors":"Gerdientje Oggel, Cristina Pascual Aibar, Mirjana Fildjokic","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.307060","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.307060","url":null,"abstract":"During the COVID-19 pandemic, most classes in higher education were offered online, and student and staff mobility came to a sudden halt. With its focus on online interaction and collaboration between students from different cultural backgrounds, Virtual Exchange (VE) has presented itself as an excellent opportunity to students and educators to combine the benefits of both digitalization and internationalization. This paper looks at the role of a series of factors in the interdisciplinary VE called 'The new normality,' which took place between BA Social Psychology students at a large public research institution in Eastern Spain and students from different BAs enrolled in Spanish proficiency courses at large public research university in the North of the Netherlands. This project had two main goals: 1) to create an environment for students to share their pandemic experiences across cultures and disciplines; 2) to determine to what extent this exchange of ideas contributed to the development of students’ intercultural awareness and competence and communicative competence.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89918933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Foreign Language Communication in Virtual Exchanges","authors":"A. C. B. Salomão","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.307061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.307061","url":null,"abstract":"Virtual exchange (VE) has grown out of telecollaboration, which originated in the language-teaching field, and has now expanded to all areas of knowledge as a collaborative methodology to enhance learning and fostering soft skills and intercultural competences. VE has recently received growing interest from higher education institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the reduction in physical mobility. This article reports a study on the strategies used by non-language specialist professors for facilitating communication in a foreign language in VE within the Brazilian Virtual Exchange (BRaVE). Data collection and analysis involved qualitative research methodology through analyzing participants’ reflections. Implications for the field of applied linguistics point to the need for a theoretical framework for VE as an interdisciplinary field. This would serve the purpose to train professors to design and implement activities that involve foreign language communication.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"62 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74465450","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring The Impact of Integrating a MOOC-VE Blend Within English Language Pre-Service Teacher Education","authors":"Abraham Cerveró-Carrascosa","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.307062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.307062","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this paper is to report on the impact of the BMELTET project ‘Blending MOOCs into English Language Teaching Education with Telecollaboration' in EFL pre-service teacher education in Florida Universitària in València (Spain) with their counterparts from the UK and China. The present study will offer the views of FU students' perceptions on the development of their TEFL specific competences. Data were collected through surveys, a focus group, and personal interviews on how their experience in BMELTET influenced their in-class professional practice. Results suggest that participants appreciated the chance of being part of a Virtual Exchange and considered that they had developed subject specific competences, particularly planning CLIL projects, teaching English for primary education and practicing their language skills. In addition, some of them transferred that knowledge to their eTwinning and Erasmus projects when in-service and highlighted the improvements in their intercultural communicative competence and their ability to teach it.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"525 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77587110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring Student Engagement With Computer-Mediated Peer Feedback on L2 Writing","authors":"Maggie Ma","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.305828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.305828","url":null,"abstract":"From a sociocultural perspective, this case study explored two intermediate-level Chinese university EFL students’ multi-dimensional engagement with asynchronous computer-mediated mode of peer feedback. Data sources included student drafts, peer feedback, think-aloud protocols, stimulated recall, and semi-structured interviews. The two students displayed different responses to asynchronous computer-mediated peer feedback with different foci when engaging with it affectively, cognitively, and behaviorally. In particular, their cognitive engagement was characterized by noticing and interpretation, evaluation, and decision-making. The two student writers’ engagement was not just related to the computer-mediated mode of peer feedback, but also to their motives and roles adopted in the activity of engaging with peer feedback, both of which may be influenced by the community (i.e., the classroom instructional context), its rule (i.e., word limit), and the division of labour in the community (i.e., the role adopted by student reviewer). Pedagogical implications are discussed.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78703719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Influence of Contextual and Motivational Variables on Willingness to Communicate in Fully Online EFL Programmes","authors":"S. Grant","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.305827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.305827","url":null,"abstract":"This quantitative study takes an ecological perspective by examining classroom environmental variables, student motivational factors and their relationship with form-focused and meaning-focused in-class willingness to communicate (WtC) during a fully online English as a Foreign Language programme at a Macau university. Statistically significant multiple regression results identified a moderate and strong overall relationship between these environmental and student motivational factors with in-class meaning-focused (adjusted R2 = 0.47, p < .01) and form-focused (adjusted R2 = 0.53, p < .01) WtC. In addition, regression results indicated task orientation, student group cohesiveness, and desire to learn English as the most important predictor variables for both types of in-class WtC. Weak relationships were evident between WtC with teacher support and motivation intensity. The results suggest that well-developed tasks and strong student group cohesiveness are fundamental considerations for fully online programme design for encouraging WtC.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"96 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75873454","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Implementing Technology-Mediated Task-Based Language Teaching in an EFL Writing Course","authors":"Yi-Chien Wang","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.305829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.305829","url":null,"abstract":"This study explored the effects of technology-mediated task-based language teaching (TMTBLT) in an English as a foreign language (EFL) writing course on students’ descriptive writing performance. A quasi-experiment was conducted. Students in two writing courses were recruited and randomly assigned to an experimental or control group. The participants in the experimental group were engaged in the technology-mediated writing task of transforming their descriptive writing assignment, in which they introduced local tourist attractions, into videos to exchange online with foreign virtual peers. A mixed-methods research approach was adopted to analyze the data collected from participants’ compositions and self-reflections. The results revealed that TMTBLT was effective in developing EFL students’ descriptive writing proficiency. In addition to improving their writing, the students enjoyed participating in the task and used multiple skills. The implications of this study for TMTBLT in EFL writing teaching practices are also discussed.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90497293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Digital Gaming in the Language Classroom","authors":"K. Li, M. Peterson, Jiahui Wan","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.291110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.291110","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the increasing awareness of digital games’ potential for language learning, only a handful of studies focus on their integration into classrooms. Informed by bridging activities, this mixed methods case study recruited six students to engage in instructed gameplay in class and game-related activities after class. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analyzed so as to measure participants’ learning outcome, document their engagement, and explore their perceptions of game-based language learning. Results suggest progress in vocabulary recall and transfer. Participants also reported gains in writing and listening, satisfaction with the project, along with a positive attitude towards GBLL. Moreover, it is found that the instructor has a pivotal role to play in pre-game set-up, in-game guidance and post-game feedback. The study yields empirical evidence regarding the benefits of GBLL and may hold pedagogical implications for the integration of games into educational settings. The limitations of this research and future directions are also discussed.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86256312","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning Design Preferences in LMOOCs","authors":"Cristina A. Huertas-Abril, B. Muszyńska","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.291106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.291106","url":null,"abstract":"Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have come to stay supported by the development of educational technologies, and within them Language MOOCs (LMOOCs) are a phenomenon that has risen expectations but also shown their limitations. This study aims at comparing students’ preferences from two universities (UCO, Spain, and ULS, Poland) regarding the learning design preferences of LMOOCs and analyze whether there are differences based on sociocultural context, gender and educational stage. The respondents (n = 260) stated to be in favor of a balance between the constructivist and instructionist educational practices in online language courses. The findings reveal significant differences regarding LMOOCs learning and feedback design in terms of gender and sociocultural context, while no significant differences were found between undergraduate and postgraduate students. These results may be used to plan innovative and effective learning situations that suit learners’ needs and preferences, which should lead to higher quality of learning, and higher learner engagement and satisfaction.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81668760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Affordances of Video conferencing tools in synchronous online sessions in the Turkish EFL context","authors":"Aysegul Liman Kaban","doi":"10.4018/ijcallt.301194","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4018/ijcallt.301194","url":null,"abstract":"In 2020, video conferencing went from a novelty to a necessity, and its usage skyrocketed due to shelter-in-place throughout the world. However, there is a scarcity of academic research on the psychological effects and mechanisms of video conferencing, and scholars need tools to understand this drastically scaled usage. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand EFL teachers’ expectations and needs for video conferencing tools. 578 English as a foreign language education teachers who live in Turkey participated in this study. Mixed-methods research was used to analyze the survey results. The findings of this study can be used to guide the selection of appropriate videoconferencing systems for educational purposes. They also provide information on how to investigate teaching methods and pedagogies for online education. This study also includes a series of suggestions for how to improve videoconferencing tools.","PeriodicalId":43610,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89816276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}