This document discusses bringing language learners together through virtual collaboration and exchange in both formal and informal learning contexts. It identifies challenges in foreign language education in Europe that telecollaboration can help address. Examples are provided of telecollaboration projects between pre-primary students in Spain and the US, and between university students in Spain and the US. Both formal exchanges within classrooms and informal exchanges through social media are discussed. Support for educators to facilitate such exchanges is also covered.

1. BRINGING LANGUAGE LEARNERS TOGETHER IN VIRTUAL
COLLABORATION AND EXCHANGE – IN FORMAL AND
INFORMAL LEARING CONTEXTS
Robert O’Dowd
University of León, Spain
robert.odowd@unileon.es
http://www3.unileon.es/personal/wwdfmrod
INTENT Project: http://intent-project.eu/
Twitter: Robodowd Skype: robodowd
1

2. Plan for this afternoon
• Identify some of the current challenges to foreign languages (FL)
educators in Europe
• Outline what me mean by ‘telecollaboration’ or ‘online intercultural
exchange’
• Explore some examples from formal and informal learning contexts and
different educational levels
• Discuss how you might get your learners involved in such exchanges
2

3. Current trends in FL education
• 1. A significant increase in access to online technologies in educational and training contexts
around Europe
– In 2006 67% of schools reported having broadband connections in their schools
(Commission of the European Communities, 2008: 23–34).
• 2. The emergence of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and podcasts as an essential part of
foreign language education
• 3. The acceptance of the importance of cultural awareness in foreign language education (See, for
example, the importance of intercultural competence in Council of Europe’s European Language
Portfolio and the Autobiography of intercultural encounters.
• 4. The paradigm of language learning as a sociocultural process which is best facilitated through
semi-authentic, purposeful communicative events (Dooly & O’Dowd, 2012)
• 5. The merger of foreign language competence and e-literacies as integral components of the
new skills required in global workplace: Instead of using technologies simply to learn foreign
languages, learners need to learn how to combine both foreign language skills and e-skills to be
able to work and collaborate in new contexts
3

4. Exploit the
availability
of ICT and
Web 2.0
tools
Need to provide
authentic
Challenges Need to develop
cultural awareness
communicative for FL and intercultural
opportunities for competence
learners Educators
Develop the skills
of 21st century
workplace
4

5. Student mobility in Europe
In 2020, at least 20% of those graduating in the European Higher Education
Area should have had a study or training period abroad.
(Communiqué of the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for
Higher Education, Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve, 28-29 April 2009)
But what happens to the remaining 80%?
http://ec.europa.eu/education/doc/2008/mobilityreport_en.pdf

6. Telecollaboration: International Online Learning from
the classroom
• In Language Learning & Technology (2003) Belz defines
the main characteristics of FL telecollaboration:
• ‘institutionalized, electronically mediated, intercultural
communication under the guidance of a languacultural
expert (i.e., teacher) for the purposes of foreign
language learning and the development of intercultural
competence’ (2003: 2).
6

7. How does Telecollaboration contribute to Foreign Language
Education?
Research studies show its value for development of:
•Learner autonomy (O’Rourke, 2007)
•Linguistic competence (Belz and Kinginger, 2003, Ware and O’Dowd, 2008)
•Intercultural competence (Mueller-Hartmann, 2000; O’Dowd, 2003; Ware,
2005)
•Online literacy skills (Guth and Helm, 2010; Hauck, 2007).
Success at primary and secondary levels through networks such as
etwinning and ePals.
Let’s see how it works: Two examples of Spanish-American
telecollaborative exchanges
Example 1 comes from Pre-primary education
Example 2 comes from university education

8. Example 1: Pre-Primary Exchange through Epals
www.epals.com

9. A reply to Noelia from the USA
• Hello Ms. Iglesias,
We are a class of 23 students ages 5-6 years old in Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, United States. My students will finish their first year of school in
just a few weeks and they are eager to share some of their favorite
memories and experiences from this year.
• In addition to sharing their favorite kindergarten memories, we will be
taking a field trip to the zoo next week. I'm sure my students will want to
write about it and send pictures.
• Even though we will only be able to communicate a few times before
the end of our school year, I think it would be a valuable experience for
both sets of students.
Please let me know if you are interested and have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Emily Tomkins

11. • HI EMILY!
My pupils are very happy. I told them about the new friends in Dakota and
they feel very excited.We were looking in the map where South Dakota is.
They want to know something about all of you and your school. We were
negotiating the questions in order they can improve their English. Besides
this, they want to "teach" you some Spanish words.
I wrote all the questions on the whiteboard and now you will see all of them
below:
What are your names?
What is the name of your school?
What colour is your classroom?
What´s the weather like in Dakota?
How old is your school?
Good bye, kisses
Oscar, Sofia C, Sofia V, Alvaro, Loreto, Fernando, CArmen y Lucía.
Teacher: Noelia
SPANISH WORDS THEY WANT TO TEACH YOU:
HOLA (Hello)
ADIÓS (Good bye)
BESOS (Kisses)

12. • Hello Noelia!
My students were so excited to read your letter last Friday! We loved all
of the good questions your students thought of. My students are going
to have to do some research to find out how old our school is. It was
interesting for them to try to develop a plan for how to find that
information. Some of them are going to ask their parents to help them
find the answer on the computer and others have decided to interview
different staff members at our school.
They loved learning new words. That was a great idea! My kiddos
thought it was very interesting that your students were learning English
in school. They are excited to learn a new language too.
We put a sticker on top of Leon on our world map in the class room as
well as a sticker on top of Sioux Falls. They were amazed to see how
far away you live.
…
• Have a wonderful weekend and adios! Emily

14. • Reflections by Noelia in Spain:
•
• This has been a wonderful experience for me as a teacher, and for my students.
• Anyway, we could exchange some information and my children could realize
the main purpose of learning English: communicate with people from
other cultures. Learning this language let the children know more about other
children, just like them, who live in other countries and who love to have new
friends and have fun.
• I was surprised how my students were thinking about the questions to ask them
in order to get some information from them, from their school and from their
classroom. The brain storming first and the negotiation next, let me feel so
proud about them because they were doing a very good cognitive
process…...speaking English for a real purpose!!!
• My students were very involved in this experience. Everyday they asked me:
“Teacher, ¿Nos han escrito los amigos de Dakota?”. I girl told me she had told
her mum about the new experience and she did not relieve her.
• I could never imagine it was going to be so excited, easy, quick, attractive
and useful . My students and me could be in touch with another culture,
another country, another school, another classroom with twenty three children
and a very kind teacher with out living our school!!

15. Example 2: University-level exchange
• Future ‘Primary school teachers’ in ULE (B1 level) work with Students of
Spanish in Missouri, USA:
• Task 1: Upload and discuss a photo or video which tells the other group
something about your home culture
• Task 2: Participate in two discussion forums – one in English and one in
Spanish.
• Task 3: In groups of four, create a blog with images, text and links about an
aspect of life in Spain/USA. Post your reactions and some language
corrections to your American partners’ blogs.
• Task 4: Write an essay (300 words) on what you have learned from the
exchange.

16. www.ning.com
16

17. Task 1: Upload and discuss a photo…
17

18. Task 2: Discussion forums
18

19. Making short videos for their partners…
19

20. Writing and designing blogs about their local
culture for a foreign audience
20

21. Two students’ reactions…
1. My opinion about this Exchange is very positive; it has made me
consider to use it in my future English classes with my students.
These months sharing opinions have given us a very different view of
the United States, which we had idealized, and that, from this we have
taken note that are not so different to our countries and that American
films us had deceived with respect to reality.
The most important thing I've learned in this Exchange has been not to
judge a society without first speak with one of its citizens…
2. I really enjoyed meeting new people and talk with them. I think
it was a good experience. I also think that learning English with
this online exchange is fun for people who don’t like English
and it is an alternative way of learning English.
21

22. Potential for informal learning?
Some examples of Telecollaboration 2.0
• Thorne et al. ( 2009 ): online fan communities, where learners can establish
relationships with like-minded fans of music groups or authors and can even use
Web 2.0 technologies to remix and create new artistic creations based on existing
books, films and music.
• Hanna and de Nooy ( 2009 ): Learners use their FL skills and hone their
intercultural communicative competence through participating in online public
discussion forums of French newspapers and magazines
• Pasfi eld-Neofi tou ( 2011 ): analyses blogs, emails, chat conversations, game profi
les and mobile phone communications between 12 Australian learners of Japanese
with Japanese partners they had contacted outside of their formal learning
environment.
• Stickler, U., & Emke, M. (2011): The Literalia project involves institutions in four
countries in a multinational and multicultural network of learners to further
intercultural maturity. All participants were adults learning voluntarily in non-
formal and informal settings.
22

23. “Intercultural Learning in the wild”
• This type of telecollaboration may be ‘situated in arenas
of social activity that are less controllable than
classroom or organized online intercultural exchanges
might be, but which present interesting, and perhaps
even compelling, opportunities for intercultural
exchange…and meaning making’ (Thorne, 2010 , p.
144).
23

24. The Challenges of Informal
Telecollaborative Learning
• How can learners receive ‘credit’ or recognition for their
informal telecollaborative work? – badges?
• How can learners establish regular and dependable virtual
partnerships?
• How can learners with relatively low levels of electronic
literacy engage in telecollaboration 2.0 activities involving the
remixing of multimedia objects and participation in public-
access ‘fan sites’ and public internet discussion forums?
24

25. Support and Networking for Primary
and Secondary Educators
25

26. Attending to the needs of University Practitioners
INTENT (Integrating Telecollaborative Networks Into Foreign
Language Higher Education )
Financed By The European Commission - Lifelong Learning
Programme
 Objectives:
 Carry out a survey of
telecollaboration in European
universities
 Develop a platform and set of
tools to overcome barriers
and facilitate
telecollaboration in
universities
 Develop a set of workable
solutions to address the lack
of academic integration in
Europe
26

27. www.uni-collaboration.eu
27

28. Search a list of classes which are interested in taking part in online
exchange projects...

29. In the task databank you can search or browse for tasks to suit your online
exchange.

30. When you choose a case study, you can read about different projects
in context

31. Get involved!
• Contact and suggestions
welcome:
– robert.odowd@unileon.es
• Read the INTENT Report on
Telecollaboration in Europe:
– http://www.scoop.it/t/intent-
project-news
– Upcoming platform for
university collaboration and
networking:
– www.uni-collaboration.eu
31