• “Teaching Culture! A multi-national blended course for teachers of adults across Europe” by Anne Fox
• “Negotiating for meaning across borders with CMC” by Peggy Patterson and Susana Trabaldo

TEACHING CULTURE!
A MULTI-NATIONAL BLENDED COURSE FOR TEACHERS OF ADULTS IN EUROPE

By Anne E M Fox
Grenaa Handelsskole
Grenaa, Denmark
af @ ghs.dk

Abstract

The Teaching Culture! project develops inter-cultural awareness in adult educators through blended-learning teacher training courses. The main question was whether inter-cultural awareness could develop through a course which was largely online. We experimented in monitoring the progress of inter-cultural awareness, a set of skills which are notoriously difficult to define. We used learning diaries and portfolios over two rounds of the pilot course, the first round with language teachers and the second for teachers in all subject areas. The results of our study suggest that our approach succeeds in raising inter-cultural awareness. 

Introduction

‘To know another‘s language and not his culture is a very good way to make a fluent fool of one’s self.’ (Brembeck, 1997) 

In an increasingly mobile and multi-cultural Europe you don’t even have to travel to come across other cultures. School teachers are increasingly well prepared for inter-cultural encounters but adult education teachers do not have access to so many training opportunities. The Teaching Culture! project, supported by the Grundtvig strand of the European Union’s Socrates programme, sought to remedy this by experimenting with developing a blended learning teacher training course to enable adult education teachers to develop their inter-cultural awareness. One of the greatest uncertainties was whether inter-cultural awareness could be nurtured through a course which was largely online. The project also experimented with how to monitor the development of cultural awareness.

Inter-cultural issues which may arise in the adult education classroom include:

1.       Dealing with different attitudes to learning;

2.       Dealing with different attitudes to teaching; eg. the teacher as ‘sage on the stage’ or ‘guide on the side’.

3.       Building cultural perspectives into teaching materials and activities.

4.       Overcoming stereotypes and prejudice in learners, their families and other teachers.

5.       Communicating across cultures.

These issues arise to a greater or lesser extent across the whole of adult education. The obvious starting point is language teachers, who were targeted in the first round of the pilot course. However the second round of the pilot course was opened to teachers of all subjects so that the general applicability of the course could be tested. In both pilots there were strict limits on the numbers from each country to ensure a mixture of cultural backgrounds. The group size was 11 in both pilots.

The project partners came from Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Austria, Germany, Spain, Ireland and the UK and included professionals from universities, research institutes, teacher training institutions, adult education institutions and cultural associations. There was, therefore, a broad inter-cultural representation from various relevant professions. In addition to technical and administrative support, required roles included personal tutors for each participant, unit tutors to prepare and monitor the use of materials for both the online and face to face units, and a course director to ensure curriculum cohesion.

Often inter-cultural training takes place in mono-cultural groups, so one of the aims with this project was to make the experience inter-cultural right from the start. One common problem for adults taking part in training events is lack of time. Therefore, taking a culturally mixed group of adults for an intensive face-to-face course over several weeks was simply not feasible especially since this would involve long periods in another country for most, if not all, of the participants. The solution proposed was therefore a blended learning course in three modules. The first module is an extended period of collaborative online study followed by the second module, an intensive week of face-to-face activities, with the whole rounded off by a third module, a second online period in which participants devise and try out each other’s ideas in the classroom. See the course structure in Table 1 below.

Table 1: The three module structure.

The project faced two major challenges:

1.       Is it possible to develop inter-cultural awareness online?

2.       Is it possible to chart the development of inter-cultural awareness online?

Module One

1. Developing inter-cultural awareness online

There are two approaches to inter-cultural training, culture specific and culture general. Culture specific refers to the do’s and don’ts guidelines one often gets just prior to a business trip, foreign work placement, or internship to a specific country. This gives information without stressing understanding. Culture general refers to the acquisition of an understanding of what culture means and how it can lead to different behaviours and perceptions. Whilst not of immediate use to a forthcoming visit to a specific culture, it may help to make one more tolerant of ambiguity and differences, which in the long run may be more useful. It was this latter approach which we tried to promote in the Teaching Culture course.

The first module provides an introduction to the major features of inter-cultural considerations by reference to both the basic theory of inter-cultural communication and the participants’ own personal experiences. The second module was the face to face component designed to provide inter-cultural experiences by bringing the multi-cultural group together in an unfamiliar location where they would get to know each other. They would also take part in inter-cultural activities which test their ability to operate in a different culture. The third and final module is where participants get the opportunity to combine theory and personal experience in planning activities for their own classroom as well as trying out their colleagues’ ideas to judge how well the ideas travel across cultural boundaries and how to adapt them for use in different cultural contexts.

In adopting the culture-general approach, it is usual to lead participants to recognise their own cultural background before going on to examine features of other cultures and their own reactions to these. However, this was not explicit enough for the participants of the first pilot round, and therefore in the second round the project group devised a story metaphor to chart this learning journey. The story was based around the idea of the group coming together in the virtual campus. The resulting story and corresponding modules are shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2: The story metaphor across the three modules

The story metaphor was most strongly developed in the units of Module 1 as shown below in Table 3.

Table 3: Units in Module 1 – Intercultural campus

Attempts were made to vary the activities as much as possible during the online sections and to avoid the tendency to make online courses heavily text-based. The exercises in Module 1 therefore included reports on the participants’ own culture, exploration of metaphors, choosing representative pictures, collecting evidence from media, and individual interviews and role plays. This achieved two goals, the first being to make the course accessible to those whose skills in English are not so high and the second being to make the course as experiential as possible since this is deemed most effective in inter-cultural training.

2. Monitoring the development of inter-cultural awareness online

Inter-cultural awareness is manifest in the reactions of an individual when faced with an inter-cultural situation. Those reactions are based mainly on an individual’s innermost beliefs and values and can be tempered to some extent by training and awareness-raising. These deeply personal attributes are largely hidden from view and difficult to make explicit. There are also important ethical questions relating to the extent to which we can aim to tamper with and change these beliefs as described by Byram (2000). Another indication of the sensitivity of the issue is that the promoters of the Common European Framework of Reference for languages have considered and failed to come up with indicators of inter-cultural skills.

Learning diary and portfolio

The project team therefore concluded that the most effective approach to charting inter-cultural awareness development was through self-reporting and self-assessment. The approach adopted was to encourage reflective learning through the compilation of (1) a learning diary, in which participants recorded their progress, feelings, triumphs and difficulties; and (2) a portfolio in which participants could collect their work, notes and other material of interest. These two items were shared periodically with the personal tutor which each participant was allocated. This was usually the project partner in the country where the participant was based. In most cases this ensured the participant had face to face meetings throughout the duration of the course but in a couple of cases the distances involved meant that these tutorial sessions were also online or at least by telephone. Table 4 below shows where the tutors fit in to the overall course structure.

Table 4: Support structure

Collaborative activities

Another important part of the strategy was to create opportunities for reflection by promoting collaborative activities across cultures as the main method of content delivery. Many of the activities across the whole course required working in small groups with participants from different cultures. Participants were also required to use their immediate circle of family, friends and colleagues as cultural informants for finding out about their own cultural background. During the face to face residential period one of the tasks is for participants to form small inter-cultural working groups for the final teaching activity in which group members try out and evaluate each other’s tasks as well as their own, once back in their own home environment.

Module 2

The residential

The residential in the first pilot took place in Lithuania, a country unknown by most of our participants except our one Lithuanian participant, and therefore a really inter-cultural experience for all. An important element of the residential was an exercise designed to reveal the participants’ values with respect to their teaching. This was the subject of a useful plenary on the last day about the implications of participants’ bringing different sets of values to their classrooms. In addition to purely pedagogical and team building exercises, various inter-cultural experiences were timetabled in. One was a tutorial in the Lithuanian language and another was a city-wide treasure hunt through Vilnius which required our participants to solicit information from passers-by thereby initiating contact with local people.

In Lithuania, our hosts organised dancing classes so that our participants could learn one or two traditional Lithuanian dances. The dances are a much more important part of Lithuanian culture than in many other European cultures partly because they were suppressed or discouraged during the Soviet era. The school children assigned to the task did a very good job of coaching our participants. The biggest challenge was for our participants to perform, in front of the mainly local Lithuanian audience, the two dances they had learned at a folk dance evening organised especially for our benefit. The performance was followed by a buffet reception which in fact turned out to be more of a challenge for the project partners than the participants who had had the benefit of getting to know the Lithuanians all afternoon. This demonstrated the value of personal contact quite forcibly and the lesson was not lost on the project partners. A basic theme running throughout the project is ‘from virtual to real´ but sometimes it was the other way round as when the participants created an online travelogue of the residential period which can be seen at http://www.teaching-culture.de/en/events/litauen/travelogue/travelogue_start.htm.

Module 3

The lesson exchange

For some participants this was the most anticipated part of the course. During the residential week they came together in small inter-cultural groups of three to four persons to create inter-cultural lessons around a common theme. The themes which emerged during the residential were

·         non-verbal communication

·         the use of pictures

·         developing empathy or tolerance.

Groups formed easily during the residential prior to creating, trialling and exchanging teaching ideas. The biggest problem in this final module was the staggered summer holiday across Europe which made regular online communication difficult since the project partners had naturally insisted on inter-cultural working groups. It also affected the participants’ ability to trial the lesson plans with exam or induction periods intervening.

Challenges

The project organizers were able to learn a great deal from the first round, and lessons learned were implemented in the second pilot which at the time of writing is still in session. The second pilot invited participants from any subject area and this attracted a very wide range of participants including art and dance teachers, online learning consultants, multimedia teachers and economics lecturers, which will create a challenge in forming groups for the exchange of teaching ideas in Module 3.

Two of the problems encountered have already been mentioned namely staggered holidays and the need for a more explicit thread running through the course. These have both been addressed; the first by re-scheduling the course and the second by the development of the story metaphor. Another problem was that a common language had to be chosen for the course. One of the main aims was to foster communication between the participants, thus facility in English was a requirement, and it then became a question of what level was sufficient. We decided on B1[1]  according to the Common European Framework of Reference. Even so there is a delicate balance to be struck between the amount of background theory to be considered as a basic minimum and over-burdening participants with language which is above their level.

In some cases this problem can be overcome by ensuring that all rubrics, guidance, and instructions generated by the project developers are at an appropriate level. For example, an article was specially written for one of the units and this was explicitly simplified for the second pilot. This was done using online tools such as The Compleat Lexical Tutor (http://www.lextutor.ca/), which analyzes texts to show which word lists the vocabulary used belongs to. It was therefore possible to substitute uncommon words with more common words in many but not all cases. The readability analysis contained within the text processing program was also used to reduce average sentence length and number of passive sentences.

The other major problem unsurprisingly was misunderstandings. To a certain extent, an inter-cultural communication course thrives on misunderstandings in that they provide a rich fund of critical incidents which serve both to illustrate problems and which can be used as exercises for deepening understanding later on. The potential for misunderstanding was all the greater because we were working mostly online. The main example from the first round occurred when we invited participants to post pictures representing their culture.

When one of the participants posted a picture of the Virgin Mary, some of the other participants assumed that this meant that she was fervently religious. However, such assumptions were not voiced openly through the course website. Rather they were voiced privately between participants or to tutors by email. It was not until the residential week when a session on the use of pictures was scheduled that an explanation of the picture was finally forthcoming. The participant had posted the picture to represent the differences she had experienced moving from a Protestant part of Germany to a Catholic region where religious icons are much more common. This incident illustrates two points. First was the need to define tasks carefully when working online. The problem arose when the participant did not realise she was meant to comment on her choices after allowing an initial period for reaction by the rest of the group. The second point is that while the course was carefully planned, there was also a need and a willingness to amend the programme when the necessity arose.

Benefits

There were many benefits to running two pilot rounds, one of these being that we could use the participants from the first round as consultants to the round 2 participants when they come to planning their inter-cultural classroom activities. By sharing their newly gained expertise and further experience gained since the end of the course it is hoped that this will be an important additional benefit of the course.

Results

What sort of reflections does the learning diary give rise to? The following extracts are quoted as evidence that the online section of the course does give rise to real increases in inter-cultural awareness. They are taken from the pilot 2 participants, who have yet to meet face to face at the time of writing.

1.       “It was my first chat and I liked it. Talking, communicating, replying, listening, disclosing - that way we may get to know our own stereotypes as well as the more hidden ones in the media. Knowing my dialogue partners leads to the wish to understand them.” Birgit

2.       “I've enjoyed this lively expression and exchange of messages and reflections, and I find the asynchronous online format useful for such discussions. I like the pause to stimulate my own thinking before I write back to you, and sometimes I may have an inner dialogue for a while before I answer, and maybe even not, when I'm too busy elsewhere.” Susanne

3.       “I really enjoyed this unit because of its really practical and everyday-life implications. Unit 5 was a very important step for my intercultural understanding.” Magdalena

4.       “I would like to tell you that I was really enjoyed about the last unit and the chat was a very new and interesting experience for me. All your contributions made me think a lot about the influence of mass media and my own stereotypical views and their origins.” Brigitte

There is greater interaction in the second round, and this has made for a richer experience for all. It is difficult to know whether this is due to the individuals involved or whether it can be attributed to the improved presentation and structure of the course. The quotes below from current participants reflect this:

1.       “And until now all my expectations have [been] fulfilled and every day I am looking forward to the news from all the other participants.” Brigitte

2.       “I like working in multicultural settings and thought this course would be interesting [and so] it proves to be.” Birgit

It must be admitted that using this devolved system of recording inter-cultural awareness development means that the results are very personal, known sometimes only to the participant’s personal tutor apart from the participant. Indicators of progress emerge by proxy through evaluations undertaken at key points of the course such as half way through Module 1, at the end of Module 2, and at the end of Module 3. Since the inception of the project, the project team has been working on producing a set of can-do statements regarding cultural awareness for participants to assess themselves against. We are making progress on such a list but have yet to test it out on any of the pilot groups.

Conclusion

The hope is that the course developed by the project can be adapted and used by others once the project is over. The blend of online and face-to-face contributes to its success, with online Module 1 providing a solid basis from which to work in the face-to-face Module 2. The residential is an important transformative event which builds on the awareness set in train during the online period and helps to build the trust necessary for the participants to work more closely together in developing and sharing teaching ideas. The two pilot rounds have been invaluable in fine-tuning the course. As we enter the read-write era of the Internet, the so-called Web 2.0, more interactivity could be built into the online section of the course thereby making this part even more inter-cultural.

Notes

1. Level B is an independent user; B1 is defined as ’Threshold’. Find out more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_
Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages#Levels                     

2. Readers interested in finding out more about the project are invited to request a video DVD about the first round from the author or see a reduced-quality version on the project website (http://www.teaching-culture.de/en/events/
litauen/travelogue/video.htm).

References

Brembeck, W. (1997) The development and teaching of a college course in intercultural communication. Readings in Intercultural Communication. Pittsburgh: SIETAR Publications, University of Pittsburgh.

 Byram, M. (2000) Assessing inter-cultural competence in language teaching. Sprogforum, 6 (18), 8-1. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://inet.dpb.dpu.dk/infodok/sprogforum/Espr18/byram.html.

Cobb, T. The Compleat Lexical Tutor.  [Web site]. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://www.lextutor.ca/.

Council of Europe (2001) Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operation/education/
Languages/Language_Policy/Common_
Framework_of_Reference/1cadre.asp#TopOfPage

Teaching Culture. [Web site]. Retrieved May 1, 2006 from: http://www.teaching-culture.de. 

Editor’s notes:

This presentation was made as a regular session at theWebheads in Action Online Convergence on November 19, 2005. 

• The session took place in the Elluminate presentation room at Learning Times.  A recording was made and can be heard at http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=1042139.

Data were collected in the form of e-mails and saved IM chats.  Each written utterance produced by the 50 pairs of learners was analyzed and classified according to its function within the discourse.  The categories used to classify the different functions of each utterance in both the asynchronous e-mails and synchronous computer discussions are based on those used by Patterson (2001) in her research on Computer Assisted Class Discussions (CACD).  A list of the functions used in the discourse analysis which are considered to reflect negotiation for meaning can be found in the table in Appendix I .

E-mails

            After completing the discourse analysis of all e-mails, we totaled the number of times each pair used the specific discourse functions that were previously noted to be associated with negotiation for meaning.  These data are located in the following table (Table 1).

Table 1: Total Discourse Functions associated with negotiation used in all e-mail

Due to the nature of this TLL project it was not possible to separate the two languages in the e-mail portion.  The students often wrote a question in an e-mail written in one language and received a response in the next e-mail in the other language, as can be seen in the examples below.  Therefore, the data for e-mails are for both languages combined and there is no distinction between the negotiations found in native or foreign languages.  

The following examples are excerpts from e-mail exchanges.  Negotiation functions in the examples are written in bold letters and labeled.  The Spanish discourse is followed by an English translation. 

This first example is taken from e-mails written in English.  Student D from Argentina is unsure about some of her phrases in English and asks for confirmation of her wording in one e-mail (“I’m down with flue”).  Then in the next e-mail Student H responds by correcting the wording and spelling.  Also by repeating the phrase “runny nose” the Rice student is indirectly correcting the expression “running nose”.    She also confirms that the word “salsa” is also used in the USA. 

Example 1:

l       D-UTN says: I wanted to tell you that I also know how to dance salsa (do you say salsa in inglish too????) [confirmation check]
 I'm down with flue, (is this expression ok?) [confirmation check ] so I have a running nose and a headacke.

l       H-Rice says  To answer your question, it's probably better to say you're sick with the flu or you have the flu. [reply:correction]  (Isn't 'a runny nose' the strangest expression in English? [confirmation check]  I've always thought it's funny.)  The health services on campus is offering flu shots and I should probably get one so I don't get sick. We do say salsa in English. [reply:confirmation]  I'm having so much fun learning.

In the second example student D from Argentina uses the comprehension check function to ask if the Rice student understands the word copado because it is a word commonly used in Argentina but possibly not in other countries.  Rice student H does not understand and asks for clarification.  Then student D answers in English in the next e-mail and gives a definition of the word “copado”.

Example 2:

l       D-UTN says:   ojalá que conozcas algún chico lindo y ¨copado¨  (conocías esta palabra? [comprehension check ]  acá se usa mucho)  (Hopefully you meet a nice cool boy. Did you know this word? It is used a lot here.)

l       H-Rice says:  ¿Qué es esto de un chico lindo y copado? [elicit: clarification]  No se que es copado,  pero pienso que puedo entenderte. Ahora mismo, no tengo novio.  ( What is that about a good looking guy and “copado”? I don’t know what “copado” is, but I think I can understand you.  I don’t have a boyfriend right now.)

l       D-UTN says:   Thanks for your whishes and pieces of advise. When I said "copado" I meant cool, you know, I hope you will find a cool and handsome boy. [reply:clarification]

Instant Messaging chats  

The ability to communicate in English for the UTN students was more advanced than the ability to communicate in Spanish for most of the Rice students because the UTN students had been studying English for a few years longer than most of the Rice students had been studying Spanish.   After analyzing the discourse in the IM chats, rather than separate the data by learners of a specific language, we listed the negotiation data separately for Spanish and English chats in order to see if this difference in language ability affected the amount of negotiation. 

For reasons unknown to the investigators, six pairs of learners did not complete the chat portion of the study.  Some did not chat at all and some chatted once or twice but only in Spanish.  Therefore, the data collected from these 12 learners were deleted from the results.  The overall total number of negotiation for meaning functions found through analysis of the English and Spanish chats of 44 pairs can be seen in Table 2 below. 

Table 2: Total negotiation for meaning functions in English and Spanish chats

The following excerpts from the chats contain some examples of negotiation for meaning.  In example 1 Rice student L is talking about the weather and describes it as “weird”.  Student M from Argentina interrupts her tandem partner to ask what “weird” is.   Rice student L is not sure whether M wants a definition of the word “weird” or clarification of what she thought was weird and immediately clarifies both: “I was refering to the weather.  Weird means unusual.”

Example 1: 

·       M-UTN dice:  sorry but what is weird? [elicit clarification]

·       L-Rice dice:  the word weird?  [elicit confirmation] Or what I was refering to?  [elicit clarification]

·       M-UTN dice:  and did you have important things inside the car?  

·       L-Rice dice:  no, just some junk, thankfully

·       M-UTN dice:  yes, [reply confirmation] you said It´s weird! [reply clarification]

·       M-UTN dice:  I don't understand [elicit clarification]

·       L-Rice dice:  I was refering to the weather.  [reply clarification] Weird means unusual. [reply definition/clarification]

·       M-UTN dice:  Ah! [reply comprehension]

In the second example the chat is in Spanish.  We can see that student L from Argentina uses the expression “me voy al sobre” and Rice student J infers the meaning but wants to make sure she is right by saying “te entiendo?” (do I understand you?).  Then L provides the correct meaning and J confirms she now understands that “me voy al sobre” means “I am going to bed”.

Example 2:

·       L-UTN says:  aca aveces decimos, "me voy al sobre” (Here at times we say, “ I am going to the envelope”)

·       J-Rice says:  bueno,hablaríamos solo quince minutos. me voy al sobre por no voy a dormir mucho? [elicit confirm] te entiendo? [elicit:comprehension]  (Well, we would talk only 15 minutes.  I am going to the envelope for I am not going to sleep a lot?  Do I understand you?)

·       L-UTN says:  n me voy al sobre significa, me voy a la cama [reply definition] (no, I am going to the envelope means I am going to the bed.)

·       J-Rice says:  ah! ahora yo entiendo. [reply comprehension] (Ah. Now I understand.)

Results

Looking at the data in Table 2 above we see that the numbers of the different functions associated with negotiation for meaning are very similar for the two different languages.  The overall number of times that learners used negotiation functions was 938 in English chats and 1193 in Spanish chats. However, there was no control over the length of time for each chat so the chat lengths differed (see Appendix II).  Thus, it was not possible to compare numbers of functions related to negotiation between the two languages without finding a common component.   Although the number of utterances and length of utterance as well as the length of chat varied from chat to chat, the common feature for both chats is the word.  We therefore counted the number of words per tandem partner for each chat and calculated the number of negotiation functions per 100 words.   Of the 44 pairs of students completing all four chats, two were done in English and two in Spanish.  The results of the calculations for the four chats of each pair of students can be found in Appendix II.  The overall average numbers of negotiations and words for chats are listed below in Table 3 along with the results for all e-mails together.

Table 3:  Average negotiation functions per 100 words in e-mail and chats

We found an average of 2.00 negotiations per 100 words in the English chats and 2.99 negotiations per 100 words in the Spanish chats.  This indicates that, even though it appears in Table 2 that the numbers of negotiations were very close, the tandem partners actually negotiated more often in the Spanish chats than in the English chats.  As previously indicated, we believe this is due to the fact that the Spanish language skills of the Rice students were not as advanced as the English languages skills of the UTN students.  We did find a greater number of Confirmation Checks and Clarification Requests in Spanish chats.  A possible indication of the weaker language abilities of the Rice students can also be seen in the more than double vocabulary requests and high number of correction functions in Spanish chats.   

In addition to comparing the two languages in the chats, we also wanted to look at the number of negotiations used in e-mail compared to chats.  Table 4 below contains the numbers of the individual negotiation functions that were found through an analysis of all discourse in the chats vs. all e-mails of the 44 tandem partners.  Looking at the numbers we found twice as many instances of negotiation in the chats than in e-mail.  We noted that confirmation and comprehension check, clarification request and the replies to these requests were more common in chats; while e-mails had a slightly higher number of elaborations.

Table 4: Number of negotiation functions for all chats and e-mails

With this data, we are considering 176 chats (4 chats for all the tandem pairs-2 in Spanish and 2 in English) and 1084 e-mails in Spanish and English.  Even though the number of asynchronous e-mails outnumbers the number of chats and the number of words in these e-mails (186,251) was almost double the number of words in the chats (99,115) we found over twice as many negotiation functions in the chats.  Again, in order to make a valid comparison, we calculated the ratio of negotiations per 100 words used in the e-mail for each of the same 44 pairs of students and the data per pair are given in Appendix III.  The averages found in Table 3 above show that the ratio of negotiation for meaning to words is greater in the chats (2.28 per 100 words) than in e-mail (0.51 per 100 words). 

We expected to see more negotiation in the synchronous CMC than in the asynchronous e-mails and our data support this theory.  Considering the amount of negotiation we found in e-mails and the amount found in chats, our data support this theory.  We found over four times as many negotiation functions in the chats (2.28) than in the e-mails (.51) for every 100 words produced.  Thus, in a language class where face-to-face partners are not readily available to carry out a TLL communication project with native speakers, the language teacher might consider organizing a similar TLL project using CMC.  In this way learners of both languages would have the opportunity to communicate with native speakers of their target language through synchronous chats. 

Videos and photos and a cultural exchange

            Some of the Rice students made video letters, which were digitized by the Language Resource Center at Rice.  They were then placed on the LRC server to be viewed as streaming video so that the students in Buenos Aires could see them using RealPlayer.  The Rice students were divided into groups and each group videotaped and described in Spanish a different aspect of university life at Rice including dorm life, sports activities, shopping, nightlife and eating in the cafeteria.  These videos are located online at: http://lang.rice.edu/ppatters/301/SPANVIDEOS_new.htm. 

At UTN in Buenos Aires, digital photographs were taken of groups of students in different areas of the building: the computing lab, the Office of Student Services, and the entrance to the building.  The photos were then placed on the Net-Learning website so that the Rice students could see pictures of their e-pals and view a little university life at UTN.  You will find the photos at the following site address: http://www.net-learning.com.ar/utnphotos.

Although the Spanish language videos and photos were neither bilingual nor interactive they provided our students with a great deal of information about each other’s universities which was then discussed in chats and e-mail.   They commented on differences in the campuses and compared various aspects of university life in the different countries. 

This CMC project along with the videos and photos provided our students with a great opportunity for a cultural exchange along with the language interaction.   In addition to the university differences, we found examples of an exchange of other cultural issues in the e-mails and IM chats.  Some of the cultural issues dealt with were: university life, nightlife, jobs, families, holidays, food, music, war, basic characteristics of each country, and the most important traditions celebrated there. 

Due to limited space we will include only a few examples of the cultural exchange.  In the following excerpt from a Spanish chat, the Argentine student M is talking about the Argentine tradition of the 15^th birthday party called “la fiesta de quince”.  She compares it to the tradition of a sweet sixteen party in the USA.

• M-UTN says: Por acá no tengo nada nuevo para contar, salvo que mañana es el cumpleaños de 15 de mi prima.   Acá se estila hacer una fiesta que dure toda la noche para cuando las chicas cumplen los 15 años, igual que en Estados Unidos festejan 'sweet sixteen'  (No news to tell you only that tomorrow is my cousin’s 15^th birthday.  Here it is customary to have a party that lasts all night long when girls turn 15, the same as celebrating “sweet sixteen” in the US.)

• A-Rice says: Tuviste una grande fiesta?  El cumpleaños para quince años es muy especial.  Sí,   aquí, tuvimos grandes fiestas para dieciséis años.  Tuvo un "Sweet Sixteen," pero hace tres años pasado. (Did you have a big party? The 15^th birthday is very special.  Yes, here we had big parties when we turn 16.  I  had a “Sweet Sixteen” but it was three years ago past)

In the next example from an English chat, the US student is surprised when she realizes that her partner from Buenos Aires will eat dinner at about 9:00 pm (the time when most Argentineans eat dinner) whereas in the USA most people have dinner around 6:00 pm.

• J-Rice says:  so when will you eat dinner
• J-UTN says:  At nine or some minutes later, as always.
• J-UTN says:  You'll have it now, won't you? [confirmation check] What a strange thing. (As well as it is strange for you my dinner time) [state:elaboration]
• J-Rice says:  I am going to eat in about 2 hours [reply:confirmation]
• J-Rice says:  at 6 [elaboration]
• J-Rice says:  Yes, it's odd to me that you eat so late.
• J-Rice says:  My stomach would have eaten itself by then!

Although the major focus of our investigation was the interaction and negotiation that took place while learners communicated with the various forms of CMC, we assumed that an intercultural exchange would also be a part of the tandem interchange.  Both O'Dowd (2003) and Kramsch & Thorne (2002) agree that TLL exchanges through CMC contribute to intercultural learning and point out that the language instructor plays an important role in the development of this intercultural learning.  As the TLL interchange progressed over the semester and we analyzed the discourse produced by our students we became aware of many examples of a cultural exchange between them.  Class discussions about the tandem project and what they learned provided more information about their cultural exchange.  We are interested in evaluating the cross cultural learning but due to limited space here and the amount and types of cultural exchange between the tandem partners, we must consider the intercultural learning that took place in this study in more detail at a later date for future investigation and discussion. 

Questionnaire results

At the end of the study the learners filled out a short questionnaire to provide the investigators with feedback about their TLL project.  The learners’ comments provided us with their opinion of the project and the two methods of CMC that were used.  The learners were also asked how much they thought they benefited from the TLL exchange of information.   The questionnaire can be found in Appendix IV  and comments by Rice and UTN students taken from the questionnaires are in Appendix V.

Of the Rice students that answered the questionnaire, 20 said they preferred IM for a variety of reasons. These students thought that IM was more enjoyable and they liked the immediate feedback they got.  They thought it was more communicative and more like a real conversation and they believed they learned more.  Eighteen Rice students wrote that they preferred e-mail because it was easy to include it in their busy schedules.  They liked having more time to compose their messages and it was more flexible.  With IM the students had to find time to meet on-line with each other and had to take into account that the time in Argentina was 3 hours later than in Texas.   

Of the UTN students that filled out the questionnaire, 32 said they preferred IM for various reasons and 14 UTN students wrote that they liked e-mail best.   The reasons mentioned by UTN students are similar to those for Rice students.  IM gave more immediate feedback and was more like a conversation.  They also liked the informal nature of the IM chat.  They had the same to say about e-mail, mentioning that it was easier to fit into their busy schedules.  They also believed they learned useful expressions in English.  Also, some students in Buenos Aires did not have Internet access at home making IM chats more difficult for them.  Not only did they have to match the appropriate time schedule with their Texas partners but they also had to deal with Internet access availability, often using Cyber cafes and paying by the minute. 

Conclusion

We found that both e-mail and IM chats provided an environment conducive to negotiation with approximately twice as many functions of negotiation found in the IM chats.  This is possibly due to the synchronous nature of chats, which provided the opportunity for learners to receive immediate responses to their questions and requests for clarification.  

Learners negotiated for meaning 2131 times in chats and 1024 times in e-mail, requesting clarification and vocabulary, checking confirmation and comprehension, providing clarifications, definitions, and vocabulary and affirming comprehension of their tandem partners.  To validate the comparison between these two different methods of CMC we calculated the ratio of number of negotiation functions per 100 words both in e-mails and in chats.  This confirmed the students´ responses in the questionnaires stating that they thought they had negotiated more when chatting.

According to our questionnaire and the results of this investigation, students preferred communicating with their partners through IM first and e-mail second.  The asynchronous e-mail and particularly the synchronous IM chats provided learners with the opportunity to interact and negotiate with native speakers of their TL, which has been shown by SLA research to facilitate language acquisition. 

 There are, however, disadvantages to IM chats such as the need for both participants to be online at the same time and to have Internet access available at times which may be difficult for some learners.  Another disadvantage is the pressure some non-native learners may feel to keep up with the conversation as they attempt to read, think, and type faster in the target language.  By contrast, the advantage to e-mail is that the learners do not have to be on-line at the same time to communicate with each other and they can take their time composing the e-mail without pressure to rush.

            We concentrated in this study on the functions related to negotiation for meaning between tandem partners while using two forms of CMC.  Our study had several limitations and we see a need for further research.  We agree that tandem partners in future exchanges should be more closely matched with regard to their proficiency in the target language, their age, and common interests.  We would also like to separate the negotiation functions by native speaker of the language rather than by language spoken, in order to investigate differences and similarities between learners and compare this data with our previous research.  In addition, we plan to look more carefully at the cultural exchanges in which these tandem partners engaged during CMC for future evaluation. We also hope to incorporate voice communication into future CMC projects. 

Opportunities to interact with native speakers of the target language may be limited for some language learners.  CMC provides a chance to communicate with native speakers of the target language outside the classroom which research has shown to be beneficial to language learners.  A TLL project where learners communicate with native speakers in their native country also provides a tremendous resource for an authentic cross-cultural experience. Thus, we find that a tandem language learning project using CMC can be a valuable asset to the language learner and language class and beyond. 

We typically study language learning in the context of the classroom.  Communicating with native speakers through CMC provides the opportunity for developing language skills and exposure to the culture related to the target language that goes beyond the language class.  TLL through CMC presents the potential for research in the context of life-long learning for the language learner outside the classroom.  A longitudinal study of the long term effects of such an exchange would contribute important data to our current investigation.

Post study observation

When the semester ended in December the students were not required to participate in the CMC any longer.  Many pairs of students, however, decided to continue the e-mail exchange and occasional IM chats.   In their final chat many students ended with the agreement to remain in contact through e-mail and chats even though the project had ended.  When several Rice students were questioned a few months later about their e-pals, they said that they still exchanged e-mail periodically with their e-pals in Buenos Aires. 

References

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Editor’s notes:

This presentation was made as a regular session at theWebheads in Action Online Convergence on November 19, 2005. 

• The session took place in the Elluminate presentation room at Learning Times.  A recording was made and can be heard at http://home.learningtimes.net/
  learningtimes?go=1042155.