A Review of Research on Telecollaboration in English as a Foreign and Second Language Learning Contexts

Introduction

Globalization has turned the world into a place where people have become more connected and dependent on each other. In this respect, English as a Lingua Franca has been widely used as a mutual means of communication in various areas ranging from science to music. As a result, the instruction of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) has unsurprisingly been integrated into education programs at all education levels all around the world. The goal is to educate learners to be able to readily perform their work related to education, career, or science on a global scale. As a parallel to the effects of globalization, the advances in technology have evenly improved by providing modern convenience in all aspects of life, including education. Telecollaboration stands out with its potential to connect speakers of other languages, raise their awareness regarding cultural differences, and provide language learners with an opportunity to be exposed to the target language outside the classroom authentically (O’Dowd, 2011).

Telecollaboration, as Dooly (2016) defines, “is an embedded, dialogic process that supports geographically-distanced collaborative work, intercultural exchange, and social interaction of individuals or groups through synchronous and asynchronous communication technology so that they attain mutual objective(s) and shared knowledge is produced” (p.192). Two recognized models of telecollaboration are E-tandem and Cultura. In e-tandem models of telecollaboration, learners with different first languages (L1) collaborate to help one another to learn the other language. To exemplify, in the e-tandem model, a language learner is paired with a different language learner who is generally more proficient, and the learners are assigned a task, such as giving feedback to each other’s written production. In this way, they learn a language in an authentic and natural context while increasing their linguistic and cultural knowledge. On the other hand, the Cultura model of telecollaboration is based on a project with the same name as it, CULTURA, which involved two groups of language learners’ collaboration to better understand one another’s cultures by working on cultural materials and sharing their ideas on them by means of web tools (Furstenberg et al., 2001). This model enables language users from different cultures to be involved in tasks which help them gain awareness of the similarities and differences in various cultures and exchange their opinions with their partners through online communication tools (O’Dowd, 2011). As a result, it also helps develop their language skills. The model is grounded on generating a mutual understanding of the goals, establishing trust and respect between the learners who engage in collaboration. During the online collaboration, some cultural differences might arise. The model helps the learners to have an understanding of these cultural differences and intends to facilitate their intercultural competence (Anikina et al., 2015).