Marco Cappellini

Role taking for teletandem pairs involved in multimodal online conversation: Some proposals for counseling practice

Abstract In this article we consider how the roles of learner and teacher are configured in a teletandem exchange between two students working in a university language centre with no external tutor present. Teletandem is a multilateral exchange (Lewis et al. 2011) via desktop videoconferencing. It is based on the tandem method, where two learners with different mother tongues learn each other’s language through multimodal online interaction. It relies on learner autonomy and reciprocity, which means that every learner is supposed to be half of the time learner of one language and half of the time expert in the other. Our study shows that teletandem partners assume expert and learner roles not only in relation to the language spoken, but also according to the topic discussed, generating what we call “crossed expertise”. Moreover, we identify different degrees in the use of multimodality. These findings help us to understand how roles are constructed in a self-guided language learning environment and in this way contribute to the improvement of tandem learning arrangements and the design of tandem learning environments.

Sequences of normative evaluation in two telecollaboration projects: A comparative study of multimodal feedback through desktop videoconference

Abstract In our study we analyse how the same interactional dynamic is produced in two different pedagogical settings exploiting a desktop videoconference system. We propose to focus our attention on a specific type of conversational side sequence, known in the Francophone literature as sequences of normative evaluation. More particularly, we analyse data from two telecollaborative projects through desktop videoconference: a French-Chinese tandem, and a French-Irish telecollaboration between trainee teachers and learners of French as a foreign language. The comparison of two different pedagogical settings allows us to understand what types of interactional dynamics are co-constructed through the desktop videoconference environment and which characteristics are specific to each pedagogical setting. Within a socio-interactionist perspective, we analysed four hours of interactions, focusing particularly on the transmodal enactment of the sequences under scrutiny and its relation to learners’ uptake. Our results show on the one hand that there are some quantitative differences in the production of sequences of normative evaluation between the two pedagogical settings, and on the other hand that, contrary to our hypothesis, the co-construction of these sequences does not differ in multimodal density across the two contexts. We discuss these results and propose some tentative explanations for them.

Teletandem as a complex learning environment: Looking for a model

This article presents a model of teletandem, i.e. tandem through desktop videoconferencing (Telles 2009). The aim of such a model is twofold: heuristic and pedagogical. It is heuristic because it enables us to understand teletandem at all its levels and partially to predict (in probabilistic terms) what can happen in a teletandem environment. It is also pedagogical because it helps us formulate plans of action to improve future use and environment design. To build this model, we have drawn upon complexity theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron 2008, Morin 1990), which leads us to distinguish different levels of analysis before discussing the relationship between the different elements and levels leading to the complex fi nal (yet dynamic) model.