Virtual Exchanges Webinar: Hosted by Arizona State University

As part three of a three-part series, Marta Tecedor at Arizona State University will offer an informative presentation on Virtual Exchanges. Participants attending live can request a certificate of attendance for 1.5 hours of Continuing Education at the end of the event. CERCLL will contact them after the webinar about how to request a digital badge. Read more here.

Abstract:

In the last few years, and particularly since the onset of the COVID 19 health crisis, Virtual Exchanges (VE) have grown in popularity among world language educators for their capacity for facilitating real-time, authentic, multimodal communication between learners and speakers of the target language and for their potential to increase learners’ contact hours with the target language outside the classroom.

Pedagogical initiatives that use VEs to promote interpersonal communication have traditionally been carried out in the context of e-tandems—virtual exchanges in which two learners with different native languages help each other learn their respective languages—and telecollaboration projects—virtual communications in formal educational settings between two or more students learning their interlocutor’s first language. Currently, a third model has started gaining popularity in formal educational settings: service-provider virtual exchanges (SPVE): one-on-one or small-group VE sessions between L2 learner(s) and a native speaker who receives economical compensation for their conversational services.

In this presentation, I will focus on the defining characteristics of SPVEs and discuss how this more recent model can be incorporated in the world language curriculum to bolster both intercultural and linguistic competence.

Registration is free but required in advance. Register here.