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Telecollaboration�for Teacher Training

Catherine Clements & Mabindra Regmi

University of Minnesota

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What is this presentation about?

  • ESL teachers, do you want your students to act as experts, tap into their multilingual expertise, and articulate their ideas about language learning?
  • Teacher trainers, do you want your students to engage deeply with second language learners?
  • All teachers, do you want to support your students to take charge of their learning outside of the classroom and make multinational connections?

If so, this is the presentation for you.

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What is this presentation about?

Both of us are instructors at UMN, in different departments, and PhD students in Curriculum & Instruction. We’ll discuss ...

  1. Details of a new project, now in its 2nd semester – a unique collaboration b/w multilingual students & teachers in training at the University of Minnesota
  2. Impetus for project, how it was set up, challenges & triumphs
  3. Suggestions how to set up a project of your own at your home campus

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Impetus for study

Spring 2020 - - mandatory distance learning

    • Students in online classes feeling disengaged, disconnected
      1. Especially international students

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

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Impetus for study

  • Inspired by other models of telecollaboration for teacher training (Yang 2020, Viáfara González 2020)
  • Telecollaboration not a new idea -- used extensively for FL learning
    • Pen pals/conversation partners/Tandem/virtual exchanges
    • Easier now with online teleconferencing equipment and mobile apps
  • ​

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Impetus for study

Supports feminist pedagogy (Chick & Hassel, 2009)

  1. Student centered; Students take charge of their own learning
  2. Students take chances or risks
  3. Learning is situated outside the classroom

Photo by Dylan Ferreira on Unsplash

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Project setup

  1. Initial idea: students meet, talk about English language learning
  2. Refined down to 5 topics
    1. Self introduction
    2. Listening & speaking
    3. Pronunciation
    4. Reading & writing
    5. American culture

MELP

CI

Photo by Jessica Da Rosa on Unsplash

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Project Outcomes

  • Multilingual students act as experts & articulate own experience learning English.
  • Teachers in training learn firsthand from multilingual students about their challenges in learning English.

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MELP

CI

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

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Additional outcomes

  1. Multilingual students exposed to diversity of undergraduate student body
    1. Meet people who could become their friends
  2. Teachers in training meet people who could be their students, whom they might not learn about in their classes
    • Teachers in training in this context are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, or WEIRD; ESL students might not be

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Student participants

  1. Multilingual International students at UMN in MELP
    1. Beginner/intermediate level ESL class
      1. Oral Skills class; listening & speaking
      2. 10 hours/week
    2. Part of 25-hour/week IEP
  2. TESL minor class, CI3611W, Basics in Teaching ESL
    • Part of undergraduate minor in TESL
    • Students exposed to various ESL learner situations through class observation, community-engaged learning, and interaction with English language learners at MELP

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Study logistics

1-on-1 partnerships. Students required to meet 5 times during semester to talk about 5 topics

    • Meet on Zoom, WhatsApp or platform of choice (1st iteration)
      • Fall 2021 - can meet in person
    • Each session 15-30 minutes
    • No need to record sessions but Ss should take notes and reflect on their experience
      • ESL students record videos (Flipgrid) telling how it went
      • TESL students reflect their experiences through journals & share in the classroom

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Challenges

  1. Participant attrition
    1. Burnout is real
    2. Not worth a lot of course grade
    3. Students have other obligations
  2. Viability & sustainability
    • How will this fit in to your pre-existing curriculum?
  3. Time & difficulty in setup
    • Lots of work for teachers to arrange
  4. ​

Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

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Triumphs

  1. ESL students like it
    1. It is a good thing to have a native speaker speaking with you about your difficulties in English learning because they might see a thing that can change your skills. It was useful too, to learn about the English learning in the US.

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Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

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Preliminary Student Reports are Positive

  • I really believe that the partner meetings can be very helpfull when you have good topics. Also I learned about many things such as politics, life as a college student, economics topics, grammar, etc.
  • The effective way to learn about English and the US is have a conversation with native American which is you can learn a lot of American cultural and of course improve you speaking skills

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Triumphs (Cont’d)

  • Helps prepare TESL students what to expect & how to plan lessons in actual teaching environment
    • I really enjoy working with students. I think what is making our time together be successful is that we are both listening to each other. I make sure to listen to his needs and cater to it while i also make sure I go over and help with the topics i was given. I think this way of sharing power with the student helps motivate them and keep them on the right track, to be proficient speakers of the language they are learning.
    • ​

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Suggestions for pairings outside the IEP

Teacher training courses and ESL �classes, including

  1. ABE
  2. Language institutes (ELS, etc)
  3. High school ESL classes (?)
  4. International EFL classes �(Angelova & Zhao, 2016)
    1. American teachers in training and Chinese learners
  5. Other ESL/EFL teachers (Müller-Hartmann, 2005)

Photo by Camille Brodard on Unsplash

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General best practices for telecollaborations

  • Inform students early in the semester/term
    • Regardless of when collaboration will start
  • Let students know desired outcomes & value of project
  • Get involved right away when/if partnerships don’t work
  • Be prepared for amazing experiences
    • Not all telecollaborations are magic. But some are.

Photo by Bave Pictures on Unsplash

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Questions?

Kate -- cleme050@umn.edu

Mabi -- regmi015@umn.edu

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Photo by Lip on Unsplash

شکریہ धन्यवाद

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References

Angelova, M., & Zhao, Y. (2016). Using an online collaborative project between American and Chinese students to develop ESL teaching skills, cross-cultural awareness and language skills. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 29(1), 167–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2014.907320

Chick, N., & Hassel, H. (2009). “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Virtual”: Feminist Pedagogy in the Online Classroom. Feminist Teacher, 19(3), 195–215. https://doi.org/10.1353/ftr.0.0049

Committee on How People Learn II: The Science and Practice of Learning, Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences, Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, & National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2018). How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures (p. 24783). National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24783

Müller-Hartmann, A. (2005). Learning how to teach intercultural communicative competence via telecollaboration: A model for language teacher education. Internet-Mediated Intercultural Foreign Language Education, 24.

Viáfara González, J. J. (2020). Prospective English teachers re-examining language ideologies in telecollaboration. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 33(7), 732–754. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2019.1590419

Yang, S. Y. (2020). Affordances and Challenges of Telecollaboration for Pre-service Teachers. Language Learning, 24(3), 30–41.

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