Abstract
Computer-mediated communication (CMC) and e-communication tools have introduced new pedagogical tools and activities that contribute to the development of language learners’ academic, multilingual, and intercultural skills and competences. Moreover, CMC has reinforced communication and collaboration between individuals and educational institutions through projects of intercultural language exchanges (ILE). Most of these exchanges idealise ‘nativeness’, and assert the L1 speaker as an expert ‘by default’. These models of ILE believe that the incorporation of a L1S is key to the creation of learning opportunities. This paper contests this belief. The one-to-one online video conversations took place on Skype between language learners of English and/or French over a period of four months. The dyads comprise the following speakers’ constellations: a L1S of French with a L1S of English, and a L1S of English with an Algerian (L2/LF of French and English). To assure equity in the use of languages, I scheduled two sessions every week, one in English and the second in French. This paper investigates the expert/novice dichotomy and how it is negotiated in the learning opportunities they have created. It also casts light on the speakers’ communicative strategies and linguaculture(s) included in overcoming intercultural misunderstanding and miscommunication when using or not using their L1, French and/or English. These intercultural interactions have uncovered that the novice–expert roles alternate between the speakers despite the language of communication and their L1s. The interactants used several strategies and channels, namely pragmatic strategies such as repetition, nonverbal cues to ask for clarification and signal intercultural misunderstandings, translanguaging and their multilingual repertoires in order to construct meaning, achieve their communicative goals or in case of the lack of linguistic resources.
Highlights
In this ever-globalised world, foreign language learning is no longer confined to educational institutions since electronic communication has been facilitated through the technologies that offer easy access to other language speakers and cultures (Kramsch and Thorne 2002)
This paper investigates the expert/novice dichotomy and how it is negotiated in the learning opportunities they have created
It casts light on the speakers’ communicative strategies and linguaculture(s) included in overcoming intercultural misunderstanding and miscommunication when using or not using their L1, French and/or English. These intercultural interactions have uncovered that the novice–expert roles alternate between the speakers despite the language of communication and their L1s
Summary
In this ever-globalised world, foreign language learning is no longer confined to educational institutions since electronic communication has been facilitated through the technologies that offer easy access to other language speakers and cultures (Kramsch and Thorne 2002). We have to acknowledge that these tools have ‘freed’ communication from spatial and temporal frames, and emphasised the use of language as vehicular of meaning to achieve interlocutors’ communicative goals This virtuality in communication does not hinder face-to-face interactions because it allows electronically simulated face-to-face conversations. Many research findings have proven the efficiency of online international partnerships in engaging students in collaborative projects and intercultural communication through the use of English and a few other languages (Guth et al 2012; Kern 2015). Those partnerships target mainly L1 speakers and ignore the inclusion of other populations who could participate with their foreign languages. The motives behind undertaking such a study are mainly to highlight the potential opportunities available for online exchanges outside the boundaries of L1 speakers in order to be more inclusive of foreign language(s) learners all over the world
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