Language, Culture and Literature in Telecollaboration Contexts

This book describes and analyses experiences of teaching and learning language, culture and literature based on telecollaboration, an approach that creates interactions between groups of learners from different countries through the integration of a series of virtual and intercultural collaborative tasks to the curricula of undergraduate and graduate courses. The experiences analyzed in this volume come from two telecollaborative projects developed by the São Paulo State University (UNESP), in Brazil, with universities from other countries: the Brazilian Virtual Exchange (BRaVE) Program and the Teletandem Brasil Project.

The BRaVE Program aims at fostering an online collaborative learning modality that promotes intercultural contact and the exchange of ideas by connecting Brazilian undergraduate or graduate students with students from different higher education institutions around the world. The Teletandem Brasil Project is based on a mode of telecollaboration (teletandem)that creates a virtual, collaborative and autonomous context for learning foreign languages in which two students help each other to learn their own languages or a language of proficiency. They do so by using the text, voice and webcam image resources, and by adopting the three principles of tandem learning: autonomy, reciprocity, and separate use of both languages.

Language, Culture and Literature in Telecollaboration Contexts will be of interest to both educational researchers and teachers as it presents, on the one hand, an innovative tool to promote the democratization of foreign language learning; and, on the other hand, discusses how telecollaborative projects can contribute to the training of language and literature teachers.    

Karin Adriane Henschel Pobbe Ramos is an Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistic, Literary and Education Studies at School of Sciences, Humanities and Languages, of the São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Assis, Brazil, and works at the Graduate Program in Languages  at the same institution. She has been part of the Teletandem Brasil Project from its inception and involved with pairing students, contacting foreign professors at affiliated universities, and coordinating mediation sessions. She develops research in the areas of Education and Applied Linguistics, acting mainly in the training of Portuguese teachers. She is supervisor of the Center for Languages and Teacher Development at UNESP Assis and in the scope of the CAPES / PRINT Program she coordinates the International Research Network, with the proposal of studies on Difusion of Language, Culture and Literature in a Telecollaboration Contexts. 

Kelly Cristiane HenschelPobbe de Carvalho is an Associate Professor of Spanish as a Foreign Language at the Department of Modern Languages at School of Sciences, Humanities and Languages, of the São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Assis, Brazil, and works at  the Graduate Program in Languages at the same institution, supervising research at Master’s and PhD levels. She holds a PhD in Languages Studies from UNESP Assis.  Kelly has been part of the Teletandem Brasil Project from its inception and involved with pairing students, contacting foreign professors at affiliated universities, and coordinating mediation sessions. She has also been a linguistic supervisor at the Center for Language and Teacher Development at UNESP Assis. Her research interests focus on language teaching and learning processes, telecollaboration and virtual exchange contexts, literacy studies and teacher education.