TESOL Candidates' Perspectives on Leveraging Virtual Exchange in Globalized Classrooms

• In Event: Exploring the Impact of Online Learning, Collaboration, and Simulation in Teacher Education

Abstract

This paper explored teachers’ perspectives on integrating virtual exchange into the P-12 school curriculum and identified support teachers may need when implementing a virtual exchange lesson. TESOL Teacher candidates collaborated with their global partners in planning lessons and chronicling field notes on student engagement. Candidates’ reflective journals and student interviews were used to collect data for this study. This study shows that virtual exchange can be leveraged as an authentic context to expand TESOL teacher candidates’ teaching and collaborative repertoire. Practices and challenges in incorporating virtual exchange into the standards driven classrooms are explored and discussed.

Author

• Ching-Ching Lin, Touro College