Researching telecollaboration processes in foreign language education.: Challenges and achievements.

Abstract

In an increasingly globalized and digitalised society, the integration of ICT, and particularly, computer mediated communication, offer opportunities to innovate and enrich foreign language curricula, while adapting to the specific needs of the twenty-first century students who use digital social media every day to communicate and collaborate with others. Digital social applications may have enormous potential to support innovation in foreign language education, while following social constructivist pedagogies (Vygotsky 1978; Lantolf 2000; Lantolf and Thorne 2006) cooperation, communication and the learner are put in the centre of the learning process. However, research suggests that teachers and students do not use digital applications extensively for pedagogical purposes. Despite the efforts made by some scholars to give a boost to pedagogical digital innovation, the reality proves how difficult it is to introduce changes in traditional educational settings (Howard 2013; Eetmer and Otterbreit-Leftwich 2010).