Book Title

Integrated Language Learning & Social Awareness: Research and Practice

Author

Tushar Chaudhuri, Renia Lopez-Ozieblo (Department of English and Communication), Valerie Martinez

Publisher

Springer

Year of Publication

2022

ISBN

9789811680977 / (e-Book) 9789811680984

Introduction

In 2016, foreign language pedagogues from three universities in Hong Kong proposed an innovative foreign languages telecollaborative project to put in touch language students in Hong Kong with their European counterparts. The main aim of the telecollaborative project on Integrated Language Learning and Social Awareness (ILLSA) was to enhance students’ language learning experiences by encouraging them to interact in the target language with international students learning the same language under different conditions. This was to be achieved through a telecollaborative context to instil confidence in Hong Kong students to think and act globally. In addition, the project sought to raise the social and environmental awareness of tertiary students by asking them to reflect upon issues concerning their communities. The project was funded by the prestigious Hong Kong University Grants Teaching and Learning Scheme in 2017, and the first cycle was launched in spring 2018. Since then until the project completion, in December 2020, five cycles of the ILLSA project ran with 302 students of French, German, Italian and Spanish.
ILLSA also provided a number of opportunities to further investigate the validity of telecollaborative learning. Data was collected at all stages of the project, from the portfolios themselves to the language content exercises followed in FutureLearn. In addition, participants filled in questionnaires and participated in focus groups and exit interviews in which they discussed their views on the project. This data was used to answer three main research questions: (1) What digital tools were used to fulfil the tasks set out by the project and their role in Global Citizenship Education; (2) How peer and teacher feedback was used and perceived; (3) How telecollaboration enhanced social awareness and intercultural competence throughout the project.

Content

Chapter 1 introduces ILLSA.Chapter 2 provides a brief introduction to the three research questions, which are then fully developed in each of the following Chaps. 3–5. Finally, Chap. 6 is the first-hand account of an Italian student learning Spanish. This chapter was written as a subject report and illustrates the interactions of this student, the issues she encountered, how they were resolved and her group’s final results. The account was initially written in Italian and has been translated into English, and comments from group and cycle members have been left in the original language, Spanish.

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