Paper presented at ANTWERP CALL 2014: Research Challenges in CALL 7-9 July 2014, Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium

1. Researching Telecollaboration in Secondary
Schools: Challenges and Opportunities
K. Jauregi (Utrecht University & Fontys University fo Applied
Sciences)
S. Melchor-Couto (University of Roehampton, London)
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2. The TILA Project
Telecolaboration
Intercultural
Language
Acquisition
Funded by: European Commission
Term: 2013-2015
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3. Online interaction & Telecollaboration is becoming
increasingly popular in education as a way to
enhance:
 Language acquisition (Canto et al., 2013; Chapelle, 2001; Lamy &
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Background
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Goodfellow, 2010; Warschauer & Kern, 2000)
 Intercultural Communicative Competence (Belz & Thorne,
2006; Byram, 2014; Canto et al. 2014; Guth & Helm, 2010; O’Dowd, 2007;
Liauw, 2006).
 Motivation (Jauregi et al. 2012)

4. © 2013 TILA
Background
 Most experiences and research results reported so
far on telecollaboration refer to tertiary language
education (Pol, 2013).
 Need to focus on secondary education
in order to find out whether the positive research
results on telecollaboration related to adults at
tertiary education do apply to younger students who
are learning languages in quite a different
educational setting.
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What is TILA about?
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Consortium Partners
P11 3DLES (NL)
P12 Palacky University (CZ)
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P3 U Roehampton (UK)
P4 The Godolphin & Latymer School
P1 Utrecht University (NL)
P2 Berlage Lyceum
P5 Steinbeis Transfer Center Language Learning Media
P6 Gymnasium Saarburg (DE)
P9 Université de Paris 3 (FR)
P10 Collège La Cerisaie
P7 Universidad de Valencia (SP)
P8 IES Clot del Moro

7. Tools for synchronous telecollaboration in TILA
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Video/Audio Communication
 BigBluebutton
3D virtual worlds
 Open Sim(ulator)

8. Tools for asynchronous telecollaboration in TILA
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Forum Blog
Wiki Journal
Moodle
Social media
VoiceThread

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Activities undertaken
 Analysis of teachers’ needs
 Teacher training modules
 Teacher training sessions
 Telecollaboration pilots:
Pilots in target languages (Sp, En, Fr, Ger)
212 learners, 20 teachers, 8 schools
Most pilots: synchronous communication (BBB &
OpenSim)
 Research approaches
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Research data:
 Recordings
 Student questionnaires
 Interviews with pupils
 Teacher questionnaires
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Pilots (December 2013-February 2014)

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Voorbeeld TILA
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ReRceocrodrindginsgs

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Learner surveys
 Background survey
 User experience questionnaire
Technical quality
Suitability of the environment used
Suitability of tasks
Communicative performance
Motivation
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13. Research participants
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77 students
8 secondary schools
They like languages, particularly:
Speaking 3.98/5
Learning about other people (3.85/5)
Pronunciation (3.85/5)
Grammar (2.99/5)
Response (n=77)
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DE
FR
NE
UK ES

14. Research participants
Telecollaboration tools
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64 %
17 %
Skyp
9 %
BBB
OpenSim
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15. Research participants
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60 %
40 %
Tandem
Lingua Franca
Interaction

16. Sound was good (if applicable) 2,75
I like to communicate and interact in this tool environment 4,11
I like to meet students from other countries in this tool environment 4,3
I like to learn in this tool environment 4,12
I like to be visible in a video 3,68
I like to see the others in a video 4,06
II like to be an avatar 3,53
I like to speak with an avatar 3,53
I felt comfortable in the interaction 3,77
I felt satisfied with the way I communicated 3,53
I felt the tool environment affected my communication positively 3,58
I enjoyed communicating with students from another country 4,30
I found it motivating to communicate with students from another country 4,18
It was important for me to be understood 4,17
It was important for me to understand the other student(s) 4,23
It was important for me to learn about the other students’ life and culture 3,91
It was important for me to get to know students from another country 4,07
I was able to learn something about the other students’ life and culture 3,76
I enjoyed the online task 4,08
I found the online task interesting for interaction with peers of other
countries
4,15
I found the online task useful for my language learning 3,99
The online task helped me discover new things about the other culture 3,81
I would like to use online tasks with students from other countries more
4,15
often
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77 respondents (20 OpenSim)
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17. Results
Lowest scores: sound quality
(M=2.90, SD=1.08) Likert scale (1-5)
Positive assessment of the activity
“I would like to use online tasks with students from
other countries more often” (M=4.07 and SD=0.84)
Students like…
• to communicate via the Internet (M=4.06, SD=0.75)
• to meet students from other countries (M=4.35, SD=0.63)
to learn in this medium (M=4.04, SD=0.87).
• The tool used does not seem to have an impact on the
scores.
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18. High scores on:
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• Comfort
• Motivation
• Satisfaction
• Especially enjoyment (M=4.29,
SD=0.64)
Students did not feel especially nervous when speaking in
the TL (M=3.15, SD=1.06)
Students feel more at ease in OpenSim (M=2.77)
compared to Skype (M=3.00) and BigBlueButton (M=3.38).
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Results

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Research Challenges
Research & logistics in secondary school
Researching with young learners:
 length, vocabulary, existing questionnaires
 completely-labelled scales preferred to numeric
ones
 privacy issues
Need to combine quantitative & qualitative
approaches
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Conclusions
 Telecollaboration has shown to enhance
language learning in HE
 Integrating telecollaboration in secondary
education is problematic
 Research activity in this context is faced with
countless challenges
TILA is only a start in this complex research field
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21. Thank you for your
attention!!
Join us at www.tilaproject.eu
tila@uu.nl
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