Transnational settings and multilingual approaches in Computer-Assisted Language Teacher Education.

Abstract

International audience

The digital revolution and migratory movements are two of the main phenomena that have been changing and shaping Europe’s foreign language classrooms in recent years. Learning and teaching environments are characterized by hybridity in many forms: by an increased cultural and linguistic heterogeneity on one hand, and a wide range of potential multimedia arrangements on the other, though these need not be seen independently from each other. In order to prepare future teachers for those dynamic challenges and possibilities, an awareness of difference – and the correlated necessity of pedagogical and methodological differentiation, with or without CALL practices – is one of the key components of any competence model in teacher education. In this context, the focus of our paper will rest on the perspective of future language teachers and their awareness of CALL tools – starting, however, with their role as “learners” throughout their professional development in teacher education settings. Consequently, we aim to discuss multilingual and multimodal CALL practices (cf. Levy 1997) in a transnational web 2.0 environment, which ought to enable student teachers to explore what they are later expected to adapt and apply – such as working with digital tools and tandem arrangements in their own teaching. We begin with a short overview of the EU-LLP-Project SoNetTE (Social Networks in Teacher Education) which aims to virtually bring together teacher education students and in-service teachers in order to experience and develop research-based educational concepts through the use of CALL tools. The combination of an integrative CALL approach (cf. Bax & Chambers 2006) and differentiated study groups makes it possible for some 90 future teachers of English, Spanish, French and German to take part in a transnational blended learning environment, in which they study in subject groups and binational tandems (e.g., how to use audio-visual materials and correlated digital tools in the foreign language classroom). On the basis of two case studies, we then aim to illustrate how these learning collaborations may be beneficial in many dimensions of a competence-oriented teacher education programme (cf. Hubbard 2002; Fitzpatrick-Davies 2003). The first is cultural: how the virtually multicultural learning environments create linguistic and cultural immersion contexts where future teachers gather a lot of knowledge of the target language and culture studied – as well as an reflective view on their own. The second is intercultural: the emphasis rests on how the topic in focus, too, is always discussed, negotiated and creatively re-constructed with learners (and future teachers) from other European settings, once again fostering key competences such as changes of perspective, a tolerance of ambiguity and critical judgement. Finally, we will discuss how the use of different multimedia tools which future teachers use in their role as learners in the course promises not only a profound insight, but also a reflective use of multimedia tools in their own future classroom – for and with linguistically and culturally heterogeneous learning groups, be it within national borders or beyond.