Understanding Attitude in Intercultural Virtual Communication - Ana Oskoz

Understanding Attitude in Intercultural Virtual Communication - Ana Oskoz

Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Choices and Attitudes in an East-West Telecollaboration

Understanding Attitude in Intercultural Virtual Communication - Ana Oskoz

Carolin Fuchs [+-]
Northeastern University
Carolin Fuchs is Teaching Professor in the World Languages Center at Northeastern University, where she also coordinates online teaching and learning for the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. She holds a Ph.D. in English Studies from the Justus-Liebig University Giessen and an M.A. in TESOL from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Her research interests include different aspects of online learning and telecollaboration (e.g., learner autonomy, task design). Carolin has published in CALICO, CALL, Language Learning & Technology, ReCALL, and TESOL Quarterly. She currently serves as one of the Editors-in-Chief of the Journal [email protected]
Tsz Yan Lo [+-]
Hong Kong Glory Education & Technology Limited
Tsz Yan (Fion) Lo currently teaches English and interview skills at Hong Kong Glory Education & Technology Limited, which is headquartered in Shenzhen, China. She holds an M.A. in Education from the University College London (UCL) and a B.A. in English from City University of Hong Kong. Fion was a Research and Teaching Assistant in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong between 2016 and 2017. Her research interests include educational technology, telecollaboration and social media language learning. She has presented at the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2019 Conference in Atlanta.
Sneha Thapa [+-]
Nepalese community project coordinator
Sneha Thapa holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from University College London (UCL). She coordinates a community project for the Nepalese community in the United Kingdom, which has been funded by The National Lottery Community Fund, and she also teaches English and Math. Prior to that, Sneha worked as a Research Assistant at the City University of Hong Kong between 2016 to 2017, where she completed her B.A. in English Studies. She is interested in the areas of identity, ageing and migration. She has previously presented at the AAAL Conference 2019.

Description

In this chapter, the authors explore how participants engage in the initial stages of a telecollaboration, what linguistic and non-linguistic choices facilitated their negotiation processes, and how they rated their attitudes. Participants in this eight-week project included English majors in a graduate-level sociolinguistics core course at a public research institution in Hong Kong who telecollaborated with student teachers in a language teaching and new media elective course for EFL teacher education at a public education university in Germany. Telecollaborative teams used social media tools to complete three sequential tasks: 1) introductions and themed discussions on Facebook for comparing their educational contexts, 2) collaborative research and writing of a literature review on Google Docs, and 3) generation of recommendations for their respective educational contexts on a Wix website. These data were a subset from a broader ethnographic analysis of these learners, and results from four focus teams were analyzed. Triangulation includes social media interactions on Facebook and pre-/post-questionnaires. Findings indicate that, regardless of task performance, all focus team made a range of choices that facilitated team negotiations such as accommodating propositions, emoticon use, or constructive communication styles. In contrast, L1 use, aggressive communication style, or pragmatic presupposition were hindering factors.

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Citation

Fuchs, Carolin; Lo, Tsz Yan; Thapa, Sneha. Linguistic and Non-Linguistic Choices and Attitudes in an East-West Telecollaboration. Understanding Attitude in Intercultural Virtual Communication. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 92-116 Feb 2020. ISBN 9781781799376. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=39223. Date accessed: 28 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.39223. Feb 2020

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