Teletandem and Transculturality is one of the research projects of the Graduate Studies Program in Language Studies of UNESP - São Paulo State University, Brazil.
Unibo Team Leader: Livia Assunção Cecilio - Advanced School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators (SSLMIT )
Teletandem is an on-line, autonomous and collaborative context for learning foreign languages. It facilitates the virtual intercontinental and intercultural contact among peoples of different countries and languages. Within this virtual context, pairs help each other to learn each other’s native languages (or language of proficiency) by using the resources of instant messaging and video software, such as Skype (among others).
The results of the previous project Teletandem Brasil: Foreign languages for all have encouraged researchers of UNESP to continue the studies under a new umbrella project entitled Teletandem: Transculturality in on-line interactions via webcam. From the perspective of transculturality, this new project explores the importance, the characteristics and the impact of the cultural dimension of on-line intercontinental interactions over:
(a) the learning process, with its multiple cultures, ways, habits, conceptions of curriculum and procedures for learning and teaching foreign languages;
(b) students’ representations of their (and their partners’) language, country, culture and national identities;
(c) the education of the students who participate in the project, in regards to their competence in relating to other peoples in a foreign language;
and (d) our own actions, as educators, researchers and administrators of a project aimed at working with "the different Other" or "the Otherness".
As results, we expect an in-depth description of the cultural dimension of online interactions in foreign languages through the voice and image resources of webcam instant messaging software. Once we know the characteristics of the cultural dimension of learning within the context of teletandem, we hope to create pedagogical strategies to make the knowledge gained through the research project accessible to classrooms and teachers of foreign languages.
Finally, we hope that the project will contribute to the body of knowledge about the role of transculturality in the education and the lives of people who will increasingly engage in constant contact with differences among peoples and countries.
Our research agenda is, thus, both educational and political: we wish to use technology to provide peoples’ equity of access to critical understanding of differences and foreign language education for peace and world citizenship.
Coordinator
João Antonio Telles (UNESP, BRAZIL)
Other participants:
Georgetown University, EUA
Virginia Commonwealth University, EUA
Northwestern University, EUA
University of Georgia, EUA
University ofl Salento, ITALY
University of Bologna, ITALY