Critical success factors in a TRIDEM exchange

1
Critical success factors in a TRIDEM exchange

• Mirjam Hauck, Department of Languages,
• The Open University/UK

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Outline

• Telecollaboration
• The Tridem project participants, tools,
  structure of the exchange
• Main challenges
• Discussion of findings
• Post project risk assessment after ODowd and
  Ritter (2006)
• Conclusions

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Definition

• The use of online communication tools to
  bring together language learners in different
  countries for the development of collaborative
  project work and intercultural exchange.
• ODowd and Ritter (2006)

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Synchronous online language learning

• The following are interdependent
• Learners readiness to take risks and tutors
  readiness to take a hands-off approach.
• Participant awareness and acceptance of the
  differences between f2f and online language
  learning environments.
• Successful online communication depends on the
  participants familiarity with the available
  tools and their affordances and on their ability
  to cope with the simultaneity of several meaning
  making processes.
• Hampel, Felix, Hauck and Coleman, 2005

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Synchronous online language learning

• Tolerance of ambiguity and locus of control
  have a direct influence on the learners ability
  to assume responsibility for the shared control
  over learning offered in equalizing online
  environments.
• Communication opportunities offered by
  audio-graphic conferencing need to be optimally
  exploited through appropriate task design.
• Hampel, Felix, Hauck and Coleman, 2005

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The Tridem project participants

• 5 advanced adult learners of French
• The Open University (UK)
• 10 campus based 2nd year students of French,
  Carnegie Mellon University (USA)
• 10 French native speakers enrolled in a MA
  programme for distance education,
• Université de Franche Comté (France)
• A team of tutors/researchers (three native
  speakers and four non-native speakers of French)

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The Tridem project tools

• The Open Universitys online tuition environment
• multiple synchronous audio channels
• synchronous text chat
• several shared graphic interfaces
• 10 password-protected blogs (www.blogger.com)

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The Tridem project structure of the exchange

• 10 weeks
• warm-up period
• main phase weeks 3-9
• collaborative tasks (blog activities)
• several formal and informal synchronous sessions
  (virtual coffee house/pub)
• final week evaluation

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Methodological approach I

• Research objectives
• The affordances of synchronous and asynchronous
  multimodal environments and their impact on
• learner experience and interaction
• the development of intercultural communicative
  competence

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Methodological approach II

• A comprehensive body of data through
• pre- and post-treatment questionnaires
• post-treatment semi-structured interviews
• audio recordings (Lyceum)
• log files (Lyceum blogs)
• student production (Lyceum blogs)

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Findings linguistic competence

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Findings linguistic competence
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Findings linguistic competence

• Son intervention est très neutre et distante
  comme si elle publiait un message par obligation.

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Findings affective factors

• Features of successful language learning
• enthusiasm motivation (rank 1)
• willingness to communicate (rank 2)
• ability to assess ones own strengths and
  weaknesses (rank 3)
• However
• Participants manifested very different language
  anxiety profiles
• Half of the participants (n25) didnt feel they
  had become part of an online community

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Findings affective factors

• Lack of body language
• While participants in online language
  learning may experience a loss of embodiment,
  this is at times perceived as an advantage as
  it allows learners to remain incognito and to
  speak more freely.
• (Hauck and Hurd 2005)
• Ne pas voir la personne en face de moi est
  quelque chose dexcitant. Je pose des questions
  que je ne poserais pas si je voyais et si je
  connaissais la personne. Cela permet de découvrir
  la personne sans avoir da priori.

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Findings learning environment

• Contextual knowledge
• Awareness of the learning environment
• Support in achieving such awareness
• Choice of tools
• very important or essential when learning a
  language online
• Multimodal communicative competence
• The ability to understand the combined
  potential of various modes for making meaning.
• (Royce 2000)

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Findings learning environment
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Findings learning environment
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Findings learning environment
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Findings cultural learning

• Hidden cultural learning
• We didnt speak so deeply about each others
  culture, but I was able to learn a lot about my
  partner as a person. She likes to ballroom dance,
  particularly the tango, she enjoys learning many
  languages, and she also has a drive to help
  support breast cancer awareness. These are all
  attributes that are very similar to me. Through
  this, I realized that even though were from
  different countries, we still have so much in
  common and share many interests. And this was a
  comforting feeling.
• US participant

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Findings cultural learning

• Changed view of partners culture
• I did not fully understand the reasons why
  immigrant ghettos had arisen in France until my
  partner explained the background. I had no idea
  that my Moroccan partner would have found
  inspiration in a book written by Martin Gray
  about the tragic loss of his family during and
  after the second world war - I now have this book
  and look forward to learning where she found her
  inspiration and to sharing it.
• UK participant

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Post-treatment risk assessment after ODowd and
Ritter (2006)
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Post-treatment risk assessment after ODowd and
Ritter (2006)
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Conclusions

• Unpredictable dynamic nature of
  telecollaborative exchanges risk of partial
  interaction failure
• Positive or negative outcomes depend on a variety
  of interrelated factors
• Possibility to gauge degree of risk
• Areas of conflict misunderstanding can be
  turned into key moments of cultural learning
  depending on
• participants level of multimodal communicative
  competence
• their ability to make efficient use of the
  available meaning making resources

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Conclusions

• Increasing convergence of technologies
• New cognitive and affective demands on tutors
  learners
• Success or failure still operable concepts in
  the context of telecollaboration?
• Complexity of the factors suggests that
• both tutors and researchers need to develop a
  more differentiated understanding of what terms
  such as online intercultural communication and
  electronic literacy actually involve. (ODowd
  and Ritter 2006)
• learners need to approach telecollaborative
  exchanges with a good understanding of the
  conventions used and of the cultural dynamics at
  work. (Godwin Jones 2003)

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THANK YOU!

• I think the great potential of TRIDEM could be
  that each programme, or learning team, can create
  its own culture.
• UK participant
• Critical success factors in a TRIDEM exchange
• ReCALL 19(2)
• m.hauck_at_open.ac.uk