Chapter 8: Students’ Attitudes Toward Critical Telecollaboration: A Case Study in an L2/L3 French Classroom

This study describes a telecollaborative project in an upper-level French language course at an American university from the students’ perspectives. The project involved synchronous computer-mediated communications via the online videoconference platform Skype between US-based French language learners and French native speakers in France. In order to increase the participants’ interest and engagement in the virtual exchanges, the telecollaboration employed critical approaches in the task design. In this telecollaboration, students were asked not only to take part in an intercultural exchange with their partners on potentially sensitive topics that included freedom (e.g., freedom of speech, religious liberty), globalization (e.g., child labor), and immigration (e.g., racism, xenophobia), but also to engage in a short debate on these topics. An online anonymous survey was used to solicit their reactions and attitudes toward this critical approach, as well as toward the technology-enhanced learning activity as a whole. The qualitative analysis of the students’ responses showed that the telecollaboration project was generally well received, despite the inclusion of sensitive topics. Most students indicated that they felt most challenged by and most apprehensive about the topic of immigration, which was attributed to the concurrent complex socio-political situation at the time they participated in the telecollaboration project. High levels of anxiety were also reported from the youngest participants, those who majored or minored in other disciplines than French, and non-degree students. This exploratory study calls for more data and an in-depth analysis of the student’s discourse, especially with respect to potential differences in pragmatic strategies used for addressing sensitive versus less sensitive topics in the target language during virtual exchanges with native speakers in that target language.