Date of Award

1-1-2013

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Program

French Studies

Content Description

1 online resource (xii, 324 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Cynthyia Fox

Committee Members

Cynthia Fox, Lotfi Sayahi, Robert H. Summers

Keywords

Computer-Assisted Language learning, French, Intercultural Communicative Competence, Telecollaboration, French language, Videoconferencing

Subject Categories

Language and Literacy Education | Linguistics

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, foreign language practitioners and researchers have shown an increasing interest in exploring the affordances of multimodal telecollaborative environments for the linguistic and intercultural development of their students. Due in part to their inherent complexity, one-on-one desktop-videoconferencing contexts have not been widely explored. To this end, this study investigates if and how American students of French engaged in a telecollaborative exchange with a class of French students are able to develop their Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) through online interaction and the completion of a collaborative task. Adopting a case study approach, the video-recorded sessions of three dyads are analyzed in conjunction with data from background surveys, autobiographies, journal entries, and email exchanges. To observe ICC development, we use a combination of a priori categories based on the « Attitude » component of Byram's (1997) model and a set of emerging themes (Boyatzis, 1998) gathered from the data. This choice of methodology provides an in-depth picture of the participants' production of Attitudes, that is, the willingness to show value to their partners or prioritize self over the course of the exchange. The results of the study indicate that one-on-one desktop-video conferencing can support the development of ICC and that task work bears upon the types and production of Attitudes. In addition, it is found that the production of Attitudes is not proficiency-dependent. The results also further suggest that there are differences in the way male and female participants engage in intercultural interaction.

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