Conversations Across Borders: Virtual Exchanges as Spaces for Intercultural Discussions About Teaching

• In Event: Multiliteracies in Educational Global Collaborations: Educators and Students Connecting and Collaborating Cross-Culturally

Abstract

Purpose
This study explored how experienced language teachers used virtual exchange to critically examine their assumptions and norms about “good teaching.” Through a series of synchronous and asynchronous activities across six months, teachers in Taiwan and the United States co-designed lesson plans and co-taught avatar children using mixed reality simulation tools. These activities invited the teachers to make the familiar unknown as they engaged in intercultural discussions using an array of discovery, interaction, analysis, and interpretation moves (Byram, 2008).

Theoretical Framework
We draw on a sociocultural framework and use the construct of addressivity forwarded by Bakhtin (1934/1981), in which the unit of analysis is the utterance, which can be as short as one word or as long as a novel—and keyed by a change in speaker (or writer). Bakhtin posited that the orientation toward another person affects the form and style of each subsequent utterance. Individuals are therefore always speaking within webs of prior interactions. Framed from this perspective, the virtual exchange provided a discursive space for amplifying teachers’ attunement toward the intercultural situatedness of their discussions.
Methods
We used a comparative case study design (Miles, Hubermann, & Saldaña, 2019) to explore the following: 1) What features of instructional decision-making do language teachers notice when collaborating during virtual exchange? 2) How might intercultural conversations support teachers in noticing the ways that their own beliefs and values are shaped by their personal and professional histories? We examined how these two layered contexts—virtual exchange and joint teaching within the simulation—fostered intercultural inquiry for teachers to examine their pedagogical values.

Data sources
Participants included five teachers (3 in Taiwan and 2 in the U.S.) working toward graduate degrees. They formed two groups to co-plan and enact lessons using mixed reality simulations, followed by reflective discussions. The interactions took place using multiple tools (Padlet, Google docs, Zoom videoconferencing, and Mursion™ mixed reality software). Data include video recordings of all Zoom sessions and Mursion™ teaching sessions, participants’ written reflections, and co-developed lesson plans.

Conclusions
We conducted analytic triangulation following a three-step process: 1) coding for interactional episodes teachers identified as critical incidents; 2) discourse analysis to interpret utterance chains within situational, social, and linguistic contexts (Fairclough, 2001; Gee, 2010); and 3) member checks. Findings suggest that teachers found alignment on a number of topics, including the constraints of instructional time and pressures of testing. They also identified specific features of their instructional decision-making and discussed many instances of how their teaching reflected personal and professional trajectories.

Significance
As English has become a global language (Crystal, 2012), so, too, have English-centric pedagogical practices become gradually normalized (Canagarajah, 2004). And yet, with virtual exchange, teachers have the power to critically examine—and even counter—this normalization process. This study illustrates how teachers engaged in discussions in which their implicit norms were held up for introspection and interpretation. In this mediated space, teachers invited one another to discuss not just what they teach—but also how and why certain pedagogies come to be valued.

Authors

• Paige Ware, Southern Methodist University

• Sumei Wu, Southern Methodist University