Language learning as agency for a social purpose: examples from the coronavirus pandemic

Language learning as
agency for a social purpose:
examples from the
coronavirus pandemic
Katerina Zourou, Ph.D.
JALTCALL conference, June 6-7, 2020

Katerina Zourou,
Web2Learn, Greece
Researcher in open, social and
digital learning
Advocate of open access, open
science and citizen science
KATERINA ZOUROU, JALTCALL2020, JUNE 6

COVID-19 Educational Disruption
N° of learners enrolled at pre-primary, primary, lower-secondary, upper-secondary levels & tertiary education levels.
Based on latest data from UNESCO Institute for StatisticsKATERINA ZOUROU, JALTCALL2020, JUNE 6

Talk outline
The pandemic: an opportunity for L2 use and
learning?
Agency and social action in L2 from a sociocultural
perspective
Technology-mediated social participation (TMSP) in
crisis situations
Examples of TMSP with potential for L2 use
Perceived advantages and disadvantages of TMSP
for CALL during the pandemic

”In every crisis there is opportunity”
Examples of participatory, citizen driven initiatives
stemming from the collective effort to fight the
pandemic.
->Technology-mediated social participation
(Preece & Sheiderman, 2009) as a framework of
analysis for community practices in the fight
against COVID-19 and their potential for L2 use
and learning

Theoretical background
Agency and social action in L2
• Sociocultural understandings of learning: emphasis on learners as social
actors shaping their discourse and identity through agentive action
• Agentive action (through participation) transforms and re-creates a new
world that becomes part of one’s own.
• L2 learners increasingly craft learning trajectories through multiple platforms
and sites, including social networking ones.
• Developments in technology (mobile devices that afford connection and
social interaction anytime and anywhere, social networking tools) offer
possibilities for user-driven, self- and group- initiated practices that redraw
models of production, distribution, and reuse of knowledge
(Lave, 1998; Thorne, 2010; Reinhardt 2018; Zhao, Ellison & Lampe, 2016; Warner & Chen, 2017)

Agency-autonomy-social participation in
L2
“A pedagogy that leverages social media practices for developing L2
learner autonomy should support learner agency by promoting user
choice and self‐directed learning” (Reinhhardt, 2018)
Cf. “digital wilds” refers to non-instructionally oriented contexts that
support social activity (…) “which present interesting, and perhaps
even compelling, opportunities for intercultural exchange, agentive
action, and meaning making”
(Thorne, Sauro, & Smith, 2015, Sauro & Zourou, 2019)

Research questions of a work in progress*
• What possibilities for technology-mediated social participation
conducive to language learning exist in the fight against COVID-
19?
• What are the pitfalls?
• What forms of language learning take place?
• What kind of attitudes/stances for language learners do they
entail?
* Ζοurou, K. 2021, forthcoming. Language learning as agency for a social purpose: examples from the
coronavirus pandemic. In M. Lloret & N. Ziegler (Eds) Routledge Handbook of SLA and Technology.

Methodology
• An exploratory study : a preparatory examination of an issue in
order to gain insights and ideas about its underlying nature.
• The aim : offer a better understanding of an issue that has not
been studied in the past
(Stebbins, 2001; McNabb, 2015)

Delimitation of the field analysis
Will be considered: possibilities for L2 use and learning, forms
of social participation in the fight against coronavirus
Will be excluded:
• practices affording little of no interaction, such as COVID-19
applications for self-reporting symptoms (e.g. Operation
COVID-19 (OpCovID), ‘CoronaReport’)
• Forms of online social participation/civic engagement in general
(climate change, #metoo, race discriminations, etc.)

4 main types of
TMSP in the fight
against COVID-
19 and their
potential for L2
use and learning
Massively multiplayer online games
(MMOGs)
TMSP in expert communities: digital
activism, open data and open science
Grassroots initiatives of digital hacktivism
1.Citizen science projects

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs)
Examples: Eterna, Foldit@home and Foldit.

#1:Massivelymultiplayeronlinegames(MMOGs)

Puzzle solving environment+ chat

Chat (help)

Perceived advantages and
disadvantages for L2 use and learning
+: the social dimension of game play (the most highly
ranked in all digital gaming studies in CALL, cf. Fischer &
Thorne, 2012; Reinhardt & Zander, 2011).
-: both chats (general and help) were conducted in one
language only (English). Languages other than English??
Multilingual repertoires?

#2: TMSP in expert
communities: digital activism,
open data and open science

EUvsVirus hackathon
TMSP in expert communities: digital
activism, open data and open science
#2:TMSPinexpertcommunities/digitalactivism

Some statistics
• 21,000 participants
• 140 nationalities
• 27 countries
• 23 languages
• 600+ corporate partners
• 1,400 mentors
• 400 jury members
over 2,000 solutions to address coronavirus-related
challenges

“Remote working and Education” among the 6 categories of
Challenges to be addressed

The online working environment: Slack

+: an advancement in L2 learning and in one’s field of expertise
-:predominance of the English language as the international
lingua franca.

#3: Grassroots initiatives of
digital activism

Grassroots initiatives of digital activism
• Bottom-up activities launched and sustained by local, national
or global communities
• Examples: Covid19Italia Help and many initiatives within the
Maker community
#3:Grassrootsinitiativesofdigitalactivism

Maker movement
emphasis on the value of an individual's ability to be
a creator of things.
For COVID-19: many maker communities around the
world engaged in provision of medical supplies
(oxygen masks, personal protective equipment
including face shields, and devices such as
oxygen concentrators)
Example: US based Nation of Makers
Makers in almost 500 maker communities
had produced 7,196,842 items in 49
countries (June 1, 2020)

+: L2 users encounter more opportunities for extended
interaction compared, for instance, with shorter interaction cues
at problem solving MMOGs. Also, due to the numerous maker
communities worldwide, more opportunities to interact in
languages other than English
-: ?

#4: Citizen science projects (work in progress)

Some concluding remarks
(work in progress)
• Research wise, a need to focus more on the potential to use and learn an
L2 in many activity settings (though efficiency, economies of scale and
developmental outcomes may differ).
• From a pedagogical perspective: a need to acknowledge learners as
social actors and to embrace language practice occurring in informal
learning settings.
• Need for more evidence-based research grounded on primary data
(analysis of player-to-player online discussion forums in MMOGs,
assessment of the linguistic complexity, etc.)
• A need to open up CALL research on the wealth of forms of social action
as means to (L2) learning (citizen-driven innovation, heritage activism,
grassroots community learning, civic hacktivism, etc.)

Thank you! Questions?
Katerina Zourou
katerinazourou@gmail.com
@web2learn_eu
Google scholar
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