Teacher Education in Computer-Assisted Language Learning: A Sociocultural and Linguistic Perspective 9781474292757, 9781474292788, 9781474292771

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part 1: Theoretical Framework and Research Design
1. Research on CALL Teacher Education
2. Collaborative Action Research in CALL Teacher Education
3. Research on Language Teacher Cognition
Part 2: Evaluation of the Professional Development Program
4. Individual Consultancy and Expert Mediation
5. Pre-/In-service Collaboration
6. Video-stimulated Reflection
7. Peer-assisted Collaborative Learning
Part 3: Summary, Implications, and Final Recommendations
8. Impact and Relevance of the Research
Notes
Glossary
References
Index

Citation preview

Teacher Education in Computer-Assisted Language Learning

Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching Series Editors: Michael Thomas, University of Central Lancashire, UK, Mark Peterson, Kyoto University, Japan, and Mark Warschauer, University of California, Irvine, USA Today’s language educators need support to understand how their learners are changing and the ways in which technology can be used to aid their teaching and learning strategies. The movement toward different modes of language learning—from presence-based to autonomous as well as blended and fully online modes—requires different skill sets such as e-moderation and new ways of designing and developing language learning tasks in the digital age. Theoretical studies that include practical case studies and high-quality empirical studies incorporating critical perspectives are necessary to move the field further. This new series is committed to providing such an outlet for high-quality work on digital language learning and teaching. Volumes in the series will focus on a number of areas including but not limited to – task-based learning and teaching approaches utilizing technology – language learner creativity – e-moderation and teaching languages online – blended language learning – designing courses for online and distance language learning – mobile-assisted language learning – autonomous language learning, both in and outside of formal educational contexts – the use of web 2.0/social media technologies – immersive and virtual language learning environments – digital game-based language learning – language educator professional development with digital technologies – teaching language skills with technologies Enquiries about the series can be made by contacting the series editors: Michael Thomas ([email protected]), Mark Peterson ([email protected]), and Mark Warschauer ([email protected]).  Titles in the Series Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment, Miranda Hamilton Autonomous Language Learning with Technology, Chun Lai Online Teaching and Learning: Sociocultural Perspectives, edited by Carla Meskill Task-based Language Learning in a Real-World Digital Environment, edited by Paul Seedhouse Teaching Languages with Technology: Communicative Approaches to Interactive Whiteboard Use, edited by Euline Cutrim Schmid and Shona Whyte WorldCall, edited by Ana Gimeno, Mike Levy, Françoise Blin, and David Barr

Teacher Education in Computer-Assisted Language Learning A Sociocultural and Linguistic Perspective Euline Cutrim Schmid

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 Paperback edition first published 2019 © Euline Cutrim Schmid, 2017 Euline Cutrim Schmid has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. Series design by James Watson Cover design © Shutterstock All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schmid, Euline Cutrim, 1969- author. Title: Teacher education in computer assisted language learning : a sociocultural and linguistic perspective / Euline Cutrim Schmid. Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, [2017] | Series: Advances in digital language learning and teaching | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2017009992| ISBN 9781474292757 (hb) | ISBN 9781474292771 (epdf) Subjects: LCSH: Language teachers–Training of. | Educational technology–Study and teaching. | Language and languages–Study and teaching–Computer-assisted instruction. | Language and languages–Study and teaching–Technological innovations. | Second language acquisition–Computer-assisted instruction. | Second language acquisition–Technological innovations. | Internet in education. | Educational technology. | Sociolinguistics. Classifi cation: LCC P53.85 .S36 2017 | DDC 418.0078/5–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017009992 ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-9275-7 PB: 978-1-3501-0099-2 ePDF: 978-1-4742-9277-1 ePub: 978-1-4742-9276-4 Series: Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

To my parents: Benedito and Elisabeth

Contents Foreword Preface Acknowledgments

Part 1 1 2 3

4 5 6 7

8

3 18 41

Evaluation of the Professional Development Program

Individual Consultancy and Expert Mediation Pre-/In-service Collaboration Video-stimulated Reflection Peer-assisted Collaborative Learning

Part 3

x xv

Theoretical Framework and Research Design

Research on CALL Teacher Education Collaborative Action Research in CALL Teacher Education Research on Language Teacher Cognition

Part 2

viii

63 87 109 129

Summary, Implications, and Final Recommendations

Impact and Relevance of the Research

Notes Glossary References Index

157 183 184 187 199

Foreword The new digital media offer new opportunities for language learning and teaching. A panoply of environments, tools, social technologies, and devices— including games, learning management systems, social networking, and interactive whiteboards (IWBs)—allows today’s language students to engage in forms of inquiry, communication, construction, and expression that transcend the classroom and their own immediate contexts. These technologies enable learners to connect with the world and develop linguistic and intercultural skills as well as more generic twenty-first-century literacy skills. The fact that they can access resources in another language or communicate with speakers of that language through web conferencing means that there is a shift from language learning to more authentic language use. However, using digital technologies for learning can also pose socio-affective challenges. This adds to the responsibility of teachers; they have to be digitally literate to ensure that they choose the right tools for use in their classrooms and that they support their students appropriately. Teacher training in the area of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) thus becomes crucial. Yet if we examine the situation of trainee teachers as well as more experienced teachers today, we see a lack of opportunities for them to develop the necessary digital teaching skills, which range from basic technical knowledge to the ability to use technologies critically and creatively. As a result, many teachers don’t know how to implement new technologies to best effect, and there is a digital divide between those teachers who use new technologies in the classroom effectively and those who don’t (or often simply can’t). What learners today need are teachers whose skills go beyond the basic technical knowledge and who also have an understanding of the theories and methods that underpin effective CALL. Only this allows them to make the most of the opportunities as well as deal with the challenges, to become creative in their technology use while at the same time developing a critical attitude, and to pass this knowledge on to the learners. Transferring approaches and methods used in the face-to-face classroom indiscriminately to CALL and teaching does not work. Instead, what teachers need to be able to do is to develop new approaches that allow them to choose appropriate tools and to develop tasks

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that take account of the affordances (i.e., the possibilities and constraints) of the new technologies. To achieve this, institutions and policy-makers have to ensure that language teachers have access to pre-service as well as in-service teacher education programs which include a strong focus on CALL and teaching that goes beyond technical training. As this book shows, Euline Cutrim Schmid has succeeded in developing one such teacher education program as well as evaluating it. Her book is based on a longitudinal research project which at its center has a model of CALL teacher education informed by a sociocultural approach. She describes how she worked with pre- and in-service teachers to carry out an in-depth investigation into teacher cognition. The aims were to identify the key competences that language teachers need to develop in order to integrate a particular tool—Interactive Whiteboard (IWB)—into their teaching practice, and to find out how teachers experience the process of technology integration in the context of a particular pedagogical approach based on sociocultural theory. This involved situated learning, pre-/in-service collaboration, peer collaborative learning, and reflective practice. The in-service component of the program, which is the main focus of the book, included ICT professional development workshops, collaboration with pre-service teachers in the development and implementation of foreign language lessons, video-stimulated reflection, ongoing pedagogical support, and individual consultancy with an academic expert. The author-researcher used a collaborative action research framework to collect a range of qualitative data, which—together with her case study approach—ensured that the voices and learning experiences of the participating teachers and her own as teacher educator are central to the book. The findings of the study show a range of teachers’ developmental paths, which reflect the social and educational context these teachers found themselves in, as well as their beliefs about teaching. Although the study focuses on IWB, the findings are relevant for language teachers and teacher trainers more generally as well as for CALL researchers. The contribution of the book lies in presenting and evaluating an innovative teacher development program that is rooted in theory and pedagogical practice and can be used for professional development of pre- and in-service teachers. Regine Hampel Professor of Open and Distance Language Learning The Open University, UK

Preface This book is the result of the expertise I have acquired over the past thirteen years working as a computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher educator at preand in-service levels in three higher education institutions: Lancaster University (UK), University of Education Heidelberg (Germany), and University of Education Schwäbisch Gmünd (Germany). As I got involved in the process of designing and implementing CALL teacher education programs, I have dealt with several fundamental curricular and methodological questions which are key to the success or failure of the courses I provide. Some of these questions are: On which tools should the course focus? What competencies should my trainees develop? What kind of methodology should I use? How can I connect trainees’ learning to their future (or current) practice? What is the best type of follow-up support for in-service teachers? In order to tackle these and other questions pertinent to this topic, I embarked on a longitudinal research project that resulted in this book. Until 2008, my work focused exclusively on pre-service CALL teacher education. In my role as a lecturer, I provided CALL courses that gave English as a foreign language (EFL) student teachers a broad general overview of CALL, by involving them in using and discussing existing applications of computer technology in the language classroom. The results of questionnaires administered to my 2006 student cohort at the University of Education Heidelberg showed that most of my students were not satisfied with the knowledge and skills gained in their CALL courses because they thought them to be disconnected from the real world of school. In order to take the students’ needs and feedback into consideration, I implemented a new format of the courses, which included a component of situated practice. I followed the design proposed by Meskill et al. (2006), in which preservice teachers learn to use technology via mentoring by experienced educators in their classrooms. This change created new opportunities for collaboration with schools, but it also created a new challenge for me as CALL teacher educator. Since CALL technologies are not widely adopted in German schools, it turned out to be very difficult to find school mentors to provide adequate models for my students. As a result, I felt the need to get involved in CALL training for in-service teachers as well. During the practical collaboration with in-service teachers, I noticed that most of them were very reluctant to integrate technology into

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their everyday teaching practices. This reality sparked my interest to investigate in-service teachers’ developmental paths as CALL practitioners and to identify the professional development approaches that best support their learning. The research presented in this book is situated at the intersection of the study of second language teacher cognition and the investigation of the integration of CALL technologies into language education. In-service language teachers’ cognitions were investigated as they integrated new CALL technologies into their regular foreign language (FL) classes and participated in a professional development program—the Teacher Education in CALL (TECALL) program. The main objective of the program, which spread over a period of one year and a half, was to support the development of competencies that would allow the participant teachers to exploit the potential of new CALL technologies in accordance with the principles of current models of language teaching pedagogy, such as task-based and project-based language learning. The research project investigating this program used a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective as the basis for a conceptual framework to research language teacher cognition. The project thus used “a theory of cognition that includes mental processes together with teachers’ practice, and the contexts within which the interaction between thinking and practice takes place” (Cross, 2010, p. 437). In line with this perspective, the research incorporated a focus on both self-reported data about what teachers think and observation records of what teachers do. The study was carried out in the form of in-depth longitudinal case studies with seven in-service FL teachers at different levels of technology expertise and teaching experience. The purpose of the study was twofold: first, to investigate the key competencies required to use interactive whiteboards (and a variety of CALL tools) in accordance with current theories of language teaching pedagogy, and second, to trial a model of CALL teacher education—the designed TECALL program. The design and implementation of the TECALL program were based on a sociocultural approach to teacher education. The key principles underlying the program were “situated learning” (Egbert, 2006), pre-/in-service collaboration (Meskill et al., 2006), peer-assisted collaborative learning (Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines 2015), and reflective practice (Legutke, Müller-Hartmann, and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2007; Fuchs, Hauck, and Müller-Hartmann, 2012). Throughout the program, the teachers received technical and pedagogical support for their own exploration of the technologies via (a) ICT professional development workshops, (b) collaboration with pre-service teachers in the

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development and implementation of FL lessons, (c) video-stimulated reflection, and (d) individual consultancy with an academic expert. Teachers’ cognitions were investigated via qualitative empirical data, involving classroom observations, video recordings of lessons, in-depth interviews, and video-stimulated reflections. Two theoretical frameworks guided the process of data analysis: Borg’s (2006) teacher cognition framework and the sociocultural perspective to L2 teacher education (Johnson, 2009). Two levels of research can be distinguished in the study. I, the teacher educator/researcher, followed an action research approach to my teaching in my attempt to understand the complex processes involved in supporting the development of the teachers’ CALL competencies throughout the program. At the same time, the seven participant teachers were involved in collaborative action research (CAR) in order to reflect on and transform their practices. The book thus includes the voices and learning experiences of both participating teachers and the researcher/teacher educator, as they reflected on their professional development as CALL practitioners and as CALL educator, respectively. The first three chapters of the book describe the theoretical frameworks that guided the investigation and the research methodology used in the study. The following four chapters present the research findings. They focus on the description and evaluation of the different components of the TECALL program, namely Chapter 4 “Individual Consultancy and Expert Mediation,” Chapter 5 “Pre-/in-service Collaboration,” Chapter 6 “Video-stimulated Reflection,” and Chapter 7 “Collaborative Peer-assisted Learning.” These four chapters are relatively independent of each other and, thus, allow the readers to choose their way through the book. In more detail, the book is structured as follows: Chapter 1 sets the stage for the research by reviewing the CALL teacher education literature with a special focus on the main features of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education. Chapter 2 provides a historical perspective on the development of teacher cognition as a tradition of research, the main challenges faced by the field, and the main themes it has focused on. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the significance of teacher cognition research in CALL. Chapter 3 presents the main principles and features of CAR and outlines the general path my research project has followed. It describes the context of the research, its aims, and the methods of data collection and data analysis. The  following chapters focus on the different components of the TECALL program.

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Chapter 4 provides an in-depth introduction to the principles of a sociocultural approach to L2 teacher education and discusses the scaffolding tools and procedures I used to provide expert mediation during teacher education activities. The discussion is mainly based on the analysis of interactions between me and two teachers, which took place in the context of a series of video-stimulated reflective sessions and professional development workshops. Chapter 5 focuses on the key component of the TECALL program, namely the pre-/in-service collaboration. The chapter discusses the in-service teachers’ views on (a) the advantages of these collaborative projects for their development as CALL practitioners and (b) the principles and guidelines that should inform such collaborative efforts. Chapter 6 discusses the value of using video-stimulated reflection (VSR) as a teacher professional development tool. It focuses on the impact of the VSR sessions on the professional development of one of the participating teachers. Chapter 7 focuses on the analysis of peer-to-peer interactions during the professional development workshops to discuss the learning opportunities that were created through peer scaffolding and dialogue. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the specific features of the professional development workshops that facilitated mutual support and collaboration among the participating in-service teachers. Finally, Chapter 8 summarizes the main research findings presented and discussed in this book and outlines the implications drawn from this study for the design and evaluation of future CALL teacher education. Reflective questions and suggestions of professional development activities are included at the end of each data analysis chapter in order to (a) help the readers to draw on their own experiences and to engage in an in-depth analysis of the chapter contribution and (b) encourage maximum uptake of the research and teaching principles by encouraging readers to generalize to different technological and non-technological teaching contexts. This book thus aims at contributing to a more in-depth understanding of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education through the analysis of longitudinal classroom-based empirical data. As already pointed out, the program incorporated a longitudinal design to reveal trajectories of change in the teachers’ cognition and practice. This longitudinal perspective supports the investigation of the impact of the different components of the program on the teachers’ evolving CALL practice. Therefore, an important objective of the book is to advance the research on CALL teacher education.

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Another important aim of the book is to engage current and future teachers and teacher educators in an in-depth examination of empirical research that is directly relevant to their practice. It is hoped that my critical evaluation of the main components of the TECALL program will help the readers to develop new knowledge and skills in the design, implementation, and evaluation of CALL teacher education activities. Finally, it is expected that the analysis of the learning experiences and challenges reported by the participating teachers and myself as a teacher educator can provide stimulus for the readers’ reflective thinking about their own practice.

Acknowledgments The research presented in this book was funded by a grant from the Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg, Germany. I would like to acknowledge my colleague and dear friend Andreas MüllerHartmann for sharing his extensive expertise in CALL teacher education with me. I am especially grateful for his continuous support throughout this research and his invaluable comments on my work. I am also thankful to my colleagues who share my interest in advancing the research on CALL teacher education, and with whom I have collaborated in various research projects, as for instance Jozef Colpaert, Margret Oberhofer, Shona Whyte, Gary Beauchamp, Ton Koenraad, and Graham Stanley. I have benefitted greatly from our discussions and exchange of ideas. I also wish to acknowledge my Master’s students, Sanderin van Hazebrouck Thompson and Mirjam Delesky, who were willing to learn with me as we examined the value of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education. Moreover, I want to give due acknowledgment to the seven participating in-service teachers who participated freely and gave generously of themselves and their time. Without their strong commitment to the TECALL program, this research would not have been possible. Special thanks also go to the thirteen pre-service teachers (my students) who collaborated with the participating in-service teachers and supported the data collection process. Finally, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my husband Stefan Schmid who helped me through the difficult times of writing this book, for his love, companionship, encouragement, and assistance.

Part One

Theoretical Framework and Research Design

C h apte r 1

Research on CALL Teacher Education

Overview The growing literature on computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education has proposed various approaches to tackle the challenge of equipping teachers to use technology effectively in the language classroom. In the last decades, the sociocultural theory has been discussed and regarded as a useful framework to explain L2 teacher learning and development (Johnson, 2009) and to inform the design of CALL teacher education programs. The literature on CALL teacher education has discussed several approaches based on a sociocultural view of teacher learning. Some examples are project-based learning (Debski, 2006), situated practice (Egbert, 2006), peer-assisted collaborative learning (Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015), portfolio-based learning (Van Olphen, 2007), experiential modeling (O’Dowd, 2015a, b), and researchoriented CALL teacher education (Mueller-Hartmann, 2012). This introductory chapter sets the stage for the research presented in this book by reviewing the CALL teacher education literature with a special focus on the main principles of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education.

1 Introduction Today’s language educators are confronted by a demand to integrate information and communication technologies (ICT) into their practice from the media, government, school administrators, colleagues, parents, and learners. In spite of this demand, surveys conducted in many parts of the world (e.g., Digedu, 2014; Beaven et al., 2010) have shown that the percentage of language teachers who have effectively integrated ICT into the curriculum is still relatively low. Research has also shown that even when teachers start to adopt technological innovations, their use of technology in the language classroom typically does not

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comply with second language research recommendations (Gray, 2010; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012; Whyte, 2015). It has been observed in the literature that one of the main barriers for the effective integration of ICT into the language classroom is teachers’ insufficient skills in using technology (Hubbard and Levy, 2006; Arnold and Ducate, 2015). Language teachers are often reluctant to use computers in their lessons because they lack training or hands-on experience of how to exploit ICT tools and resources in their teaching. As pointed out by Arnold and Ducate (2015), although many pre- and in-service language teacher education programs now address ICT, CALL teacher education overall still appears not to be adequate and effective. Several researchers have criticized the excessive emphasis on the mastery of hardware and software functions and the insufficient focus on pedagogical principles and theories (e.g., Brown and Warschauer, 2006; Hubbard, 2008). Other concerns refer to the lack of contextualization and situated learning (Egbert, Paulus, and Nakamichi, 2002; Egbert, 2006; Debski, 2006; Legutke, Mueller-Hartmann, and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2007), and lack of appropriate follow-up and ongoing pedagogical and technical support (Moss et al., 2007). Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that most CALL teacher education programs are not yet meeting the needs of future teachers. Hubbard (2008) raises the issue that a great deal of CALL education is being done by professionals who are self-taught in this domain. He then concludes that one of the main obstacles to effective CALL teacher training is the lack of experienced, knowledgeable educators. As he points out, many CALL educators lack the competencies to design CALL courses that teach what language teachers really need to know. Another issue that has been seen as problematic is the fact that CALL research is often too distant from classroom reality (Egbert et al., 2009; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012). Perhaps in response to such concerns, in the past few years the CALL literature has shown increasing interest in the topic of teacher education. This can be seen by the number of journal special issues on this topic (Arnold and Ducate, 2015; Guichon and Hauck, 2011; White and Reinders, 2009) and edited volumes (Hubbard and Levy, 2006; Kassen et al., 2007) in the last ten years. The following quotes, from two leading researchers in the field, Stockwell (2009) and Hubbard (2008), summarize the main reasons for this attention: This attention is indicative of greater recognition of the importance of CALL practitioners having sufficient grounding in CALL theory and practice, as well

Research on CALL Teacher Education

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as knowledge of what technologies are available to them in order to be able to effectively implement CALL in their specific language learning environments. (Stockwell, 2009, p. 1) The future of CALL is closely tied to the future of language teacher education because language teachers are the pivotal players in selecting the tools to support their teaching and determine what CALL applications language learners are exposed to and how learners use them. (Hubbard, 2008, p. 176)

The growing literature on CALL teacher education has proposed various approaches to tackle the challenge of equipping teachers to use technology effectively in the language classroom. Several models of CALL teacher education, such as project-based learning (Debski, 2006), situated practice (Egbert, 2006), peer collaboration (Bustamante and Moeller, 2013), and experiential modeling (O’Dowd, 2015b), have been discussed in the literature. The CALL literature has also discussed important competencies that teachers need to develop (Cutrim Schmid, 2010; Hampel, 2009; O’Dowd, 2015a), and principles and guidelines for the design and implementation of successful teacher education programs (Hubbard, 2008). However, several gaps in CALL teacher education research have been pointed out in the literature. For instance, researchers have advocated an increased focus on longitudinal studies investigating the impact of CALL teacher education on teaching and learning processes (Arnold and Ducate, 2015), and greater emphasis on school-based research and teachers’ perspectives (Egbert et al., 2009; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012). Having worked as a CALL pre- and in-service teacher educator for more than a decade, I have dealt with several fundamental curricular and methodological questions in this area. Some of these questions are: On which CALL tools should the course focus? What competencies should my trainees develop? What kind of methodology should I use? How can I connect trainees’ learning to their future (or current) practice? What type of follow-up support do in-service teachers need? These questions motivated the design and implementation of a research project that involved pre- and in-service teachers in the critical examination of a model of CALL teacher education based on a sociocultural approach to language teacher education (Freeman and Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 2009; Johnson and Golombek, 2011).1 The program brought the technological know-how and second language research background of student teachers (pre-service) together with the craft knowledge and experience of practicing teachers (in-service) in the

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design and implementation of CALL-based activities in the language classroom. The research project incorporated a longitudinal design to reveal trajectories of change in teachers' cognition and practice. The main aim of the research was to contribute to a more in-depth understanding of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education through the analysis of longitudinal classroom-based empirical data. This introductory chapter sets the stage for the research by reviewing the CALL teacher education literature with a special focus on the main features of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education.

2 The development of CALL-related competencies A key element in the CALL research agenda is the investigation of the new competencies that language teachers need to acquire in order to be able to integrate new technologies in ways that enhance language learning and teaching. CALL authors have highlighted the important distinction between technological knowledge and the pedagogical knowledge and skills that are necessary for the appropriate and effective integration of the technology into the teaching and learning process (e.g., Hubbard and Levy, 2006). Most of the research has focused on online teaching competencies (e.g., Guichon, 2009; Meskill, 2009; Hampel, 2009; Comas-Quinn, 2011; O’Dowd, 2015a), but there is growing interest on the examination of CALL competencies in face-to-face settings (e.g., Cutrim Schmid, 2010; Gray, 2010; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012; Whyte, 2015). Arnold and Ducate (2015) emphasize the importance of the development of technology-focused standards such as the TESOL Technology Standards (Healey et al., 2011) and teacher knowledge frameworks such as the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Graham, 2011). As they point out, these frameworks play a significant role in acknowledging the pedagogical potential of CALL and helping recognize that teaching with technology requires additional unique skills compared with teaching in faceto-face contexts. The CALL literature also contains various frameworks for the analysis of CALL expertise. Some have a broader scope (e.g., Hubbard and Levy, 2006), while others focus on specific CALL domains, such as telecollaboration (O’Dowd, 2015a, b), online teaching (Hampel, 2009), and classroom teaching with interactive technologies (Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2014; Whyte, 2015).

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O’Dowd (2015a), for instance, provided a model of the different competences that language teachers need in order to organize and implement telecollaborative exchanges in their classrooms. This model included four sections: organizational, pedagogical and digital competences, attitudes, and beliefs. Hampel (2009), also focusing on online teaching, identified a number of teacher competencies needed to support online collaboration, which are organized in broad categories such as promoting community building, dealing with constraints and possibilities of the medium, and designing tasks appropriate to the online environment. Referring to technology use in face-to-face classroom settings, Cutrim Schmid and Whyte (2014) discussed various competencies that language teachers need to develop in order to be able to use interactive technologies in accordance with current theories of language teaching pedagogy. Some of the competencies include the ability to design materials that create space for pupils’ contributions, and classroom interactional competencies for supporting reflection-in-action and peer evaluation during technology-mediated activities. Some authors have focused on CALL competencies that cut across all domains. Shin (2015), for instance, investigated strategies for preparing teachers to handle issues of safe and fair use of ICT-based resources that may arise during CALL instruction. As they point out, teachers should not only be made aware of serious issues, such as copyright infringement, privacy violation, and e-safety, but also be taught concrete strategies and action plans to deal with them. Haines (2015) sees the identification of technological affordances as an essential aspect of teacher learning. According to her, CALL teacher education courses should place special emphasis on developing teachers’ ability to identify the affordances of new tools and use these according to their learners’ needs, task demands, and desired learning outcomes. Some authors also point out that the development of CALL competencies often requires a reconceptualization of the roles of both teacher and learner (Comas-Quinn, 2011; Antoniadou, 2011). Comas-Quinn (2011), for instance, points out that many teachers experience an imbalance or ‘‘loss of a stable state’’ as they move from traditional classroom-based teaching to online teaching, showing that the competencies necessary for effective online teaching go beyond the acquisition of skills and knowledge and involve an acceptance by the teacher of his or her new role and identity. In order to support the development of such CALL competencies, a great variety of resources for pre- and in-service teacher education have been developed. Some of these resources are practice-oriented textbooks (e.g., Dudeney and Hockley, 2007; Sharma and Barrett, 2007; Stanley, 2013) providing a general

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introduction to specific technologies and examples of CALL activities. This type of publication makes relatively little reference to the theoretical principles guiding the design and implementation of CALL activities. Other research-based publications provide an overview of CALL focusing on various technologies. CALL introductory textbooks (e.g., Beatty (2010) and Heim and Ritter (2012)) make a consistent reference to academic research in English language teaching (ELT) and CALL and help trainees make the connection between theory and practice. Some textbooks focus on the use of specific technologies in situated contexts, as for instance, O’Dowd (2007) on telecollaboration and Cutrim Schmid and Whyte (2014) on interactive whiteboards (IWBs). In this type of publication, the authors make connections to actual practice, focusing on case studies in real classrooms in order to provide contextualized examples of technology use. In Europe, there have been some research initiatives aiming to provide teachers with open educational resources (OERs) for professional development in this area. These resources have been developed in the framework of European research projects focusing on various technologies and domains. Some recent examples are the Interactive Technologies in Language Teaching (iTILT) project on the use of IWBs (Whyte et al., 2014, Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2014), the Telecollaboration for Intercultural Language Acquisition (TiLA) project on skills for telecollaboration at secondary school level (Jauregi, Melchor-Couto and Vilar Beltrán, 2013), and the Integrating Telecollaborative Networks into Foreign Language (Intent) project focusing on telecollaboration in the higher education context (O’Dowd, 2015b). Over the years, CALL teacher educators have used various approaches, methods, and tools to aid in preparing future language teachers to use CALL in their practice. Some influential approaches are project-based learning (Debski, 2006), situated practice (Egbert, 2006), peer collaborative learning (Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015), portfolio-based learning (Van Olphen, 2007), experiential modeling (O’Dowd, 2015), and research-oriented CALL teacher education (Legutke et al., 2007; Mueller-Hartmann, 2012). However, due to a relative lack of longitudinal field studies, researchers have not been able to adequately evaluate the impact of these approaches on the development of CALL-related competencies. In a recent state-of-the-art literature review, Arnold and Ducate (2015, p. 2) argue that CALL teacher education research should “move beyond research on teacher beliefs and attitudes to investigate actual practices and competencies,

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especially from a longitudinal perspective,” in order to be able to trace teachers’ development and better evaluate the impact of CALL teacher education courses. According to them, such research could provide a better understanding of how (foreign) language teachers learn to integrate technology into their instructional practice. To date, there have been relatively few studies incorporating longitudinal and empirical analysis in order to investigate the impact of CALL teacher education programs on teachers’ classroom practice (e.g., Dooly, 2009; Tai, 2015). Most research examining the impact of CALL teacher education programs has focused on how these courses influence teachers’ perceptions and attitudes toward CALL and their confidence in integrating CALL into their practice (e.g., Hong, 2010; Peters, 2006; Egbert et al., 2002). Some researchers have thus highlighted the benefits of adding observation as data source to complement self-report data in preventing potential discrepancies between teachers’ cognition and actual practice (e.g., Tai, 2015). The main findings of the limited number of studies that focus on investigating the impact of CALL teacher education courses seem to indicate a favorable impact. The literature indicates that CALL education courses have helped second language (L2) teachers to establish a positive attitude and to gain confidence in integrating technology (Hegelheimer, 2006; Tai, 2015). In Tai’s (2015) study, for instance, the in-service CALL course seemed to have supported the development of teachers’ autonomy as they gained confidence to go beyond their comfort zones and started exploring other ICT resources (not included in the course) in order to achieve curriculum objectives. Other studies investigating the long-term impact of CALL teacher training courses on participants (e.g., Dooly, 2009) point out that teachers tend to face many difficulties in developing their competencies further through practice, due to the lack of situated training, as well as peer and institutional support. In response to that, some researchers have emphasized the importance of designing situated CALL teacher education courses that support the development of sustained and deeply rooted motivation, unfazed by difficult circumstances (Egbert, 2006; Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014, Whyte, 2015). The main question that arises at this point is: Which specific formats and approaches to CALL pre- and in-service teacher education are more likely to achieve the above-mentioned results? The following section discusses principles for the effective design and evaluation of CALL teacher education and outlines the main features of influential approaches developed in the last two decades.

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3 Sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education In their state-of-the-art review, Guichon and Hauck (2011, p. 192) outlined a few principles for CALL teacher education drawn from the literature, as for instance, anchoring teacher training and experimenting with technologies in a specific setting (situated learning), putting pedagogical objectives before technological ones, adopting constructivist or socio-constructivist approaches to language learning, and developing collaboration skills among trainees. Along the same lines, Bustamante and Moeller (2013) discussed what they considered effective strategies in designing professional development programs: hands-on experience; convergence of technology, pedagogy, and content; discussion and reflection on pedagogy; and technology implementation into the classroom. As researchers attempt to identify general principles for best practice in CALL teacher education, Stockwell (2012) draws attention to the question of diversity in CALL and the inherent difficulties involved in defining content and methods in CALL teacher education. He underscores the fact that teachers and their teaching contexts significantly shape if and how CALL is implemented. He then points out that more research is needed to help us identify ways in which CALL teacher education can successfully account for the context-specific nature of teaching and learning. Another important theme in the CALL teacher literature is curriculum planning. Referring to the content of CALL programs, Hubbard (2008, p. 179) points out that CALL teacher education should go beyond the focus on “best practices” toward the development of “conceptual tools that will enable trainees to evaluate and engage with subsequent research developments and swings in the methodological pendulum that will inevitably occur, especially in the area of technology where change can be so rapid.” This observation correlates with recent survey findings obtained in the United States (Williams, Abraham, and Bostelmann, 2014) as teachers expressed the need to learn how to think about, analyze, and integrate new technologies into a foreign language (FL) curriculum without having to depend on tool-specific training. Some authors also point toward the importance of preparing teachers to adopt a more critical, responsible, and ethical practice related to technology use (e.g., Shin, 2015), and reflect on their own CALL practice (Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014, Chao, 2015). Various studies have highlighted the value of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education (Egbert, 2006; Meskill et al., 2006; Motteram, 2014; Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014). Sociocultural approaches to language teacher education are based on the principle that “learning to

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teach is a long-term, complex developmental process that operates through participation in the social practices and contexts associated with learning and teaching” (Freeman and Johnson, 1998, p. 402). When applied to CALL teacher education, great emphasis is put on matching the content of CALL courses with the real needs of classroom teachers. Key sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education are reviewed below.

3.1 Experiential modeling In experiential modeling (Hoven, 2007) trainees experience the tools and processes they are supposed to use in their (future) practice. It is expected that these experiences will foster gradual learning, leading to deeper and more durable changes in teaching behavior and attitudes. Wach (2015), for instance, points out that through technology-based hands-on experience in learning, prospective teachers are more likely to incorporate technology in their own teaching later on. Several authors have discussed the benefits of experiential modeling for acquiring the skills for telecollaboration. O’Dowd (2015a, b) sees it as an ideal approach to telecollaboration training, since it allows future practitioners to experience firsthand the challenges and benefits of such an activity. In Antoniadou’s study (2011, p. 233), for instance, pre-service teachers were provided with network-based collaborative experiences “not to learn about new ICT tools per se but as a way of fostering a conceptual understanding of the pedagogical value of network-based collaborative experiences, and motivating the student-teachers to transfer this knowledge into the classroom.” In Grosbois’s study (2011), trainees developed pedagogical expertise on telecollaboration as a by-product, while taking part in a Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)-based project with native speakers with the aim of developing L2 oral output skills. In another telecollaboration project, Fuchs, Hauck, and MüllerHartmann (2012) discuss how the pre-service teachers in their study gradually took over more control and self-directed their learning in online activities, thus becoming more autonomous and gaining the competence to design tasks that also enhance their learners’ autonomy.

3.2 Research-oriented teacher education Critical reflection is another important theme within the field of CALL teacher education. Several researchers have argued that research should be an integral part of pre- and in-service training so that it becomes a natural part of teachers’

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professional practice (Legutke et al., 2007; Guichon and Hauck, 2011). Guichon and Hauck (2011) point out that the development of reflective skills can be supported by teachers’ involvement in action research (AR) (Wallace, 1991) or exploratory practice (Allwright and Hanks, 2009). Several authors have discussed the transformative nature of reflection-based CALL teacher training programs (Slaouti and Motteram, 2006; Cutrim Schmid, 2010, 2011; Chao, 2015; Shin, 2015). Shin (2015), for instance, underscores the role of self-reflection and selfevaluation in the development of pre-service English teachers’ critical awareness regarding issues of digital literacy, fair use of digital materials, and e-safety. Chao (2015) discusses how a focus on critical reflection of technology use during a CALL teacher education experience encouraged the teachers participating in their research to continue reflective engagement in their ever-changing digital learning and teaching context.

3.3 Collaborative peer-assisted learning Collaborative peer-assisted learning has also been found to be a useful method in CALL teacher education. Several studies have shown that peer collaboration and the exposure to multiple perspectives can help trigger deeper reflection and learning among CALL in-service trainees (Whyte, 2011; Whyte, 2015; Haines, 2015). In Haines’ study (2015), for instance, two teachers collaborated on the use of wikis and blogs in their classes and influenced each other’s views of these tools. In Whyte’s (2015) study, the participants used an online platform to upload videos of themselves teaching with an IWB in order to comment on each other’s experiences. Her findings showed that the observation of their peers’ teaching promoted critical reflection and collaborative learning. In Kozlova and Priven’s (2015) study, pre-service teachers also collaborated on task development, which led to the co-construction of new knowledge. The literature has also reported on the potential benefits of collaboration between novice and expert teachers. In O’Dowd’s study (2015b), for instance, participants noted the value of being linked to experienced mentors who could assist them with their telecollaboration projects. In other studies (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006; Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014) pre- and in-service teachers collaborated on the design and implementation of classroom-based CALL activities in situated contexts. Their findings have shown that these collaborative projects enabled the creation of communities of practice, which supported pre- and in-service teachers’ pedagogical development as CALL practitioners.

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While the in-service mentors contributed with their pedagogical expertise and experience, the pre-service teachers brought new teaching approaches and fresh technology skills to their mentors’ classrooms.

3.4 Situated learning Situated learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991) is a concept related to experiential learning. It focuses on the notion that learning knowledge and skills take place best in contexts close to those in which they will be used. For language teacher education, this means the use of technology in authentic language teaching scenarios. As far as pre-service education is concerned, several reports in the literature have shown that CALL trainees often have limited opportunities to apply what they had learned, in part because of a mismatch between course materials and teaching context (e.g., Kozlova and Priven, 2015). Therefore, situated CALL teacher education has been suggested as a way to help bridge the gap between the knowledge and skills pre-service teachers acquire in formal CALL courses and the knowledge and skills they actually need in everyday language teaching. Meskill et al. (2006) report on a CALL pre-service training that used classroombased field experiences and guided reflection as complements to CALL university coursework. Their findings have shown the opportunities for situated practice helped pre-service teachers to translate theoretical knowledge into procedural knowledge. Peters (2006) and Dooly (2009) also highlight the need to identify and deal with fears related to technology use in real classroom settings, while the trainees are still within a supportive environment, and constructive solutions can be identified and taken forward in a participatory process. The literature also advocates a situated approach to in-service CALL training (Egbert, 2006; Hubbard, 2008; McNeil, 2013). Egbert (2006), for instance, describes an online CALL course where teachers can immediately connect their work in CALL to the classrooms in which they are currently teaching. Along the same lines, Kessler and Plakans (2008) point out that CALL teacher preparation may benefit from a focus on developing contextualized confidence within certain teaching domains or types of technology that are directly relevant to the teachers in their own contexts. Kozlova and Priven (2015) also employ a situated collaborative learning approach to teacher training in their study. The teacher training model they investigate involved both a pre-teaching stage, in which the in-service teacher trainees designed CALL tasks, and a teaching stage, in which they implemented language tasks with English as a foreign

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language (EFL) students in 3-D virtual worlds (VWs). Their findings show that, since the teacher training was situated in an authentic context, the development of teaching skills occurred naturally from the formation of more general skills of framing the task to the more specific skills such as providing input, giving feedback, and managing collaboration.

3.5 Vicarious experiences The CALL literature has also described approaches to CALL teacher education in which trainees develop vicarious experiences with ICT. This means that in the absence of concrete opportunities for authentic situated practice, trainees can benefit from observation and analysis of contextualized and relevant examples of technology use. Some approaches have focused on the analysis of case studies. Egbert (2006), for instance, shows how a case study approach can provide elements of situated practice by grounding pre-service teachers in detailed, concrete examples of real-world teaching problems and how to deal with them. O’Dowd (2015b) shows how trainees can benefit from the critical analysis of detailed case studies of previous online exchanges, with special emphasis on the learning opportunities and challenges that emerged in the exchanges. Other approaches focused on the observation of CALL practice. Meskill and Sadykova (2011), for instance, drew on the so-called fishbowl technique to foster observation of human interaction and joint reflection during an online professional development course for EFL faculty. Their findings revealed that, as the faculty members observed their own EFL students conversing online with language/culture partners in the United States, they were able to directly observe, problematize, and discuss in depth the kinds of learner-centered instructional conversations that they were engaged in, and this had a positive impact on their professional development as online instructors.

3.6 Individual consultancy and expert mediation Most researchers agree on one fact: the professional development programs that are most likely to be effective are the ones that support individual teachers’ exploration of their current pedagogy and help identify how the new technologies can support, extend, or transform their practice. However, one question that often arises in the literature is how intrusive the educators' work should be on the practices of the teachers. The various approaches discussed in the literature incorporate different levels of pedagogical intervention by

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the teacher educators/researchers in their design. Some researchers defend an interventionist approach to in-service technology training, in which growth has to be stimulated. Moss et al. (2007), for instance, warn against the danger of “less intrusive” training approaches. According to them, these approaches tend to reinforce a relatively conservative use of technology as teachers adapt it to their existing pedagogic style. In their research on the use of IWBs in schools, they found that teachers who did not feel confident in using IWBs were less likely to progress without intervention. Whyte (2011, p. 291) also advocates an interventionist approach and emphasizes the need for combining technology training with training in second language teaching. As she points out, “Teachers can and do self-train with new technology, but cannot identify the affordances of the new tools unless they receive help in identifying effective language learning practices.” Other authors (e.g., Gray, 2010; Gray et al., 2005, 2007) defend an approach that emphasizes freedom of action on the part of the teachers. They underscore the importance of giving teachers the time and opportunity to make their own decisions regarding the most appropriate use of the technology in their own context with very little intervention on the part of the trainers/researchers, who should assume a supportive but not intrusive role. The main argument used by the advocates of this approach is that teachers need time to develop their own understanding of the technology on a trial and error basis, experiencing all the different stages of technology integration in order to take ownership of the technology and its use. Most CALL teacher education programs described recently in the literature draw upon both approaches. They incorporate a pedagogical intervention into their design, but, at the same time, teachers are empowered to determine both the pace and direction of innovation (e.g., Tai, 2015; Whyte, 2015).

4 Investigating CALL teacher education 4.1 Setting the context Recent teacher education research suggests that collaboration between researchers and practicing teachers can improve both the understanding of the learning processes and the quality and the impact of the teacher training (Guichon and Hauck, 2011; Arnold and Ducate, 2015). Egbert et al. (2009) discuss how CALL

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research can be validated through the integration of teachers’ perspectives. After analyzing 850 empirical EFL CALL studies carried out between 2000 and 2008, they identified a number of problematic features of CALL research. One of the issues they pointed out is a general failure to consider the classroom context. They argue that one way to obtain a more accurate account of classroom context is by including teachers’ voices, observations, and concerns. Guichon and Hauck (2011, p. 190) also emphasize the need “to include teachers as researchers who engage in systematic in vivo observation of how their practices evolve over time and how they gradually enrich their professional repertoire and become aware of the impact that this evolution has on their self-efficacy beliefs.” Recent years have also seen a growth in research on teacher cognition in CALL (e.g., Whyte, 2011; Cutrim and Whyte, 2012; Chao, 2015). Studies of teacher cognition are those that examine what second and FL teachers think, know, and believe, and the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom (Borg, 2006). This research approach began to find its way into the field of language teacher education in the early 1990s (e.g., Woods, 1996), and it is now a well-established domain of inquiry (e.g., Borg, 2006). In the CALL literature, the impact of CALL teacher education programs on the structure of teachers’ cognition and the likely changes such pre- and in-service courses bring about in teachers’ performance have been investigated in various contexts. Chao (2015), for example, examines how K-12 in-service teachers built connections between a training course and their teaching. Whyte (2011) investigated the relationship between learning opportunities and teacher cognition in the context of a videoconferencing project for FLs in French primary schools. By placing special emphasis on language teachers’ cognition, these studies have been able to identify key aspects of teachers’ learning processes and competence development that can inform the design and implementation of innovative language teacher education programs. This literature review supports the view that there is a strong need for research on CALL teacher education that is informed by local pedagogical practice and based on solid understanding of schoolteachers’ needs in professional development. This type of research can produce research findings to inform the design of teacher education programs in CALL that are tailored to the real needs of the school sector. As discussed above, there is also a need for the production of research-based resources for the professional development of (future) CALL educators.

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4.2 The research project This book presents and discusses the research findings of my longitudinal research on investigating a model of CALL teacher education—the Teacher Education in CALL (TECALL) program. The TECALL program adopted a sociocultural approach (Freeman and Johnson, 1998) to second language (L2) teacher education. The conceptualization and implementation of the program followed the main literature recommendations discussed above. The core principles of the program design are situated learning (Egbert, 2006), pre-/in-service collaboration (Meskill et al. 2002, 2006), collaborative peer-assisted learning (Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015), and reflective practice (Legutke, Mueller-Hartmann, and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2007; Fuchs, Hauck, and Müller-Hartmann, 2012). The study aims at contributing to a more in-depth analysis of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education through the analysis of longitudinal classroom-based empirical data. The research was carried out in the form of in-depth longitudinal case studies with seven in-service FL teachers at different levels of technology expertise and teaching experience. The purpose of the study was twofold: (1) investigating the key competencies required to incorporate IWBs (and other CALL tools) in accordance with current theories of language teaching pedagogy (e.g., taskbased and project-based approaches); and (2) analyzing and evaluating the different components of the TECALL program, namely individual consultancy and expert mediation (Chapter 4), pre-/in-service collaboration (Chapter 5), video-stimulated reflection (Chapter 6), and collaborative peer-assisted learning (Chapter 7). The next chapter presents the research questions that the investigation has addressed and describes the general path the research has taken.

C h apte r 2

Collaborative Action Research in CALL Teacher Education

Overview Recent teacher education research suggests that collaboration between researchers and practicing teachers can improve both the understanding of learning processes and the quality and impact of teacher education (Egbert et al., 2009). My study used a collaborative action research (CAR) framework (Burns, 2005) to prioritize teachers’ voices. It involved collaboration between a researcher and seven FL (English and French) teachers located in different schools. The participant teachers were supported by the researcher in a process of structured reflection involving data collection and analysis to improve teaching and learning. This chapter presents the main principles and features of this approach and outlines the general path the research project has followed. It describes the context of the study, its aims, and the methods of data collection.

1 Introduction: Collaborative action research As pointed out earlier in the preface, my research project adopted a CAR– oriented methodology to explore language teachers’ cognitions regarding their professional development as CALL practitioners. CAR is a type of action research that involves collaborative activities among colleagues searching for solutions to everyday, real problems or looking for ways to improve their practice and increase student achievement (Burns, 2005). In recent years, this form of collaborative inquiry has become increasingly significant in the field of FL teaching. In the following, I provide a short summary of its main features and goals.

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AR can be defined as “the systematic collection and analysis of data relating to the improvement of some aspect of professional practice” (Wallace, 1998, p. 1). As pointed out by Burns (2005), a central aspect of AR is the simultaneous focus on action and research. The action component involves participants in a process of planned intervention that includes concrete strategies, processes, and activities in response to a perceived problem, puzzle, or question. The research element of AR involves the systematic collection of data as planned interventions are implemented, followed by analysis of what is revealed by the data, and reflection on the implications of the findings for future action and further research. Burns (2005) also emphasizes the localized nature of AR. She explains that AR is centrally situated in the local concerns of the research participants, who use the findings from their investigations to deliberately change and improve their professional practices. The benefits of AR for language teachers are well documented in the literature. Burns (2010), for instance, argues that AR can serve as a professional development tool by helping teachers to deepen their understanding of their classrooms, their teaching, and their students. She discusses research findings showing that teachers who conduct AR are better informed about their field, begin to understand themselves better as teachers, and make better decisions and choices of behavior as a consequence of their engagement in such research. Wallace (1991 cited in Ho, 2013) argues that AR can be seen simply as “an extension of the normal reflective practice of many teachers, but it is slightly more rigorous and might conceivably lead to more effective outcomes” (pp.  56–57). Wang and Zhang (2014) also point out that the involvement in AR can support the development of teacher autonomy, and it can encourage teachers to adopt a research attitude to their practice. AR is thus regarded as an effective method both to support reflective practice and to generate valuable insights into practice. AR has also been regarded as a vehicle for reducing the gaps between academic research findings and practical applications in the classroom. Burns (2005), for instance, argues that teachers should be recognized as knowledge generators and that there should be a genuine interest in seeing knowledge production as a shared responsibility of the practitioner and research communities. Banegas et al. (2013, p. 187) also argue that AR can and should have an impact beyond the classroom. As they point out, “The changes initiated by teachers may initially only affect their local context but then extend to other domains, thus becoming a socio-political approach that may underpin the renewal of educational systems.”

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Key researchers in the field have also emphasized the collaborative aspect of AR (e.g., Burns, 2010, 2015; Wallace, 1998). As Burns (2015) points out, AR becomes all the richer when teachers have the opportunity to work collaboratively rather than in isolation. In fact, there are many options for collaboration in educational settings: teachers can collaborate with other teachers within their own workplaces or across similar workplaces; they can collaborate with their students, or with lead-teachers, or with other participants in the educational community, like principals, administrators, parents, and so on. Burns (2015, p. 15) argues that collaborative AR can contribute to teachers’ professional development in at least three ways: “a) Knowledge constructions become both personal and collective, b) new teaching and learning practices are scaffolded and supported by others and c) professional confidence in ones’ own efficacy as a teacher is enhanced through affirmation from colleagues.” The recent literature on teacher research has provided several examples of studies focusing on the implementation and evaluation of CAR in different parts of the world. Banegas et al. (2013), for instance, report on a CAR project in which a group of EFL teachers in Argentina implemented and evaluated the integration of content and language learning (CLIL) in their classrooms through the development of their own materials. Their findings revealed a positive impact on student motivation and achievement, and successful growth in professional development and teacher autonomy. Also, Wang and Zhang (2014) report on a CAR project carried out by a group of university researchers with a group of senior secondary school English teachers in an attempt to promote teacher autonomy in the Chinese context. Their findings showed that the participating teachers developed a better understanding of what they do in the classroom and moved a major step forward toward teacher autonomy by being engaged in research. Moreover, Ho (2013) described the successful implementation of CAR during a practicum in a teacher education course at a university in Hong Kong. These studies have discussed important benefits of this specific type of AR. According to Ho (2013), teachers experience deeper self-awareness and new personal insights through CAR since they are exposed to alternate perspectives, and receive feedback, reinforcement, and additional support. Banegas et al. (2013) also argue that the benefits of AR can be multiplied when teachers identify an issue and explore it in collaboration. Wang and Zhang (2014) also emphasize that, since collaboration is characteristic of equality and mutual responsibility, teachers can be empowered in the process so that their self-esteem is enhanced and their status valued.

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One particular instantiation of the CAR model involves “collaboration between researchers based in universities, undertaking funded projects and working with groups of teachers located in different schools or teaching centers” (Burns, 2005, p. 65). This is the approach adopted in my study. In this model of CAR, teachers are supported by researchers in a process of structured reflection involving data collection and analysis to improve teaching and learning (Burns, 2005; 2010; 2015). As pointed out by Wang and Zhang (2014), it is hoped that, by engaging teachers in CAR, we can change the traditional top-down transmission mode of teacher training and minimize the gap between theory and practice so that university researchers and teachers can jointly promote educational change. However, the implementation of CAR is not without challenges. As pointed out by Wang and Zhang (2014), a possible threat to this kind of collaboration is the power differential. The researchers’ and the teachers’ approach may differ in terms of what is seen as research or in terms of who considers himself/ herself to be the more dominant/expert partner in the relationship. Therefore, the literature has discussed important conditions for effective CAR involving researchers and teachers. An important aspect, for instance, is the researchers’ willingness to take the teachers’ perspectives and ideas seriously rather than treating them as “subjects” or “objects” of their research (e.g., Burns, 2005, 2010, 2015; Wang and Zhang, 2014). Burns (2005) underlines that collaboration is not something that can be done to teachers, and they must have or share control over the process. As she points out, when teachers are treated as equal partners in the research process, their confidence in and commitment to the results will certainly be increased. The literature has also highlighted the important role played by researchers in defusing teachers’ anxiety about doing research and in supporting the development of the kind of research skills and knowledge that underpin AR (e.g., Wang and Zhang, 2014). This section has summarized some of the main features and purposes of CAR. While CAR is a vehicle for practitioners’ personal and professional development, it should also be valued for its role in the production of knowledge for the language teaching field. The main advantage of CAR is the fact that it opens up opportunities for collective forms of knowledge about teaching and learning that are inclusive of academic and teaching communities. CAR can also play an important role in “addressing broader issues of curriculum development, social justice and educational political action, thus contributing to the greater sustainability of effective educational practices” (Burns, 2005, p. 70).

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The CALL literature has also highlighted the value of AR and CAR for improving practice and generating knowledge in the field. Several researchers have published examples of AR projects that can serve as an inspiration for teachers wanting to undertake their own projects (e.g., Lamy and Hampel, 2007; Hampel and Stickler, 2015). Other researchers (Mueller-Hartmann, 2012; Egbert et al., 2009) have discussed how CALL research can be validated through the integration of teachers’ perspectives. Egbert et al. (2009), for instance, argue that one way to obtain a more accurate account of classroom context is by including teachers’ voices. Godwin-Jones (2015) also points out that another important benefit of involving teachers in AR is to have more longitudinal classroom-based studies in contrast to the short-term nature of most published CALL research. The considerations discussed above informed the design and implementation of a research project focusing on the investigation of FL (English and French) teachers’ professional development in CALL. Seven in-service secondary FL teachers’ cognitions were investigated as they integrated the IWB into their regular foreign language classes and participated in a professional development program—the TECALL program. The study investigating this program used a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective as the basis for a conceptual framework to research language teacher cognition and a CAR framework to prioritize the teachers’ voices. This chapter first describes the main structure and purposes of the TECALL program before turning to an exposition of the research design and research methodology used in the longitudinal study that investigated and evaluated the program.

2 The TECALL professional development program The main aim of the TECALL professional development program was to prepare teachers with the necessary competencies to exploit the IWB in ways that are consistent with current models of language teaching methodology. The design and implementation of the program was based on a sociocultural approach to teacher education (Freeman and Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 2009; Johnson and Golombek, 2011). As discussed in Chapter  1, sociocultural approaches to language teacher education are based on the principle that “learning to teach is a long-term, complex developmental process that operates through participation in the social practices and contexts associated with

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learning and teaching” (Freeman and Johnson, 1998, p. 402). Therefore, key principles underlying the program are situated learning (Egbert, 2006), pre-/ in-service collaboration (Meskill et al., 2006), peer collaborative learning (Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015), and reflective practice (Legutke, Mueller-Hartmann, and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2007; Fuchs, Hauck, and Müller-Hartmann, 2012). Although my teaching and research interests focus upon educational technology in general, I opted for investigating teachers’ developmental paths as IWB users for several reasons. One of the main reasons is the innovative aspect of this research topic. Since the IWB is a relatively new technology in language education, there has been little academic research so far on teachers’ pedagogical needs and developmental paths, as they integrate this technology into their teaching. Secondly, since the mid-1990s, when IWBs found their way into language classrooms all over the world, there has been a debate concerning the potential threat of this technology to the principles of socio-communicative language teaching and socio-cognitive approaches to CALL (Warschauer, 2000). Several researchers in the field of CALL have expressed concern as to whether the use of IWBs in the language classroom would lead to the return to the transmission model of language teaching from the last century (e.g., Dudeney, 2006). Therefore, there is a clear need for research investigating the use of this technology for implementing communicative-based approaches. Finally, since the IWB functions mainly as a platform for the integration of other ICT tools into the curriculum, teachers who exploit this technology pedagogically also need to develop competence in the use of a variety of ICT tools such as presentation software, language learning software, and internet-based materials, among others. As a consequence, this gave the research a broader focus and extended the scope of the investigation. The TECALL professional development program incorporated a pedagogical framework based on a socio-cognitive approach to CALL. The central claims of this approach are summarized by Warschauer (2000) as follows: For electronic language learning activities to be most purposeful and effective, it would seem that they should (1) be learner-centered, with students having a fair amount of control over their planning and implementation, (2) be based on authentic communication in ways rhetorically appropriate for the medium, (3) be tied to making some real difference in the world or in the students’ place in it, and (4) provide students an opportunity to explore and express their evolving identity. (p. 57)

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The socio-cognitive approach to CALL is well aligned with the latest developments in language teaching research and pedagogy. The basic principles of current methods of second language teaching, as for instance, task-based language learning (TBLT) (Nunan, 2004) and project-based learning (Beckett and Miller, 2006), include an emphasis on building language proficiency through meaningful use of language in communicative situations, the integration of the learners’ own personal experiences and needs, and the linking of classroom language learning with language use in authentic contexts. Therefore, the sociocognitive approach to CALL has been largely accepted in the field (Warschauer, 2000) as the most adequate conceptual and methodological framework for the use of new technologies in the language teaching context. I drew on Hubbard and Levy’s framework (2006) to define the main competencies to be developed by the in-service teachers. Hubbard and Levy (2006) introduced a framework for distinguishing elements of CALL expertise, in which expertise is described in terms of roles played by the individual within the field. They distinguish between institutional and functional roles. While the former refers to job titles and descriptions (e.g., teacher, CALL specialist), the latter refers explicitly to what one does (e.g., practitioner, developer, or trainer). In their attempt to describe the different roles performed by CALL practitioners, the authors outline a framework for the analysis of CALL expertise. As they point out, in order to be able to implement CALL appropriately and effectively, teachers need to develop the following key competencies (see Table 2.1). The program was spread out over a one-and-a-half-year period. During this period, seven in-service secondary FL teachers received technical and pedagogical support for their own exploration of the technology via (a) ICT professional development workshops, (b) collaboration with pre-service teachers in the development and implementation of FL lessons, (c) video-stimulated reflection, and (d) individual consultancy with an academic expert.

2.1 Professional development workshops A total of ten ICT professional development workshops were conceptualized and implemented during the lifecycle of the program. The design of the IWB workshops was informed by a sociocultural theory of learning (Vygotsky, 1978), which considers that learning is determined by social interaction and collaborative problem-solving. For the design of pedagogical materials, the task-based approach

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Table 2.1 CALL competencies Competence

Description

C1

Having a sufficient technical foundation—that is, systematic and incidental understanding of the computer system in terms of hardware, software, and networking and being able to use this technical knowledge efficiently Using pedagogical approaches that are intentional and wellconsidered (e.g., in accordance to current theories of teaching methodology) Understanding frameworks for the evaluation of CALL in all its forms (e.g., the frameworks developed by Chapelle (2001) and Doughty and Long (2003)) Making informal judgments on the suitability of the tool for the task (e.g., what kinds of language learning goals may appropriately include the use of chats) Appreciating the strengths and limitations of the technological options at hand (e.g., in which phases of a lesson an interactive whiteboard should be used) Being able to identify and understand the impact of authentic technological constraints and to be able to work creatively between them (e.g., how to implement a WebQuest project without internet connectivity) Capacity for research and development in CALL (e.g., designing CALL activities and materials) Being able to act to build CALL knowledge in others (e.g., CALL learner training) Having a positive attitude toward using electronic technology in their teaching

C2

C3

C4

C5

C6

C7 C8 C9

Adapted from Hubbard and Levy, 2006.

to language teaching (Willis, 1996) was used as the pedagogical framework. The first three workshops focused on providing teachers with operational knowledge of how to use the IWB. The remaining seven workshops focused on teachers’ understandings of how to apply that knowledge in a pedagogical context. Nine workshops were provided by me (the teacher educator/researcher) and one whole-day training workshop was provided by an invited trainer from the British Council. These workshops were also designed with the purpose of bringing the participating teachers together, since they worked in different schools, so that they could exchange ideas about technology integration and learn from each other. More detailed information about the content and implementation of the workshops is provided in Chapter 7.

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2.2 Collaborative projects with pre-service teachers The TECALL program followed a professional development model that has been strongly advocated in the literature on general language teacher education (e.g., Legutke and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2009) and CALL (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006; Egbert, 2006). This model advocates the establishment of partnerships and collaboration between pre- and in-service teachers. Thirteen pre-service teachers (my students) participated in the program through their involvement in smallscale AR projects in collaboration with the seven participating teachers. In these small-scale AR projects (which lasted from three to six months), the in-service teachers designed IWB materials and implemented and evaluated IWB-based lessons in collaboration with the assistant teachers. During the lifetime of the program, thirteen school projects were implemented and evaluated. More detailed information on the structure and development of these collaborative projects is provided in Chapter 5.

2.3 Video-stimulated reflective sessions and in-depth interviews In keeping with the objective of encouraging reflective practice and selfassessment, I conducted in-depth interviews with all the seven teachers in different phases of the program, as well as video-stimulated reflective sessions (VSRs) with four teachers (an average of four reflective sessions with each teacher). All VSR sessions followed the same pattern: The teacher was shown a videotape of a lesson in which he/she used the IWB. The teacher was then encouraged to present his/her perspectives on the lessons he/she taught in terms of how the teacher exploited the technology pedagogically, and to discuss its possible impact on the teaching and on pupils’ learning. Chapter 6 discusses the value of the VSRs as a professional development tool and provides a more thorough description of this method. The individual semi-structured in-depth interviews also invited teachers to reflect on their professional development as CALL practitioners, based on the lessons they had implemented.

2.4 Individual consultancy with academic experts Apart from the support obtained through the collaboration with the pre-service teachers (teaching assistants), the participating teachers could also rely on situated pedagogical support provided by myself (teacher educator/researcher) and two research assistants (M.A. students), who observed some of their

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Table 2.2 Teacher participation in professional development activities

Teacher T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7

Collaborative Projects

VideoRecorded Lessons

Reflective Sessions

Interviews

Professional Development Workshops

1 1 4 4 2 2 0

8 8 12 13 8 10 0

0 3 5 5 3 0 0

3 3 5 3 3 4 2

5 6 6 7 5 6 7

technology-enhanced lessons and watched all of them on video. During monthly school visits, we were able to provide them with feedback and technical and/or pedagogical support for implementing specific technology-enhanced classroom activities, which were embedded in their own practice. It was thought that this approach would allow the participating teachers to improve their skills in a way that was more realistic and thus more sustainable, as they were provided with enough opportunities for gradual accumulation of knowledge and experience within their constraints of time and energy. Table 2.2 presents a summary of teacher participation in the professional development activities. The various components (or professional development tools) of the TECALL program were conceptualized in accordance with the main principles of a sociocultural approach to CALL teacher development, which were discussed in Chapter 1. These principles can be summarized in the following elements: (a) sound theoretical underpinning of teaching practice, (b) the embedding of professional development in teachers’ own classroom contexts, (c) reflective practice, (d) professional collaboration, and (e) ongoing support for professional development. In the following, I describe the research design and research method used to investigate this program.

3 Research design and research process The overall research project aimed at investigating teachers’ motivations, pedagogical needs, and developmental paths as they integrated IWB technology into the curriculum in the context of secondary/vocational schools in Germany.

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The study was carried out in the form of seven in-depth longitudinal case studies with FL teachers at different levels of technology expertise and teaching experience. The purpose of the study was twofold: (a) investigating the key competencies required to use IWB (and a variety of CALL tools) in accordance with current theories of language teaching pedagogy, and (b) trialing the proposed model of CALL teacher education (the TECALL program) based on a sociocultural approach. In order to address the purposes of such a study, two main sets of research questions were formulated. The first set (see RQ-1 below) concerned itself with investigating teachers’ needs in terms of knowledge and support in the process of technology integration and the second set (see RQ-2 below) focused on the developmental paths experienced by the teachers throughout the implementation of the technology training program: Research Question 1: What are the new competences that English teachers need to acquire in order to be able to use CALL tools to develop their practice toward a socio-cognitive communicative approach to language teaching? ● ●

What kind of knowledge base do they need to develop? What kind of support is mostly needed by them as they construct this knowledge base?

Research Question 2: What are teachers’ developmental paths in the process of technology integration? ● ●

What challenges do teachers face? What cognitive and psychological factors affect their adoption of the technology?

This research provided an in-depth investigation of these research questions through the analysis of (a) the teachers’ pedagogical practice, (b) the teachers’ views on their practice and development, and (c) the teachers’ evaluation of the TECALL program.

4 Research context The research was conducted in two secondary schools and one vocational school in the south of Germany. The seven participant teachers were well-qualified FL teachers who used a variety of language teaching approaches (from projectbased to grammar-translation approaches) in their practice. Their participation in the project was voluntary and motivated by a personal interest in developing

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their own teaching skills with respect to the IWB technology and in progressing research in the area of CALL. They were informed of the overarching research questions that guided the study and were actively involved in addressing them throughout the research lifecycle. In the following I provide more detailed information about the research context and research participants.

4.1 The schools School 1 is a state-run school network of primary, lower secondary (Hauptschule), intermediate secondary school (Realschule), and grammar school (Gymnasium). The Hauptschule is geared toward students who want to do an apprenticeship (Lehre), the Realschule offers a more vocationally oriented education, and the Gymnasium is aimed at students who want to study at a university (Universität) or technical college (Fachhochschule). The network has about 2000 pupils. The three types of schools have their own principals and administration; however, some special rooms and labs are shared by all three school types: for instance, arts, music, technology, home economics, biology, chemistry, physics, the cafeteria, the outdoor area, and the gym. The main advantage of this type of comprehensive school (Gesamtschule) is the fact that it allows for more communication and collaboration among the different school levels. Furthermore, late developers who attend the Realschule can be accepted more easily at the Gymnasium, without the disruption of changing school. The school was not very well equipped with new technologies at the time of the project. It had only four computer labs, which were shared by the three school types and were mainly used by the ICT teachers. One year before the project started, the school had acquired one IWB as a result of research collaboration with a local university. This mobile IWB could be moved between rooms and was mainly used by teachers in the languages department. Since the school had not invested in the purchase of ICT hardware in the last years, at the time of the project teachers received very limited training on the use of such technology. School 2 provides high-quality teaching in the private sector at primary and secondary levels. It specializes in education for physically challenged pupils, but it also welcomes children without disabilities. It has only about seven hundred students, and the classes are fairly small, typically comprising eight to sixteen pupils, in order to provide them with more attention and special support. The aim of the school is to educate and integrate pupils with disabilities and to assist each pupil in achieving his or her potential. The school was well equipped with

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ICT at the time of the project. It had more than three hundred computers, a high-speed internal network, IWBs in every classroom, and internet access via WLAN. In some classes pupils were also equipped with laptops and tablets. The introduction of the IWB technology was part of a larger program that aimed at encouraging the integration of ICT into the teaching and learning practice in that school. The school used a total solution approach, in which chalkboards in most classrooms were removed and replaced by IWBs. The decisions regarding the purchase and installation of IWBs in that school were mainly made by the school administration and ICT coordinators, who did not implement a structured training program for their staff. Although the teachers received some initial training, in which they were introduced to the basic functions of the IWBs, they were not provided with any further subject-specific training to upgrade their skills. School 3 is an inner-city vocational school (Berufsfachschule) in the private sector with 1,800 pupils. It offers full-time courses aimed primarily at pupils who have successfully completed nine years at the Hauptschule. The students receive lessons in career-oriented subjects or basic on-the-job manual skills training in various areas (e.g., technical, business, and languages). At the same time, they have the opportunity to extend and deepen their general education. The level of education equates to the Realschulabschluss (Realschule Certificate) and entitles the students to take up training in a recognized occupation, which requires formal training. The school maintains close collaboration with training organizations where the students have the opportunity to develop their practical vocational skills. The school is well known for its strong investment in innovative technology and e-learning solutions in education. It is well equipped with up-to-date technology, including several computer labs with internet access and IWB in most of the classrooms. Over the last decade, the school has also placed strong emphasis on teachers’ professional development in this area. Through the collaboration with technology providers, the school has offered regular training workshops for “multiplier teachers,” who then become responsible for reaching out and passing their knowledge on to their fellow colleagues. The three schools that participated in the project were different from each other in many respects. First of all, even though all participating teachers worked at the intermediate secondary level (Realschule), there were differences in curriculum goals (e.g., vocational vs. general education), kinds of students (e.g., physically challenged vs. nonchallenged children), and school types (e.g., private

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vs. public). The schools had different levels of ICT resources and the quality of professional development provided to the teachers also varied. It was hoped that this differentiation might give the research a broader focus and extend the scope of the investigation. Three teachers (T3, T5, and T6) worked in School 1, one teacher worked in School 2 (T4), and three teachers worked in School 3 (T1, T2, and T7).

4.2 Research participants Teacher 1 (T1) has been a secondary school teacher for eleven years. She has been employed at School 3 for nine years where she teaches business and business English. In her EFL practice she uses a grammar-translation approach with a few elements of communicative language teaching (CLT) in some activities. Before joining the project, the teacher had attended an IWB workshop provided by the school administrators, in which she was introduced to the basic functions of the technology. Therefore, she was a beginner user of the technology when her intermediate Business English lessons started to be investigated. She believes new technology is an asset to the language classroom because it is modern, it offers more flexibility, and it is more appealing to the students. Teacher 2 (T2) has been teaching English and French for thirty years. She has been working at School 3 for twelve years. In most of her French lessons she uses a PPP (presentation, practice, production) method, as she believes that her students need more controlled support for their language development. She is a strong advocate of new technology because, according to her, it offers the convenience of differentiation and spontaneity and functions as a motivation trigger for her students. In parallel to her teaching responsibilities she also trains other language teachers on the use of e-learning platforms, such as Moodle. When the project started she had been using the IWB for only a few months. T2 points to the technical difficulties as her biggest challenge in working with new technologies. She has access to ongoing technical support from a colleague; however, she suggests employing a specialist technician at every school as is the case in other countries, like England. Teacher 3 (T3) has been teaching English, social studies, and geography for four years at School 1. As part of her pre-service education she received training in task-based and project-based instruction. However, she often finds it difficult to employ these methods in her everyday teaching because of issues related to

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curricular goals and assessment. She has thus opted for using a mixed method, in which she combines features of the PPP approach with more learner-centered methodologies. She describes her level of technology expertise in general as low, and she was a true beginner in the use of IWBs when she joined the project. Her motivation to join the project was due in part to her belief that new technologies would play an essential role in schools in the near future. She also believes that the biggest advantages of working with new technology are the students’ motivation regarding new media as well as the accessibility of authentic learning material. Teacher 4 (T4) has been teaching English, German, and religious education at the secondary level for about twenty years. She had been using the IWB on a daily basis at School 2 for three years when she joined the project. She thus demonstrates an intermediate level of technology expertise. Although she did not receive specific training on task-based and project-based instruction, she is a strong advocate of these methodologies. In fact, her main motivation to take part in the project has been to expand and enrich her knowledge of how to exploit the IWB for the implementation of such approaches. In her EFL teaching, she uses various teaching methods (but mainly communicative language teaching) since she believes that teaching EFL should be more teacher-centered in the first two years and become less teacher-centered gradually. She is a curious and autonomous learner, who is constantly searching for new ideas on how she can improve her teaching practice. Teacher 5 (T5) has been teaching English for twelve years at various secondary schools. In her current school (School 1) she has taught for the last four years. She employs a communicative approach to language teaching in her lessons, with a special focus on project-based learning. She had access to an IWB for the first time when she worked at a private school. In fact, she accepted the invitation to take part in the project because she missed some of the pedagogical possibilities that she felt were offered by this technology. However, in spite of her previous experience, the teacher’s level of IWB technology expertise was still basic, as she had limited access to technology training back then. Teacher 5 sees computer technology as something that had a positive impact on her teaching in terms of creativity and spontaneity and because of that she is very eager to learn more about new technologies in general. This also motivates her to regularly attend CALL-related workshops in her free time. In fact, she mentioned her curiosity as her main motivating factor to join the project, as she pictures herself in constant need of progress and challenges.

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Teacher 6 (T6) has been teaching music, French, geography, and English at School 1 for three years. Before joining the project, she had already used computers to prepare her lessons, create worksheets, and do research on the internet, but she had never used an IWB and had never had any specific training for teaching languages with new media. She demonstrates a certain level of skepticism toward the potential of new technologies for enhancing language teaching and learning. Although she acknowledges the motivational impact of ICT, she also believes that in teaching often the same effects can be created without new media. Therefore, her major motivating factor to join the TECALL program was the possibility to learn about technological uses that really enhance the teaching and learning experience, as opposed to “just-for-fun” technology use. Teacher 7 (T7) has been teaching EFL and business administration for seven years at School 3. She makes regular use of new technologies in her EFL practice and teaches about 30 percent of her lessons in a computer lab. However, she wishes she could integrate technology more fully into her teaching. She sees lack of time and technical support as the main barriers, hindering a more frequent and effective integration. Even though she considers herself a proficient user of new technologies, she believes she still has a lot to learn about the potential Table 2.3 Participant profiles

Type of Teacher School T1 T2 T3

T4

T5 T6

T7

School Subjects

Level of Teaching Media Experience Literacy

State/ Business and 11 years Vocational Business English State/ English and 30 years Vocational French State/ English, Social 4 years Secondary Sciences, Geography Private/ English, German, 20 years Secondary Religious Education State/ English, German, 12 years Secondary State/ English, Music, 3 years Secondary French, Geography State/ Business, Business 7 years Vocational English

Total Experience with an IWB

basic

1 year

advanced

2 years

basic

2 years

intermediate 4 years

intermediate 3 years basic

2 years

intermediate 2 years

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of new technologies for enhancing language teaching and learning. Prior to the project, most of her learning was done informally, through trial and error and support from colleagues, and she considered the TECALL program as a possibility to have access to formal training. She was especially motivated due to the perspective of becoming a CALL trainer, in cooperation with Teacher 2. Table 2.3 summarizes the participant profiles.

5 Research methodology The overall research orientation adopted in my study was a qualitative one. Hyland (2002, p. 157) defines qualitative research as “a general label for a research methodology that seeks to be naturalistic, interpretive, inductive, contextualized and respectful of the participants’ views.” My decision to carry out a qualitative study was based on the assumption that this type of research approach would increase the likelihood of being able to account for the complex interaction of social, cultural, and individual factors that shape the teachers’ experiences with technology. The methodology adopted in my study is also part of a research tradition into teacher cognition in language teaching. Studies of language teacher cognition are those that investigate “what second and FL teachers think, know and believe and the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom” (Borg, 2006, p. 1). Chapter 3 provides a comprehensive overview of this research tradition and its theoretical contributions. As discussed in Section 1 of this chapter, another important overall feature of the investigation approach in this study is its “collaborative action research” orientation (Burns, 2010; 2015). In order to put such an orientation into practice, I adopted an ethnographic approach to data gathering. Such an approach comes largely from the field of anthropology and is based on the idea that, because reality has particular meanings within particular contexts and cultures, it is necessary to participate within a culture to understand how participants interpret reality and construct meaning within that particular context. The project used a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective as the basis for a conceptual framework to research language teacher cognition. It thus used “a theory of cognition that includes mental processes together with teachers’ practice, and the contexts within which the interaction between thinking and practice takes place” (Cross, 2010, p. 437). In line with this perspective, the research incorporated a focus on both

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self-reported data and observation of teachers’ practice. Therefore, my research data were collected via a variety of ethnographic research instruments, namely classroom observations and field notes, video recording of school lessons and professional development workshops, in-depth interviews with teachers, and video-stimulated reflective sessions. More detailed information on how and when these research instruments were used will be provided below.

6 Research development and research instruments 6.1 Examination of teachers’ pedagogical practice The first stage of the project focused on the investigation of the participating teachers’ pedagogical practice, their level of media literacy, and the degree of integration of computer technology into their teaching. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and classroom observations for a period of three months. Since the aim of this research program was to support technology integration into the curriculum, it was very important to develop a good understanding of the teachers’ pedagogical practice and curriculum content in order to develop the hypotheses (together with the teachers) of where technology could be used to enhance language learning in their practice.

6.2 Design and implementation of professional development workshops The preliminary data collected in the first phase of the project were used as the basis for the design of the professional development workshops, which were held either at the university or at the participating schools. Ten professional developments, which lasted on average for an hour and a half, were offered throughout the lifecycle of the project. As teacher educator/researcher, I wrote down field notes after each workshop, which contained descriptions of the main activities and my reflections on the development of the activities and the participants’ reactions. The workshops were also video-recorded for later transcription and analysis.

6.3 Video recording of CALL lessons As already pointed out, the TECALL program was spread out over one year and a half in order to allow me and my two research assistants to offer situated ongoing

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support for the teachers’ professional development. At this stage, the teachers made their own decisions regarding the technology-enhanced lessons they wanted us to observe and/or video-record. However, it was agreed beforehand that we would be able to video-record at least three lessons of each teacher in different phases of the project. This was important for getting reliable data in terms of the teachers’ developmental paths. On average, we were able to videorecord 8–10 lessons from each participating teacher; except for T7, who went on maternity leave during this phase of data collection. As a result, it was not possible to video-record any of her lessons. The data collected for this specific teacher are thus based on in-depth interviews and participation in professional development workshops.

6.4 In-depth individual interviews The teachers underwent three or more individual in-depth semi-structured interviews in different stages of the research project in order to explore their professional development paths regarding the use of both the IWB and the ICT in general throughout the research program. Interviews were also conducted with the pre-service teachers who developed ICT-based projects in collaboration with the teachers. All interviews, which lasted on average for thirty minutes, were audio-recorded and fully transcribed for analysis.

6.5 Video-stimulated reflective sessions Three or more VSR sessions were carried out with four of the participating teachers, namely T2, T3, T4, and T5. My initial intention to conduct VSR sessions with all participating teachers could not be fulfilled as three participants found it difficult to juggle their normal workload and could not find time to take part. In order to compensate for this situation, a greater number of in-depth interviews were carried out with these teachers at different stages of the project and more lessons were video-recorded than initially planned. Video-recorded lessons, carried out in different stages of the project, were chosen for the VSR sessions. The lessons lasted about forty-five minutes each. The teachers were then encouraged to take the initiative in identifying the aspects of their teaching they wanted to comment on, and to provide unstructured commentaries on thoughts, decisions, and reflections related to the chosen actions. The researcher also posed questions reflecting the issues that emerged during the VSRs. These questions were either related to specific incidents of the

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lessons or other more general questions about lesson planning and material design. For instance: ●

●

●

“In this part of the lesson how do you think the whiteboard was supporting you?” (VSR 1, T2) “How could you solve this problem? Can you imagine? Because here, you don’t have so much space to write down the words (on the IWB)?” (VSR 3, T3) “And what were the main competences do you think your learners developed in this project?” (VSR 2, T4)

While the video-recorded lessons enabled the analysis of teachers’ use of new technological tools and their developmental paths, the interviews and reflective sessions allowed us to gain further insights into the teacher’s thoughts and motivations regarding their pedagogical acts and intentions during the lessons.

6.6 Data analysis As already pointed out, a range of data collection instruments and techniques were used in order to attempt to maximize the reliability of the findings through triangulation. The process of data analysis was an ongoing one, which started at the very beginning of the study when teachers and researchers thought about the main themes and issues that emerged as the investigation progressed. Two theoretical frameworks guided the process of data analysis: Borg’s (2006) teacher cognition framework and the sociocultural perspective to L2 teacher education (Johnson, 2009). Chapters 3 and 4 provide detailed discussions of these conceptual models. For the analysis of the transcripts from the interviews, lessons, and workshops, I have used MAXQDA, which is a software program that aids in the qualitative analysis of data. The software supported the process of coding and categorization of the prominent themes that emerged from the various sources of data in response to the research questions. Figures 2.1 and 2.2 provide an overview of the data collection and data analysis procedures. As discussed, we followed an interpretive qualitative design in order to obtain an understanding of the processes investigated from the insiders’ perspective (pre- and in-service teachers). To enhance the credibility of the study, the following recommended steps (Erickson, 1986; Burns, 2010) were taken: prolonged engagement (investigating the school-based projects through the

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Design of IWB Training Implementing Training Video recording of 10 ICT professional development workshops

Use of IWB in Classroom

Video recording of IWB lessons average of 10 lessons for each teacher Field notes of IWB lessons which were not video-recorded In-depth interviews with 7 teachers at least 3 interviews with each teacher in different stages of the project

Data Analysis

Video-stimulated reflection (VSR) with 4 teachers—at least 4 VSRs with each teacher in different stages of the project

Views of a range of participants

Analysis of Classroom interaction

In-depth interviews with 13 pre-service teachers who participated in collaborative projects

Figure 2.1 Overview of data collection process.

Reading Field Notes

Reading Interviews and VSRs

Reading Lesson Descriptions

Coding

Coding

Coding

Combining Data According to Themes

Ongoing Process

Identifying Recurrent/Relevant Themes (Triangulation)

Final Results

Figure 2.2 Overview of data analysis procedures.

Dialogue with Other Researchers

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entire cycle); triangulation of data (comparing data across a variety of sources to seek out and confirm regularities); dialogue with other researchers (by discussing our analyses with other researchers in various research groups and conferences); and respondent validation (taking the data analysis and interpretation back to the actual research participants).

7 Summary This chapter had a twofold purpose. One goal was to outline the main purposes and structure of the professional development program (TECALL), which was investigated through longitudinal CAR. Another purpose was to delineate the research context and research methodology used in the longitudinal qualitative study that (a) investigated the cognitions of the seven participating teachers regarding their development as CALL practitioners, and (b) analyzed and evaluated a range of professional development tools and activities implemented in the TECALL program. As already pointed out, the design and implementation of the TECALL program was based on a sociocultural approach to teacher education. In keeping with the objectives of this approach, several steps were taken to create opportunities for teacher collaboration and co-construction of knowledge in situated settings. First, the participating teachers received support from peers, student teachers, and academic consultants (me and two research assistants) to exploit the potential of new technological tools in their own practice. Secondly, the participating teachers took advantage of a range of professional development opportunities (e.g., video-stimulated reflection, in-depth interviews, and workshops) to get involved in the critical examination of their CALL practice through reflective practice. The research methodology adopted in the project followed recommendations in the CALL literature for including teachers’ voices in the systematic investigation of classroom practice and teacher education. The research project followed a CAR approach that involved collaboration between a CALL educator/ researcher and seven FL secondary in-service teachers located in different schools. Therefore, two levels of research can be distinguished in the study. In my role as a CALL educator/researcher, I followed a CAR framework to investigate the complex processes involved in supporting the development of the teachers’ CALL competences. At the same time, the participating teachers used the CAR

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approach to (a) deepen their understanding of their classrooms, their teaching practice, and their students, and (b) create needed change in their classrooms. Therefore, the research findings include the voices and learning experiences of both the participating teachers and the CALL educator/researcher as they reflected on their professional development. The next two chapters provide an in-depth introduction to the conceptual frameworks that guided the data analysis, namely the teacher cognition perspective (Chapter 3) and the sociocultural approach to teacher education (Chapter 4).

C h apte r 3

Research on Language Teacher Cognition

Overview The last years have seen a growth in research on teacher cognition, that is, on what teachers think, know, and believe, and the relationships of these mental constructs to what they do in the language teaching classroom (Borg, 2006). The concept of teacher cognition has been defined by Borg (2006, p. 272) as “the complex, practically-oriented, personalized and context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts and beliefs that language teachers draw on their work.” Freeman and Richards (1996) and Woods (1996) can be considered the first key publications that highlighted the value of understanding language teaching by examining the mental side of teachers’ work. Since then, there has been a rapid and steady increase in the volume of research on L2 teacher cognition (e.g., Borg, 2006; Phipps and Borg, 2009; Wyatt, 2010), and it is now a well-established domain of inquiry. This chapter attempts to unpack this concept and shed light on its key features. It provides a historical perspective on the development of teacher cognition as a tradition of research, and discusses the main challenges faced by the field, and the main themes it has focused on. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the significance of teacher cognition research in CALL.

1 Introduction: The nature of teacher cognition Besides Borg (2006, p. 272), who defined teacher cognition as “the complex, practically-oriented, personalized and context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts and beliefs that language teachers draw on their work,” several other authors have attempted to unpack this concept and shed more light on its key features. Feryok (2010), for instance, highlights the systematic nature of this construct. As she points out, teachers’ cognitive frameworks should not be understood

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as a conglomerate of different cognitions, but as a system in which the various elements are mutually influential, forming coherent unities of personal and practical theories. She illustrates her point by referring to teacher cognitions that are rooted in school learning experiences, which teachers are largely unaware of, and which often prevent cognitive changes during teacher education programs. Phipps and Borg (2009) also discuss research findings showing that teachers’ cognitions function as systems in which certain beliefs are core and others peripheral. Their research findings point toward the importance of understanding not only what language teachers have cognitions about, but also how the different elements in teachers’ cognitive systems interact with each other. Complexity, dynamism, and non-linearity are other key features of teacher cognitions that have been discussed in the literature. Feryok (2010; 2012) presents research findings indicating that teacher cognitions work as complex dynamic systems, which are defined, revised, and refined on the basis of personal, educational, and professional experiences throughout teachers’ lives. She also states that these changes develop in unpredictable ways, that is, they are not directly proportional to input. As she points out, countless studies have shown that pre- and in-service teacher development programs, regardless of the input or stated intentions, do not necessarily lead to the anticipated outcomes. Orafi and Borg (2009) also refer to the complexity of this concept by pointing out the fact that teachers’ cognitions are not always reflected in their practice. And Feryok and Oranje (2015) point toward the importance of considering the difference between teacher cognition as it occurs in mental action and as it is stated in an interview (for instance) as reported belief. Several authors have also emphasized the highly context-sensitive nature of teacher cognitions. Cross (2010), for instance, points out that the study of teacher cognition could be enhanced by the use of a theoretical framework that recognizes the social, practical, and contextual dimension of cognition. He discusses research findings which show that what goes on inside teachers’ heads is inextricably tied to what goes on outside their heads, that is, in the social and educational context in which their teaching takes place. Borg (2006, p. 275) also seems to subscribe to this view when he states that “the study of cognitions and practices in isolation from the contexts in which they occur will inevitably, provide partial, if not flawed, characterizations of teachers and teaching.” In a recent special issue dedicated to this topic, Kubanyiova and Feryok (2015, p. 445) recognize the pivotal role of context in the study of language teacher cognitions. As they point out, “The micro-perspective of language teachers’ inner worlds

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and individual practices is embedded in the larger ecologies of workplaces, educational systems, national language policies, and global issues.” In fact, several studies on teacher cognition have shown evidence of the influence on teachers’ pedagogical decisions of their perceptions of the context in which they worked (e.g., Sanchez and Borg, 2014; Moodie and Feryok, 2015). So far, no single conception of what constitutes teacher cognition has been accepted as definitive. Authors in the field have presented different understandings of the elements and processes associated with teacher cognition, such as teachers’ beliefs, interactive thoughts, decision-making processes, knowledge, motivation, attitudes, emotions, and identities. According to Burns, Freeman, and Edwards (2015), these different understandings are rooted in diverse epistemological and ontological traditions. These authors have conceptualized past and current trajectories in language teacher cognition research and identified four ontological generations. According to them, there has been a shift from understanding teacher cognition through the lens of an individualist ontology throughout the 1990s (e.g., Borg, 1998; Farrell, 1999) and the early 2000s (Borg, 2001; Farrell and Lim, 2005) to social (e.g., Kubanyiova, 2012) and socio-historical ontologies (e.g., Cross, 2010), which “entail a view of cognition as emergent sense making, thus emphasizing teachers’ situated, dynamic and embodied knowing in action” (p. 438). According to them, this shift has been supported by changes from a cognitive to a socio-cognitive understanding of learning more broadly. The fourth ontological generation they referred to as complex, chaotic systems ontology, which sees language teachers’ cognitions as situated, dynamic, mediated, and inherently complex (e.g., Feryok, 2010; Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015). Currently, there is a tendency among teacher cognition researchers to embrace the social turn in applied linguistics, leading to the borders and boundaries of language teacher cognition being extended. Borg’s (2012) current view of language teacher cognition, for instance, not only encompasses what teachers think, know, and believe but now also considers their attitudes, identities, and emotion. The more recent literature on teacher cognition (e.g., Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015; Kubanyiova, 2015; Golombek, 2015) has also advocated that the teacher cognition domain should be open to current directions in cognitive science and psychology that challenge the traditional distinctions among cognition, emotion, motivation, and identity. Shelley, Murphy, and White (2013) and Golombek (2015), for instance, call for a redefinition of language teacher cognition that integrates teachers’ emotions, and Kubanyiova’s (2015) study

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foregrounds the central role that teachers’ future-oriented identities and the relevant investment in those images play in guiding their actions. Some studies have also placed a stronger emphasis on the social dimension of teacher cognition. Crookes (2015), for instance, advocates the inclusion of social justice issues and critical perspectives into the language teacher cognition agenda. He supports the general idea of expanding the boundaries of language teacher cognition in ways that might facilitate inquiry into philosophies of teaching. Moodie and Feryok (2015) add to this line of inquiry and propose the examination of the nature and role of commitment in language teaching as a relevant topic in teacher cognition research.

2 Research on language teacher cognition The study of language teacher cognition as a tradition of research in education stretches back over three decades. Borg (2006) notes that the roots of teacher cognition as a field of inquiry lie in a conceptual shift during the 1970s that moved away from an exclusive focus on teachers’ observable behaviors toward exploring the links between their mental processes and their classroom practices. As he points out, in the 1980s the study of teachers’ mental lives became established as a key area of research. The value of understanding not only what teachers do but also what and how they think was widely recognized and this was reflected in the extensive amount of research undertaken into these issues. However, it was not until the mid-1990s that the study of L2 teacher cognition was established as an important area of activity. Freeman and Richards (1996) and Woods (1996) can be considered the first key publications that highlighted the value of understanding language teaching by examining the mental side of teachers’ work. Since then, there has been a rapid and steady increase in the volume of research on L2 teacher cognition (e.g., Borg, 2003, 2006; Phipps and Borg, 2009; Cross, 2010; Woods and Cakir, 2011; Barnard and Burns, 2012; Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015) and it is now a well-established domain of inquiry. In spite of the significant progress made in the last thirty years, the field still faces a few challenges. The lack of an “overall unifying conceptual framework” has been seen as a potential obstacle to the further development of the field. After providing a comprehensive review of the research in the field, Borg (2006) recognizes the fragmentation of the field and concludes that a broad conceptual framework to guide teacher cognition research is an imperative for moving

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the field forward. In the same publication he takes the first step in defining such a framework by pointing out the key dimensions (e.g., substantive and methodological) in the field and by highlighting the key themes, gaps, and conceptual relationships (e.g., between teacher cognition, teacher learning, and teacher practice) in the area of teacher cognition research. He also makes a call for future collaboration between scholars within the areas of instructed Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and language teacher cognition. He argues that both camps of research can mutually inform each other. He suggests that, while SLA research can contribute to teacher cognition research by suggesting substantive issues to focus on, teacher cognition research can also inform the work of SLA researchers because it can shed light on the gap that often exists between what teachers do and what SLA theory suggests. More recently, a few other proposals have been made for a theoretical framework to unify and guide research in this field. Feryok (2010; 2012), for instance, discusses research findings of a case study on one EFL teacher’s cognitions to show the applicability of complex system theory (Larsen-Freeman and Cameron, 2008) to the study of language teacher cognition. In her discussion, she shows how features that characterize complex systems, such as dynamism, non-linearity, openness, and adaptation, are displayed by the EFL teacher’s cognition. Cross (2010) discusses the potential of a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective (Vygotsky, 1978) as the basis for a conceptual framework to research language teacher cognition. He sets himself against the earlier mentalist theories of cognition upon which the field was established, and proposes “a theory of cognition that extends its focus to include mental processes together with teachers’ practice, and, increasingly, the contexts within which the interaction between thinking and practice takes place” (p. 437). This is the framework I used in my investigation. Another challenge faced by L2 teacher cognition researchers has to do with the vast amount of topics and contexts that can be potentially covered in this field. In 2006, Borg pointed out that, despite the volume of work available, the research that had been done on language teacher cognition was still vastly unrepresentative of language teaching contexts worldwide, since the field was dominated by research on the teaching of English (as a first, second, or foreign language) and had been conducted largely in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. The situation has changed considerably since his literature review, and more studies of the cognition of FL teachers whose mother tongue is not the target language have been conducted in various countries, such as in the Middle

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East (Feryok, 2010; Orafi and Borg, 2009), Japan (Nishino, 2012; Mori, 2011), China (Zheng and Borg, 2014; Zhang and Liu, 2014), Turkey (Phipps and Borg, 2009), and Korea (Moodie and Feryok, 2015). Moreover, even though most of the research has been carried out on teachers at private and higher education institutions, the field has seen an increasing number of studies conducted in secondary schools in the state sector education (e.g., Kubanyiova, 2015; Feryok and Oranje, 2015; Nishino, 2012). However, there is still a lack of research in the primary school context. As Borg (2006, p. 274) points out, “The surge in interest in teaching languages to young learners in recent years has not been matched by studies of cognitions and practices in this area.” Similar gaps can be found in the topics that have been investigated so far. Teachers’ theories on grammar teaching and literacy instruction in FL contexts (e.g., Borg, 1998; Johnson, 1992; Sanchez and Borg, 2015; Johnson, 2015) are the areas that have been given more attention in the literature, while other aspects of L2 teaching have received less attention from a teacher cognition perspective. As a result, relatively little is known, for instance, about teachers’ beliefs and knowledge in relation to the teaching of L2 vocabulary, pronunciation, listening, and speaking. The recent literature, however, has been more diversified in terms of the topics they covered, with studies focusing on the teaching and development of a wider variety of skills and competencies, such as intercultural competence (Feryok and Oranje, 2015), pronunciation (Baker, 2014), vocabulary (Rahimi, 2014), corrective feedback (CF) (Mori, 2011), and technology (e.g., Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012; Shelley, Murphy, and White, 2013). In 2006, Borg also noted that the majority of teacher cognition studies were concerned with trainee or novice classroom teachers, and studies of practicing teachers were limited. Even though to this date the situation has not changed dramatically, there has been an increasing number of studies focusing on the cognitions of experienced teachers and teacher educators (e.g., Shelley, Murphy, and White, 2013; Sanchez and Borg, 2014). According to Sanchez and Borg (2014), this can be regarded as a positive development in the field, since the findings of such research can be used productively in teacher education by providing pre-service teachers with evidence of varied teaching techniques and insights into the informed use that experienced teachers make of them. A great variety of data collection methods have been used in teacher cognition research. Some of the methods that have been used so far are self-report instruments (e.g., questionnaires), verbal commentaries (e.g., interviews and think-aloud protocols), classroom observation, and reflective

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writing (e.g., journals, autobiographical accounts, and retrospective accounts). Cross (2010) points out that, while earlier teacher cognition research has relied mainly on self-report data, there has been a recent methodological shift toward approaches that incorporate a focus on both self-report data about what teachers think and observation records of what teachers do in the classroom. He explains that this shift has been motivated by changes in how researchers have come to understand the nature of cognition itself, that is, “from a purely mental construct, to a more dynamic conceptualization based on the interaction between thinking and practice” (p. 436). He also adds that recent studies have made a convincing case for not only including both sets of data but also for juxtaposing them in a way that practice-based data (e.g., classroom observation notes) are informed by thinking-based data (e.g., stimulated recall or interviews). As the field grows in significance and complexity, there has been an increasing need to address key epistemological and methodological challenges in teacher cognition research. Two important challenges in the field involve the need for a stronger focus on the active participation of “teachers as researchers” (e.g., Guichon and Hauck, 2011; Farrell and Ives, 2015) and on examining the link between teacher cognition and student learning (Borg, 2006; Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015). In fact, recent literature has pointed out that most of the teacher cognition research so far has failed to take the next logical and necessary step toward examining the link between teacher cognition and student learning. Several researchers in the field (e.g., Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015) have stated that, despite the ever-growing body of research on teacher cognition, we know little about how such cognitions relate to students’ language learning experience in these teachers’ classrooms. Kubanyiova and Feryok (2015) summarize this view: “If language teacher cognition strives to be a credible and relevant domain of inquiry, its findings must have something meaningful to contribute to what we have termed the central project of language education research: understanding how language teachers create meaningful learning experiences for their students and how they can be enabled to do so (p. 439).” Methodological challenges have also been addressed in recent publications. Barnard and Burns (2012), for instance, provide insights into research methods as they are applied to the study of language teacher cognition. The various chapters in that edited collection have a twofold purpose: (1) to report on case studies on teacher cognition and (2) to provide in-depth discussions of methodological challenges involving the use of a range of qualitative methods, including

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questionnaires, narrative frames, focus groups, interviews, observation, thinkaloud protocols, stimulated recall protocols, and oral reflective journals. In the following, I discuss some of the main themes that have been explored in this field.

2.1 Main themes in teacher cognition research 2.1.1 The relationship between stated beliefs and practice One strand of the work on teacher cognition has focused on the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices, and more specifically on the extent to which their stated beliefs correspond with what they do in the classroom (Phipps and Borg, 2009). Several studies have found a close correspondence between teachers’ stated beliefs and their pedagogical practices (e.g., Van Praag and Sanches, 2015; Farrell and Ives, 2015). However, other studies have found a mismatch between inferred cognitions (based on the observation of practice) and stated cognitions (e.g., Nishino, 2012). This has led several authors to speculate about the reasons for this apparent inconsistency between what teachers say and do. Feryok (2010), for instance, highlights the special role played by contextual factors in mediating the extent to which teachers are able to implement instruction that is consonant with their cognitions. She points out that the “reality check” of contextual factors, such as workload demands and institutional expectations, can function as sources of discrepancy. Orafi and Borg’s (2009) research findings also indicate that the way teachers interpret, filter, modify, and implement innovations is influenced by the contextual factors in and around their workplaces, such as students’ expectations, resources, and assessment. In their research, they used classroom observation and in-depth interviews to examine three teachers’ implementation of a new communicative English language curriculum in Libyan secondary schools. Their main aim was to investigate the extent to which teachers’ practices were congruent with those recommended in the curriculum. Their findings showed that most of the pedagogical activities were not taught as recommended by the new curriculum (e.g., suggested pair work activities were either omitted completely or led by the teacher in the form of whole class question-and-answer sessions) mainly due to the influence of contextual factors. Orafi and Borg’s findings are very similar to those obtained by Nishino (2012) in the context of teachers’ implementation of curriculum innovation in  Japan.

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He  investigated the relationship among high school teachers’ beliefs, their practices, and socio-educational factors regarding CLT. His findings showed that teachers’ classroom practices were affected by the students’ English proficiency, motivation and expectations, and even by their personal problems. He concluded that the mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and practices were due to contextual factors, which hindered the language teachers’ ability to adopt practices that reflected their beliefs. Phipps and Borg (2009) have explained the discrepancies between stated beliefs and practice on the basis of the interaction between different “levels” of cognition. In their study, three experienced EFL teachers working in a Turkish preparatory school were investigated in terms of the relationship between their grammar teaching beliefs and practices and the kinds of tensions that this relationship highlighted. Their findings showed that, where clashes occurred, practice did not correlate with the surface views expressed by the teachers but corresponded to their deeper, more core, beliefs about teaching and learning in general. They explain that an essential feature of core beliefs is that they are experientially ingrained, while peripheral beliefs (though theoretically embraced by teachers) are not usually held with the same level of conviction and are thus often not reflected in practice. In their study, for instance, a teacher justified her instructional choices with reference to her core views about learning. In spite of her belief in the usefulness of group work for maximizing learners’ opportunities to use the target language, she still insisted on using whole-class dialogue because she thought group work might cause classroom management problems and make it more difficult to monitor the students’ learning and provide feedback. Feryok (2010) adds that another possible source of dissonance between stated beliefs and practice may be related to the fact that there are different types of cognitions. While some cognitions refer to declarative knowledge (knowledge that), others are procedural (knowledge how). Therefore, teachers might have declarative knowledge of a specific teaching approach (e.g., CLT) from their language teaching methods courses, but observations may not provide as much corresponding evidence of procedural knowledge. Some authors have examined approaches that can be employed to reduce the gap (i.e., the dissonance) between beliefs and practice. Farrell and Ives (2015), for instance, advocate the use of reflective practice in teacher education and development programs. They presented a case study that explored and reflected on the relationship between the stated beliefs and observed classroom practices of one second-language reading teacher. Their findings showed that once the

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teacher brought his beliefs to the level of awareness, he was in a better position to be able to examine and reflect on them more closely, and then observe if they were reflected in his classroom practice. They concluded that teachers should be encouraged to articulate and reflect on their beliefs in order to become more aware of the meaning and impact of these beliefs on their classroom practice.

2.1.2 Understanding change in teacher cognition Another central theme in L2 teacher cognition research is the notion of change in teachers’ cognitions and practices. Borg (2006) points out that past and current research in the field has allowed us to progress toward more sophisticated understandings of this notion. He states, for instance, that an important distinction needs to be made between cognitive change and behavioral change, since one type of change does not imply the other. On the one hand, teachers may adopt and display particular behaviors without any accompanying change in their cognitions (e.g., during assessed teaching practice). On the other hand, teachers’ cognitions may also change without any obvious change in what they do (e.g., due to situational constraints). So, what does change in teachers’ cognition really mean and what are the best conditions for change to take place? Several studies have used a longitudinal design to shed more light on this issue. Some studies have examined the nature and the process of teacher cognition development in the workplace. Wyatt (2009), for instance, used the framework of teacher cognition research to chart the practical knowledge growth in CLT of a lower secondary teacher in the Middle East over a three-year period. He was especially interested in how a specific teacher education program, whose design was based on constructivist principles, influenced growth in the teacher’s practical knowledge, specifically with regard to CLT. In this research, the author used the analysis of the teacher’s coursework assignments to get insights into her cognitive development in planning communicative tasks; lesson observations to record her changing practices; and interviews to gain access to her thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. His findings showed how the constructivist language teacher education program supported growth in her conceptual understanding of CLT and in her capacity to plan, use, and evaluate her use of communicative tasks with large classes. In another study, Wyatt (2010) used a similar research methodology to explore how an in-service English teacher’s self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977) beliefs in using group work with young learners developed.

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Some researchers have also focused on the development of novice teachers in the workplace. Kang and Cheng (2014), for instance, conducted an in-depth case study of a novice middle school EFL teacher’s cognition development during the process of learning to teach in the workplace. Findings obtained through classroom observations and interviews indicated that the teacher exhibited a considerable amount of change in her classroom practices. The authors identified several crucial conditions that enabled cognition development to take place, such as the teacher’s capacity to identify possibilities for growth in the context and effectively utilize them, her willingness to experiment, her openness to feedback and critique, and her engagement in reflective practice. Several studies have examined the potential for teacher education to impact on the cognition of pre- and in-service language teachers, that is, to create cognitive change. Most studies have focused on the cognition of pre-service teachers, but there are also a few studies looking at the impact of in-service teacher education. Svalberg (2015), for instance, investigated the impact of inquiry-based language awareness (LA) approach to language teacher education on the development of student teachers’ knowledge of grammar. The study provided an insight into changes in student teachers’ subject-matter cognitions in a learning environment that encouraged cognitive conflict and peer collaboration. Her findings showed that “cognitive conflict was an essential factor in the emergence of teachers’ new understandings of complex grammar features and of grammar as meaning in context” (p. 529). Coffey (2015) reports on another innovative approach focusing on the development of novice teachers’ LA. His approach focused on the metaphorical exploration of multilingualism in body portraits. He analyzed a set of language portraits, produced in a workshop with teacher candidates, to demonstrate that language autobiographies can elicit a broader reflexivity vis-àvis teachers’ own language learning history. Some studies have focused on the specific strategies that account for the success or effectiveness of particular approaches to teacher education. Johnson (2015), for instance, reported on empirical work that traced the trajectory of teacher development as it unfolded in the practices of L2 teacher education. In her study, she offered evidence that the quality of dialogic interaction between teacher educators and student teachers is crucial to teacher learning, arguing that student teachers need multiple opportunities to externalize their cognitions in practical tasks in order to internalize the mediation that teacher educators provide. Borg (2011) examined the impact of an intensive eight-week in-service teacher education program in the UK on the beliefs of six English language

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teachers. Drawing on a substantial database of semi-structured interviews, coursework, and tutor feedback, the study suggests that the program had a considerable impact on the teachers’ beliefs. He argued that this was due to the fact that teachers were given the opportunity to (a) engage in a productive and sustained examination of their beliefs and (b) reflect on ways of developing classroom practices that reflected their beliefs. Orlando (2009) made an important contribution to the field by emphasizing the need for longitudinal studies that create space for examining the changes that develop from the teachers’ perspectives. She makes a case for an innovative longitudinal research design in which teachers are able to retrospectively describe and understand their archived data through interviews and observations. She also criticizes the “before and after snapshots” approach that is often used in research on teachers’ practices and teacher development and warns against approaches that use continuums and frameworks. As she points out, such approaches present a sequence of steps along which teachers’ practices are expected to progress—as they move from “undesirable” practices to those considered “desirable”—because they operate under the assumption that teachers will move along and complete a similar and predetermined path of change. She argues that these approaches might cause researchers to overlook not only certain types of change that may be occurring, but also the complexity of what informs and shapes these changes.

2.1.3 Exploring teachers’ conceptual understandings and how they are translated into classroom practice Several studies on L2 teacher cognition have examined teachers’ understandings of various concepts and skills and how these conceptualizations were translated into practice. Several of these studies situated teachers’ beliefs in the context of curriculum innovation (e.g., Water and Vilches, 2008; Zheng and Borg, 2014) and revealed teachers’ misunderstandings of various concepts. Gordon (2009), for instance, focuses on the interpretations and applications of the concept of constructivism in American schools. He draws on empirical research that has been conducted in the United States to discuss misunderstandings of the concept of “constructivism,” which are commonly held by teachers in that context. His findings show that misconceptions of the constructivist paradigm were often operationalized in the classroom through teaching practices that exhibited the following characteristics: downgrading knowledge acquisition to student pleasure, demanding students construct

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knowledge by themselves, and communicating that there are no standards against which knowledge can be measured. He provides an example of an English teacher, who internalized the notion that she had to encourage her students to construct their own interpretations of the story and affirmed each interpretation regardless of its accuracy or fidelity to the text. He thus concludes that misguided notions about constructivism have contributed to the misuse of constructivist teaching in various schools across the United States. Nazari (2007) is another example of research on teachers’ (mis)understandings of specific pedagogical notions. He used interviews and classroom observations to explore high school EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of the term “communicative competence” and how their understandings were put into practice in their teaching. His interview findings indicated that the participating teachers did not distinguish between a “narrow and a broad meaning of communicative competence” (Dubin, 1989). The author concluded that the teachers’ failure in recognizing this distinction led to the design and implementation of classroom activities that leaned toward a narrow view of communicative competence. Although they aimed at developing their students’ L2 communicative abilities, their practice revealed that most of their teaching concentrated on sentencelevel activities, structural exercises, and decontextualized language activities. Zheng and Borg (2014) used narrative accounts, interviews, and observational data to investigate the understandings of task-based language learning (TBLT) of three Chinese secondary school teachers of English and the implementation of TBLT in their lessons. They found that TBLT was interpreted rather narrowly, and misunderstood as merely providing students with opportunities to speak English in pairs or groups. Some teachers also felt that tasks could only be used in moderation due to the examination system and large class sizes. Zhang and Liu (2014) also examined the beliefs of secondary school EFL teachers in relation to curriculum reform in China. Their findings have shown that, even though teachers’ beliefs were more inclined toward the constructivist orientation than the traditional orientation, they were not able to accept all the reform ideas and still had some reservation about them. They concluded that teachers’ reactions could be associated to influencing contextual factors in a time when curriculum innovation confronted deep-rooted cultural traditions and complex teaching realities in that country. Feryok and Oranje (2015) also discussed the role of institutional demands in shaping teacher understandings of specific concepts and teaching approaches. Their study showed how different beliefs dynamically interrelated as a German

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as a FL teacher adopted and adapted a cultural portfolio project (CPP) for her secondary school classes. Their findings showed that assessment, much more than culture and its teaching, framed the participant’s approach to the CPP. The authors concluded that dealing with practicalities (in this case the possibility of using the CPP as an assessment) was for this specific teacher the main starting point for considering a new teaching practice. Zheng and Borg (2014) point out that qualitative accounts, such as the ones presented in this section, are “empirically instructive in the way they extend our understandings of how teachers respond to innovative curricula” (p. 205). Therefore, they argue that more research needs to be conducted to examine what happens in the classroom when FL teachers implement innovative approaches. According to them, this research can provide a better understanding of the beliefs and contextual factors that shape these teachers’ instructional decisions and its findings can inform the development of in-service training, which can support more effective curriculum implementation. A growing body of research in this area has also examined the conceptual and corresponding practical differences between novice and expert language teachers (e.g., Tsui, 2003; 2009; Johnson, 2005; Rahimi and Zhang, 2015). Several studies have outlined advantages of expert teachers, such as more autonomy and flexibility in both planning and teaching and more focus on student learning. Rahimi and Zhang (2015), for instance, explored the differences between novice and experienced non-native English-speaking teachers’ cognitions about CF in teaching English oral communication. Their findings showed statistically significant differences between the two groups and interview data showed that experienced teachers were more aware of mediating factors (e.g., learner factors, error frequency, target form difficulty) affecting the necessity, timing, and types of CF, while novice teachers had more rigid cognitions about CF. Akbari and Tajik (2009) used video-stimulated recall to investigate the differences between the pedagogic thoughts of experienced and less-experienced teachers. Their findings indicated differences in both the number and the order of the thoughts teachers produced in different groups. Experienced teachers produced an average of five pedagogical thoughts per minute, while their less-experienced counterparts produced three thoughts. Having outlined the main themes of research and key research findings in the area, I now turn to a discussion of the relevance of L2 teacher cognition research to the wider domain of applied linguistics.

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2.2 The significance of teacher cognition research Several researchers have highlighted the need to reflect on the purposes of language teacher cognition research (e.g., Borg, 2006; Johnson, 2015; Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015). Kubanyiova and Feryok (2015), for instance, point out that the domain as a whole has not sufficiently reflected on why the findings produced in the field might be needed, how they might contribute to a better understanding of teachers and teaching, and, crucially, what ends such understandings might serve. They emphasize the importance of reclaiming the relevance of teacher cognition research to the wider domain of applied linguistics and to the realworld concerns of language teachers, language teacher educators, and language learners. As they point out, “Reclaiming the relevance of the field needs to happen through linking teacher cognition to meaningful teacher development and students’ learning” (p. 437). It is clear that the understanding of teacher cognition can shed light on teachers’ learning processes and on how they apply their knowledge in the classroom. Therefore, the body of knowledge produced by teacher cognition research can inform the design of teacher education programs. The previous chapter has discussed, for instance, that the voices of non-native speaker teachers, particularly in contexts outside English-speaking Western ELT, are too often unheard. As Wyatt (2009, p. 1) points out, this is an unfortunate situation because “in the absence of research evidence as to the cognitions and behavior of such practitioners, the designers of teacher education programs are left with assumptions that may be erroneous.” Teacher cognition research can also be relevant to the investigation and refinement of professional development activities and materials, which can (and should) be more widely incorporated into teacher education programs, such as portfolios, journals, or video-stimulated reflection. The literature has been unanimous in emphasizing the importance of considering ways in which preand in-service teachers can be encouraged to explore their beliefs, their current practices, and the links between them. As Phipps and Borg (2009, p. 389) point out, “The learning that ensues from such dialogic exploration of teachers’ beliefs and practices has the potential to be more meaningful and long-lasting.” Zheng and Borg (2014) also point out that the findings obtained in teacher cognition research can be used productively in teacher education. They argue that the qualitative accounts of teachers’ classroom practices and of their rationales constitute material that can be used in teacher development contexts to encourage other teachers to reflect on their own beliefs and practices. This

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approach, referred to as data-based teacher development (Borg, 1998), emphasizes reflection and awareness raising based on the study of transcripts of lessons and of other teachers’ commentaries on their work. New research findings can also be relevant to curriculum designers, as they can help to assess the gap (in both practices and beliefs) between what is intended by the curriculum and teachers’ actual situations. Orafi and Borg (2009), for instance, discussed how the uptake of a particular educational innovation ended up being limited because the program was not congruent with, and did not take into consideration, the cognitive and contextual realities of teachers’ work. Therefore, the analysis of teachers’ cognitions can be used to inform support systems that are necessary to facilitate curriculum implementation. As pointed out by Nishino (2012, p. 394), “To succeed, any reform of English education must take account of such local contexts and of the complexities of individual teachers’ cognition and behaviors.” The next section discusses the relevance of teacher cognition research to the field of CALL, more specifically.

3 Teacher cognition and CALL With the ever-increasing integration of new technologies in language teaching and learning, teacher cognition research can shed light on how and why teachers react in particular ways to technological innovation. However, to date there has been relatively little published CALL research using a teacher cognition framework. In the following, some studies will be presented and the implications of their findings will be discussed. Some researchers have focused on the challenges associated with the shift from face-to-face to distance or blended language teaching. Shelley, Murphy, and White (2013), for instance, drew on the technique of narrative inquiry to examine the way in which ten tertiary language teachers from distance universities in the UK and Australasia have responded to those challenges and developed their practice in the transition from classroom to distance, online, and blended teaching. Their findings highlight “the significance of both experience and context, the developing trajectories of teacher learning, and the emergent, dynamic nature of that learning” (p. 560). Meskill and Sadykova (2011) used reflection assignments to examine the thoughts, reactions, and conceptual shifts of experienced EFL educators who participated in an online professional

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development activity called “the moodle fishbowl.” Their findings showed that, in spite of initial challenges faced by the participants, faculty awareness had been raised concerning the potential pedagogical strengths of learner-centered activity in this type of asynchronous online teaching environment. Another key aspect of research in this area has been the relationship between beliefs and practice. Van Praag and Sanchez (2015), for instance, investigated mobile technology use in L2 classrooms from the perspective of teachers’ rationales for their practices. The analysis of their findings indicates a close correspondence between teachers’ stated beliefs and their pedagogical practices regarding mobile technology use. The data provide evidence of a range of teacher beliefs, which directly influenced the teachers’ classroom decisions and actions concerning their use of mobile devices. While some beliefs were found to hinder the integration of mobile technology (e.g., the belief of the teacher’s role as being the major resource in the classroom, technology as being time consuming and unreliable, mobile devices as being distractive and disengaging), other beliefs facilitated the use of mobile technology (e.g., recognizing the potential of mobile phones for enhancing learning and teaching). Several studies have used a teacher cognition framework to investigate the development of new competencies in the process of technology integration. Studies conducted in different CALL contexts, as for instance, synchronous online teaching (Guichon, 2009), videoconferencing (Whyte, 2011), 3-D virtual worlds (Kozlova and Priven, 2015), and classroom technologies (Chao, 2015), have been able to identify new-needed skills in this area and develop a better understanding of how specific CALL competencies develop. Some studies in this area have focused on how teachers learn and integrate the different types of knowledge involved in CALL practice. Interestingly, while some teacher education studies (e.g., Kozlova and Priven, 2015) have shown the teachers acquiring the needed competencies, that is, technology, pedagogy, and evaluation all together as an integrated skills set, other studies (e.g., Liu and Kleinsasser, 2015) have produced findings in which the participants increased only their technology literacy, but did not sufficiently develop technological content knowledge (TCK) or technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK). These contrasting findings point toward the complex issues associated with teacher cognition and professional development in CALL.

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Orlando (2009) makes a very important point about the analysis of change and teacher development in CALL. She points out that change or lack of change in teacher cognition research should always be qualified with reference to how change is operationalized. She notes that the vast majority of studies have shown that the teaching practices mediated by ICT have not changed. She relates these findings to the fact that a common perspective underpinning such research is the expectation of a development toward a benchmark of what is perceived as effective practices, which are commonly referred to as “constructivist” (e.g., high frequency of technology use, using ICT for knowledge construction, using ICT to enhance teaching efficiency, and to extend and transform learning). She points out that, although overall the literature indicates that most teachers’ practices with ICT have not changed to constructivist ways of teaching, it cannot be assumed however that they are not changing at all. She draws attention to the fact that these studies often do not consider the “non-constructivist” impacts ICT may be having on the teachers’ practices. In line with more general research in teacher cognition, CALL research has also pointed toward the importance of individual factors. Chao (2015), for example, examined how in-service teachers built connections between a professional development course and their teaching. Her findings demonstrated that the participant teachers took a variety of paths regarding the implementation of CALL after training. Each teacher developed differently according to her/ his prior knowledge, teaching context, attitudes, and general pedagogical knowledge, all of which affected how the teacher identified the affordances of the classroom technology and how she/he reacted to the challenges. These findings point toward the importance of considering individual differences and reaching teachers on their own levels in order to make course material relevant to their own needs, predispositions, and contexts. Although scarce, the research conducted so far has contributed to shed light on teachers’ appropriation of new CALL knowledge. The studies presented in this section confirm the relevance of teacher cognition research for the development of CALL research and practice. Findings of teacher cognition research can have important implications for the design of effective CALL professional development initiatives that account for the needs, priorities, and expectations of L2 teachers, and can assist them in developing the needed competencies for transformative practice in CALL. The research presented in this book aims at contributing to this area of inquiry. The project used a CAR approach to investigate the cognitions of

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seven in-service teachers regarding their development as CALL practitioners. The following chapters provide insight into the teachers’ cognitions and developmental paths as I draw on their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors to analyze and evaluate the different components of the professional development program, namely individual consultancy and expert mediation (Chapter 4), pre-/in-service collaboration (Chapter 5), video-stimulated reflection (Chapter 6), and peer-assisted collaborative learning (Chapter 7).

Part Two

Evaluation of the Professional Development Program

C h apte r 4

Individual Consultancy and Expert Mediation

Overview This chapter discusses scaffolding tools that I employed in my role as teacher educator to provide expert mediation with the aim of enabling two participant teachers to advance their expertise as CALL practitioners. As such, the chapter provides a critical self-reflective examination of my own practice as CALL teacher educator in the TECALL program. The discussion is mainly based on the analyses of interactions between the involved teachers and myself, which took place in the context of several video-stimulated reflective sessions and professional development workshops. The findings point toward the crucial role of the teacher educator in providing strategic (expert) mediation to support and enhance the professional development of these two teachers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the challenges involved in enacting a dialogic pedagogy and a number of recommendations based on lessons learned.

1 Introduction As discussed in Chapter 2, this book aims at contributing to a more in-depth understanding of sociocultural approaches to CALL teacher education through the empirical analysis of a CALL teacher professional development program—the TECALL program (see Chapter 2 for a detailed description of the program). In line with the main principles of a sociocultural approach to L2 teacher education, several steps were taken to create opportunities for teacher collaboration and co-construction of knowledge in situated settings. In the remainder chapters of this book, I will examine the participating teachers’ learning processes and developmental paths through the analyses of their views and their pedagogical practice. This chapter focuses on the empirical investigation of interactions among the participants in the TECALL program in order to examine the impact

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of (strategic) mediation provided by the teacher educator on the professional development of the participating teachers. As explained in Chapter 2, an overall feature of the investigation approach in this study was its CAR orientation. Another important feature is that two levels of AR can be distinguished in the study. The participating teachers used CAR to deepen their understanding of their classrooms, their teaching, and their students. At the same time, I followed a CAR framework to investigate my own practice. Therefore, throughout the program, I examined my own role as teacher educator as I engaged in understanding the complex processes involved in supporting and facilitating the participant teachers’ professional development in CALL. This chapter provides a critical self-reflective examination of my own practice as CALL teacher educator. It discusses the main tools and procedures I used to provide expert mediation with the aim of enabling the teachers to advance their expertise as CALL practitioners. The discussion is mainly based on the analyses of interactions between the teachers and myself as teacher educator, which took place during video-stimulated reflective sessions and professional development workshops. The next section sheds light on the main principles of sociocultural approaches to L2 teacher education and contextualizes my investigation by presenting related works and the scope in which this research is inserted. Section  3 presents and discusses the research findings. The data analysis focuses on the learning processes of two teachers (T3 and T2), as they developed competencies for reflective self-analysis and for harnessing the affordances of the IWB for developing learner-centered language learning tasks. The concluding section discusses the challenges involved in enacting a dialogic pedagogy and provides a number of recommendations based on lessons learned.

2 Literature review: A sociocultural perspective to L2 teacher education A sociocultural perspective provides us with a theory of mind that recognizes the inherent interconnectedness of the cognitive and the social. According to Vygotsky (1978), social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. He believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others, and then integrated into the individual’s mental structure. Learning is thought to occur when an individual interacts with an interlocutor

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within his or her zone of proximal development (ZPD)—that is, in a situation in which the learner is capable of performing a task at a level beyond his/her present competence because there is support from a more knowledgeable other. To enable learning to occur, the more competent interlocutor should provide the learner with “scaffolding” to support his/her evolving understanding of knowledge domains or the development of complex skills. Within this socially situated, dynamic process of dialogic engagement and strategic mediation, opportunities for learning are created that have the potential to lead to concept development. It is important to highlight, however, that according to this theory, cognitive assistance that emerges through dialogic mediation within the ZPD is not necessarily contingent on the presence of a more capable peer or expert. Studies of peer interaction from a sociocultural perspective, particularly in L2 instruction contexts (e.g., Donato, 1994), have found that L2 learners can scaffold one another or mutually construct assistance in way that are similar to how experts scaffold the performance of novices. Mediation is a thus a key principle of learning advocated by Vygotsky. According to this principle, the learner uses psychological tools to assist in making connections or mediating between the external and internal, the social and the individual. Psychological tools are the symbolic cultural artifacts (e.g., signs, symbols, texts, formulae, and most fundamentally, language) that enable us to master psychological functions like memory, perception, and attention in ways appropriate to our cultures. These semiotic means are both the tools that facilitate the co-construction of knowledge and the means that are internalized to aid future independent problem-solving. As the learner gains mastery of psychological tools, he/she gains access to intentional regulation of his/her own behavior. Of the various kinds of tools (artifacts and activities, concepts and social relations) Vygotskian sociocultural theory emphasizes the importance of concepts in learning. The responsibility of education, according to this theory, is to present scientific concepts to learners, but to do so in a way that brings these concepts to bear on concrete practical activity, connecting them to the everyday knowledge and activities of learners. Therefore, a key to concept development is the extent to which instruction interrelates everyday and scientific concepts, since it is this relationship that lies at the heart of internalization, that is, the transformation of the social into the psychological. Another form of mediation, in addition to psychological tools, is human mediation. The interactions between parents and children, for instance, reveal a variety of activities by which parents mediate the child’s learning experience, for

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instance, through apprenticeship (when models are provided to the child), guided participation (through joint activity by parent and child), and appropriation (when the child uses the tool without social mediation). A sociocultural perspective also relies on a two-way relationship between individual learning and culture. According to this theory, as learners participate in a broad range of joint activities and internalize the effects of working together, they acquire new strategies and knowledge of the world and culture in which they are located. Vygotsky, however, was not only interested in what more knowledgeable others brought to the interaction, but also in what the learner himself or herself brought to the collaboration. Therefore, Vygotsky’s theory emphasizes the dynamic nature of this interaction. Society does not just influence people; people also affect their society. In the last decades, the sociocultural theory has been discussed and regarded as a useful framework to explain L2 teacher learning and development, and to inform the design of L2 teacher education programs (e.g., Johnson, 2009, 2015; Johnson and Golombek, 2002; Johnston, 2009; Barkhuizen and Borg, 2010; Kaur, 2015). Following a sociocultural perspective, teacher cognition is understood as emerging out of participation in external forms of social interaction that eventually become internalized psychological tools for teacher thinking. As Johnson (2009) points out, once internalized, these psychological tools form the basis upon which teachers produce theoretically and pedagogically sound instructional practices within the instructional contexts in which they are situated. Johnson and Golombek (2016, p. 6) also draw attention to the role of agency and context in the process of teacher learning by stating that “the extent to which engagement in the practices of L2 teacher education will become internalized psychological tools for teacher thinking depends, in large part, on teacher agency and the affordances and constraints embedded within teachers’ professional worlds.” From a sociocultural perspective on teacher learning, one of the goals of teacher education is the development of conceptual thinking, enabling teachers to move beyond a merely intuitive way of thinking about their instructional practice. As Johnson (2009) points out, the professional development of L2 teachers involves a “process of building on teachers’ everyday concepts about language, language learning, and language teaching to enable them to understand the scientific concepts about language, SLA, and L2 teaching that are produced, accepted, and adapted in the profession” (p. 14). However, it is important to highlight that within this perspective, teachers are not positioned as passive recipients of

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theory, but as “active users and producers of theory in their own right, for their own means, and as appropriate for their own instructional contexts” (p. 15). This relates to the concept of dialogic teaching, which is based on the main principles of the sociocultural theory. Dialogic pedagogies aim for interactions that involve more than superficial participation. In dialogic interactions, the teacher educator takes up teachers’ ideas and authentic questions, and gives them the opportunity to change or modify the course of instruction. Therefore, within this perspective, teacher educators should give up some control of the trajectory of teacher education activities, as teachers are offered a degree of collaborative influence over the co-construction of knowledge (Johnson, 2009). Johnson (2009, 2015) points to the key role played by L2 teacher educators in providing strategic mediation that enables teachers to move toward expertise. According to her, teacher learning depends greatly on the quality and character of teacher educator mediation that emerges through dialogic interactions with teachers, as they are learning to teach or improving their teaching skills. She points out: “From a Vygotskian sociocultural theoretical perspective, the learning of teaching is not a process of discovery learning or learning by doing, but learning that is intentional, deliberate, and goal directed by experts (teacher educators) who are skilled at moving teachers toward more theoretically and pedagogically sound instructional practices and greater levels of professional expertise (Johnson, 2015, p. 526).” Considering the central role played by strategic mediation in teacher learning and development, several researchers (e.g., Kaur, 2015; Johnson, 2009, 2015) have examined the nature of this concept and situated it in relation to other fundamental concepts in the sociocultural theory. Kaur (2015, p. 379) defines strategic mediation as “the right help at the right time or a form of support that is efficient, targeted and goal oriented.” Johnson (2015, p. 518) has discussed important features of this type of mediation. According to her, strategic mediation is “typically negotiated through dialogue, cannot be predicted beforehand and is dependent on the teacher educator’s ability to recognize and target teachers’ emergent needs as well as utilize their responses to the mediation and requests for additional support.” Researchers have identified and discussed several important conditions and factors that create enhanced opportunities for strategic mediation. Johnson (2009), for instance, points out that it is important for teacher educators to recognize what teachers bring to their learning-to-teach experiences (their preunderstandings) and to establish a sense of how teachers are experiencing the

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practices of teacher education in order to provide mediation that is responsive to teachers’ emergent and immediate needs. In connection to this, several researchers (e.g., Barkhuizen and Borg, 2010; Morton and Gray, 2010; Benson, 2010) have discussed the essential role played by the teacher educator in creating space for teachers to reflect, to practice, to confer, and to exercise autonomy. Morton and Gray (2010), for instance, highlight the importance of providing teachers with room to participate in dialogic, collaborative, problem-solving activities in order to be able to produce their own meanings relevant to personal practical knowledge, and to have these meanings adopted. Along the same lines, Benson (2010) advocates making space for independent decision-making in teacher education programs in order to support the development of teachers’ professional autonomy. The literature has also shown that teacher educators are in a better position to provide strategic mediation when teachers are given multiple opportunities to externalize their emerging understandings of new concepts in the context of actual teaching. Several studies have shown that teachers are more likely to receive selected, timely, and appropriate forms of mediation when their learning is grounded in classroom experiences. Johnson and Dellagnelo (2013), for instance, examined the practices of a teacher educator working with a team of novice teachers of ESL, as they learned how to use a set of pedagogical tools in their L2 instruction. Their findings showed the critical role that strategic mediation played in assisting the novice teachers in becoming fluent users of these pedagogical tools in their practice. Kaur (2015) also demonstrated how a three-part activity structure (lesson planning, implementation, and reflection), which was embedded in a teacher education program, facilitated working within teachers’ ZPD and provided the space for strategic mediation by the teacher educator. In both studies, strategic mediation emerged out of specific learning needs nested in particular instructional contexts. Moreover, Johnson and Dellagnelo (2013) highlight the value of creating structured mediational spaces where intentional, well-organized teachinglearning relationships between teacher educators and teachers are enacted and sustained. As they point out, one of the main tasks of the teacher educator is to “intentionally insert new tools or signs into the activities that constitute teacher education with the goal of qualitative transformation in how teachers think as well as how they teach” (p. 2). As already pointed out, the teacher educator plays an essential role in the dialectic between everyday and scientific concepts that work in consort to foster the development of teaching expertise. Therefore, the

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design of well-structured teacher education tasks, which foster direct linking of theory and practice, can create space for strategic mediation that facilitates teachers’ engagement with the literature in their field and encourages them to use research evidence to inform their practice. It is important to highlight, however, that in line with the sociocultural theory, teachers should take a participative rather than an acquisitional approach to such theoretical knowledge in order to benefit from it fully. As Kiely and Davis (2010) point out, teachers need to transform the theories and incorporate them into their own view of pedagogy and context before they can significantly impact their practice. As discussed earlier, strategic mediation can also be provided by peers in collaborative activities. The extension of the scaffolding framework to include peer interaction is especially significant in L2 teacher education. Several researchers have underlined the importance of peer mentoring and teacher-toteacher collaboration in L2 teacher education (e.g., Edge, 2002; Johnson and Golombek, 2002). The literature offers many models of inquiry-based teacher professional development models (e.g., peer coaching, narrative inquiry, and critical friends group) that are grounded in sustained dialogic mediation among teachers as they collectively deal with issues that are directly relevant to their professional development. Therefore, within the sociocultural perspective, teacher learning is regarded as a social process that is contingent upon dialogue and interaction with others (including peers). Research has shown that through collaborative interaction teachers can come to understand their own beliefs and knowledge better as well as reshape these understandings through scaffolding and feedback (see also Chapter 7). In a nutshell, sociocultural approaches propose that teachers learn by being actively engaged in educational practice, forming communities of practice, and having opportunities to reflect and theorize based on their own learning (Johnson, 2009, 2015; Johnson and Dellagnelo, 2013; O’Dowd, 2015). As discussed in Chapter 1, the literature on CALL teacher education has discussed several approaches based on a sociocultural view of teacher learning. Some examples are project-based learning (Debski, 2006), situated practice (Egbert, 2006), peer-assisted collaborative learning (Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015), portfolio-based learning (Van Olphen, 2007), experiential modeling (O’Dowd, 2015), and research-oriented CALL teacher education (MuellerHartmann, 2012). Johnson (2015) argues however, that even though the sociocultural framework is widely accepted in the field of L2 teacher education, there is relatively little

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empirical research shedding light on “how the activities embedded in teacher education programs actually assist teachers as they move toward greater levels of expertise” (p. 2). She then points out that more empirical attention should be devoted to the design, enactment, and outcomes of the practices of L2 teacher education. A review of the recent literature on CALL teacher education indicates a similar gap. In their editorial for a special issue of Language Learning and Technology, Arnold and Ducate (2015) argue that CALL teacher education research should move beyond a focus on teacher beliefs and attitudes to investigate actual practices and competencies, especially from a longitudinal perspective, in order to be able to trace teachers’ professional development and better evaluate the impact of CALL teacher education programs. According to Johnson (2009, 2015), L2 teacher education research should place stronger emphasis on the empirical investigation of the dialogic interactions between teacher educators and teachers. As she points out, “If, as Vygotsky claims, the genesis of all learning occurs in collaborative relationships with others, then empirical attention to the teaching-learning relationships that unfold in the practices of teacher education is essential” (2015, p. 525). She argues that such empirical work allows us to see important aspects of the cognitive processes at work in teacher learning. It enables us to “trace how teachers come to know, how different concepts develop over time and function in teachers’ consciousness, and how this internal activity transforms teachers’ understandings of themselves as teachers, of their students, and of activities of teaching” (p. 13). According to her, this research also has the potential to document the quality and character of the collaborative teaching-learning relationships that unfold in this practice, and the role of the teacher educator in providing strategic mediation to support and enhance the professional development of L2 teachers. I share Johnson’s view that such empirical research has clear implications for the study of teacher cognition, and for the design and enactment of teacher education programs. It enables us to see how various pedagogical tools and techniques work to create a mediational space in which teachers can develop new concepts and alternative ways of engaging in L2 teaching activities. Furthermore, it can help to establish an empirical basis that justifies the practices of L2 teacher education. As Johnson (2015, p. 515) points out, “The analysis of dialogic interaction between teacher educators and teachers opens up the practices of L2 teacher education for closer scrutiny and holds teacher educators accountable to the L2 teachers with whom they work and the L2 students their teachers teach.” Johnson (2015) concludes that such research is essential in order to reclaim the relevance of L2 teacher education for the professional development of L2 teachers.

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The research presented in this book aims at providing a contribution to this area of inquiry through the empirical analysis of the TECALL program. In the following section, I examine the impact of (strategic) mediation provided by myself (as teacher educator) on the professional development of the participating teachers. The chapter focuses on the learning processes of two teachers (T3 and T2), as they developed competencies for reflective self-analysis and for harnessing the affordances of the IWB for developing learner-centered language learning tasks.

3 Research findings 3.1 Teacher 3: Developing competencies for the implementation of a learner-centered approach to IWB use Our research findings indicate that the prompts provided by the teacher educator during professional development activities (e.g., VSR, professional development workshops, and individual consultancy) played a crucial role in directing the teachers’ attention to key concepts and in triggering cognitive conflict that enabled change and led to transformative practice (see also Chapters 6 and 7). To back up this statement, I will analyze interactions between the teacher educator (myself) and two participating teachers (T2 and T3) in order to illustrate how strategic mediation supported the teachers’ professional development in CALL. This first section focuses on the dialogic interactions with T3 and discusses various mediational tools I used to scaffold the teacher’s learning during our VSR sessions and professional development workshops. All interactions discussed in this section refer to critical incidents that created opportunities for the development of competencies for the implementation of a learner-centered approach to IWB use. As discussed in Chapter 6, video-stimulated reflection was used in the project both as a research method to collect data on teachers’ perspectives and developmental paths and as a professional development tool to encourage and support reflective practice in CALL. The main purpose of the VSR sessions was to encourage teachers to present their perspectives on the lessons they taught in terms of how they exploited the IWB technology pedagogically, and to discuss its possible impact on their teaching and on pupils’ learning. As a teacher educator, I also viewed the VSR as an opportunity to have access to the teachers’ pedagogical thinking and developmental paths in order to be able to

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provide timely and appropriate forms of mediation, which are grounded in their classroom experiences. Classroom observations conducted prior to the introduction of the IWB showed that T3 typically used a communicative approach in her EFL lessons; accordingly, she wished to exploit the technology to support authentic use of the target language. In the initial stage of the program, however, she was not able to achieve this aim, since most of her IWB-based activities featured teachercontrolled practice of language forms. At this phase of the TECALL program, T3 had also showed some concern that the greater emphasis on whole-class teaching tended to make her lessons more teacher-centered, thus taking her language teaching a step backward (see also Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012 for a more detailed discussion of T3’s developmental path). Therefore, in my role as teacher educator I felt it was important to raise her awareness to different ways of working with the technology. In the following sequence of VSR 1, I challenged the teacher to think about strategies that she could use to exploit the IWB in a more learner-centered way: Teacher educator: But on the other hand, you have a long period of teacher-led activity. T3: Yes. Teacher educator: Can you imagine like strategies that you could have used here or you could use in the future? To make sure everyone is doing something while the other ones are at the IWB? T3: I think that’s really hard with the whiteboard. That’s something we have to think about. . . . Do you mean with this activity right now? Teacher educator: Yes, that they could also be doing something, you know? That you, you could give them a task while you are doing that together. Individual work or pair work or whatever. Can you imagine what you could do? ... T3: Of course, they could write it down, but that’s also boring, and the exercise, I don’t know if it would make sense. Pair work, I think, would be difficult, because then I had to interrupt them. Teacher educator: Okay, this, this part, this phase of the lesson is really teacherled, and it’s the way it should be, right? I mean, there are parts in a lesson where . . . which are teacher-led. (T3, VSR 1)

In T3’s first lessons, the students were given many opportunities to write and manipulate digital objects on the IWB. Prior to the VSR sequence above, we had

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talked about her pupils’ excitement and their eagerness to come up to the front and use the IWB software tools. I noticed, however, that although her pupils found the IWB highly motivating when they were allowed to come up to the board, the one-at-a-time nature of some IWB-based activities also meant that the other pupils (the “audience”) had to sit and wait for their turn. As a result, several pupils “in the audience” lost concentration and interest in the lesson because they had not necessarily been encouraged to engage actively in the IWB-based activities. Therefore, at this point of the VSR, I wanted to raise the teacher’s awareness to this issue. In line 1, I pointed out that there was a long period of teacher-led interaction in the lesson, thus implying a negative effect of the IWB-based whole-class activity. The teacher agreed, but did not make any comment on my statement. In my next turn, I prompted the teacher to reflect on possible strategies she could use to involve all pupils during IWB-based activities. The teacher’s response shows that she had not thought about this issue, and she also expressed skepticism on how this could be achieved (“this is hard with the whiteboard”). It seems that, at that point of her professional development, T3 could only associate the use of the IWB with whole-class teacher-led activities. After getting the impression that the teacher became defensive and somewhat confrontational, I rounded out the discussion by pointing out that the use of teacher-led activities is not a problem in itself, since they are an essential part of the teaching and learning process. Even though in that VSR sequence the teacher was not able to reflect more deeply on that particular challenge and the potential strategies she could use to face it, her engagement in dialogic interaction with the teacher educator seems to have triggered reflective thoughts that eventually led to transformative practice. Our findings have shown that, in the subsequent VSRs, T3 paid particular attention to pupils’ participation and involvement during her lessons. In VSR 3, for instance, she made self-initiated comments about this issue: T3: But you really realize it better when you watch the video and you see that they get bored and that you really should change something. Because I couldn’t remember that I did it that way and I think it was too teacher led, but now that I see it. It is very obvious . . . yeah, that you must change something with working . . . . ... T3: So, here perhaps we could have really let them talk to each other before I do it together on the board. So that you can let them . . . so it’s not so

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In these two sequences, the teacher reflected on the potential effects of her current IWB-based teaching on pupils’ engagement and learning. In the first part, she stated that the VSR enabled her to look at her practice with a “fresh eye,” which allowed her to gain a better understanding of the events that took place during the lesson. She also expressed her intention to change her practice in order to better cater for her learners’ needs. In the second part, she suggested a concrete strategy that she could use to enhance pupil participation and engagement, namely the use of pair or group-based tasks in connection to IWBbased teacher-led activities. In the next turn, I confirmed the appropriateness of that strategy and added a further idea on asking pupils to take notes, thus hinting toward the importance of seeking a balance between the use of print and digital media in CALL environments. These findings indicate that the self-analysis that took place during VSR 1 and VSR 3 and the prompts provided by the teacher educator triggered reflective processes that caused the teacher to rethink her current pedagogy. In further parts of VSR 3, the teacher and I engaged in further constructive discussions about concrete examples of strategies to encourage learner engagement and active participation in IWB-based activities, which involved, for instance, the combination of media (e.g., print plus digital) and interaction patterns (e.g., individual plus whole class). In contrast to her reaction in VSR 1, this time the teacher could make better sense of the ideas discussed and she also indicated willingness to experiment with them. These findings indicate that the teachers’ reflection on her pedagogical practice created a mediational space allowing me as teacher educator to provide expert mediation that scaffolded the teacher’s learning within her ZPD. Up to that point, T3 had already gained an awareness of the challenge and also identified the changes that she wanted to make in order to improve her practice. Findings obtained in subsequent VSRs also indicate that T3 developed the competencies to integrate her new conceptual and practical understandings

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into her practice. In the following sequence, T3 refers to a specific strategy she implemented in order to enhance her learners’ engagement with IWB-based classroom tasks: Teacher educator: And the funny thing is they are not tired of raising their hands. . . . So what are you doing? You can even describe things. T3: Uhm, because we didn’t only want to use the whiteboard and we have talked about that, that they should first do it on their own and then we can do it at the whiteboard. And so we had this worksheet, I think it was even from the teachers’ handbook. (T3, VSR 4)

This sequence begins with my comment on the good level of students’ active participation during that phase of the lesson. As I pointed out in the first line, the students were “raising their hands” eagerly to be called on by the teacher. In line 2, I asked T3 to describe what was going on. The teacher then explained that she had given them some time to work individually on the task (by using a worksheet) in small groups before she finally collected their answers on the IWB. As she pointed out, in line 5, she had followed a recommendation we had discussed previously, which had to do with reducing the amount of teacher-led IWB-based activities in order to give learners more opportunities to manage their own learning. This can be understood as an important aspect of T3’s professional development, since research (e.g., Gray et al., 2007; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012) has shown that teachers, especially in early stages of technology integration, tend to “overgeneralize” the use of IWB technology to all stages of the lesson. Therefore, an important competency to be developed by teachers is the ability to make the right judgment regarding when to use the technology and when not to use it. These findings indicate that the VSR functioned as a structured mediational space for the teacher to become consciously aware of her emerging understandings of the various pedagogical strategies she could employ to enhance her pupils’ engagement and active participation during IWB-based language learning activities. Our research data have also shown that the teacher made use of other professional development activities to develop her knowledge and expertise on this specific aspect of IWB use. In the following, I discuss another critical incident that seemed to have had an impact on her learning. The interaction sequence that will be discussed below took place during a professional development workshop focusing on the theme “interaction and classroom management in IWB-based lessons.” As explained in Chapter 2,

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the overall aim of the professional development workshops was to give the participant teachers a broad general introduction to the main affordances of the IWB for language education by involving them in using and discussing existing teaching and learning resources. In order to be able to discuss the workshop topic in a more tangible and efficient way, this specific workshop was structured around the analysis of an authentic language lesson. Therefore, a team of teachers (T3 and her teaching assistant Frederick1) was asked to present the main ideas and digital materials they had designed for one of their planned lessons to the rest of the group, who then provided feedback on different aspects of the lesson and made concrete suggestions for improvement. This professional development activity was aimed at fostering direct linking of theory and practice and creating space for constructive dialogic learning. The presentation included a detailed description of the various steps of the lesson and an explanation of the rationale underlying the design of activities and teaching materials. Our findings have shown that the feedback and insights provided by myself and the other five participating teachers (preand in-service) pushed the teachers to rethink several important aspects of their planned lesson and enabled them to gain a better understanding of key concepts in TBLT. The presented lesson was aimed for a sixth grade and focused on the practice of the simple present form around the theme “hobbies and sports.” In keeping with the main principles of TBLT (and with T3’s objective to change her practice toward a more learner-centered approach), the lesson included several pair and group work activities in which the learners had to exchange information and ideas. However, a closer analysis of these activities showed that there was insufficient emphasis on the real-world context and purpose of the communication. In the following, I analyze an extract of a discussion that took place after the teachers described a communicative task, in which the students had to mingle and ask at least five classmates about their after-school activities: “What do you do after school?” Pre-service teacher 1: Are they going to write down the persons and what they do? Teacher educator: I was thinking about this, and I think yes, because when the pupils talk to each other, they have to do something, fill out a survey, for example, what do your classmates do after school? And they could have all the names and they have to ask at least 3/4 people. It would be interesting for them to think, I’m not just walking around to talk, but we’re trying to find out as a group what are the most common after class activities in this group.

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T3: Wouldn’t it be a problem that they have to talk? Shouldn’t the focus be either on talking or writing? It’s sometimes too much for them to talk and write. Pre-service teacher 1: But I think if they only write down single words. T3: Oh, yes, single words, no sentences because then it gets too much. ... Pre-service teacher 2: Should we then hand out a sheet of paper with a table, and they can take notes? (Group 1, Workshop 4)

In the first line, Raissa—a pre-service teacher—asks whether the team intended to ask the pupils to write down their partners’ answers. Her question then created a mediational space for the group to reflect on the notion of purpose in communicative activities and to emphasize the importance of contextualization in TBLT. As pointed out in Chapter 2, TBLT was the main pedagogical framework underlying the TECALL program, and we had already discussed the concept of authentic interaction in TBLT activities during the workshops. However, most activities designed by T3 at that point of her professional development lacked key features of classroom tasks (Nunan, 2004), such as authenticity, meaningful interaction, clear purpose, and achievement of an outcome. The teacher’s presentation of ideas for classroom activities was thus seen as a suitable opportunity to provide expert mediation in order to create a mediational space where this concept could ascend from the abstract to the concrete. In lines 7–9, I emphasized the importance of providing learners with a clear purpose and audience in communicative activities. In this specific example, I suggested contextualizing the whole-class interaction around the theme of a “class survey.” I also added that this procedure would most probably have a positive impact on her learners’ motivation and engagement, since they would be working toward a real-world outcome that is not simply linked to learning language. In the next turn, the teacher questioned whether the pupils would not be overwhelmed if they had to speak and write at the same time, and whether there should not be a clear separation between speaking and writing activities. In further parts of the discussion, we discussed the details of task implementation. It was agreed, for instance, that the pupils would be provided with a worksheet that required minimum written input, since the pupils were not used to the combination of speaking and writing in the same classroom activity. In line with a dialogic pedagogy, the teachers were encouraged to engage in the critical examination of the new concepts and ideas introduced in the program, raise issues of personal concern, and discuss the challenges they faced.

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As pointed out in Chapter 2, the aim of professional development activities was not to impose a specific pedagogical framework upon the teachers, but to introduce them to innovative practices and encourage them to reflect on their suitability for their own pedagogical goals. As such, my suggestions in this context were not regarded as imperatives, but as recommendations. Thus, space was made for independent decision-making, and the teachers were expected to assume complete responsibility for the approach finally adopted in their lessons. My analysis of the video-recorded lesson has shown that the teachers took on the feedback provided during the workshop and changed the activity accordingly. Therefore, it seems that T3 understood the rationale for the change and benefitted from the expert mediation provided by the teacher educator. The findings thus indicate that this professional development activity was effective in providing T3 with opportunities to externalize her emerging understandings of new concepts in the context of actual lesson planning. It allowed me (the teacher educator) to recognize and target the teacher’s emergent needs and provide strategic mediation that enabled her to move toward increased expertise in the use of the IWB in a TBLT environment. The activity also fostered direct linking of theory and practice, since the teacher was encouraged to reflect on the application of theoretical concepts of TBLT previously discussed in the program. In this case study, the teacher’s professional development was facilitated by her openness to critical self-scrutiny during VSR sessions, and her wish to improve her practice. As the data discussed in the following section will show, this attitude was not shared by all participating teachers. In those contexts, there was the need for strategic mediation to support the development of a more reflective attitude.

3.2 Teacher 2: Developing expertise in the analysis and evaluation of technology-enhanced language teaching and learning The analysis of the VSR transcriptions indicate that three participating teachers (T3, T4, and T5) viewed the VSRs mainly as a tool contributing to the development of their own personal pedagogies, whereas one teacher (T2) used the VSR mainly (but not exclusively) as a technique to provide commentary on her lessons, which she thought could contribute to the professional development of other teachers. As described in Chapter 2, T2 was an experienced teacher with thirty years of practice and a very good level of technological expertise. Even

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though she was a beginner user of IWBs when the program started, she had already collected some experience as teacher trainer in other areas of CALL, as for instance, e-learning and language learning software. T2 was also aware that one of the objectives of the research project was to explore the value of the IWB for enhancing language teaching and learning, and she was committed to support me (and the research team) in addressing this goal. Therefore, she invested significant effort on the design of her lessons, especially those that were video-recorded, in order to demonstrate her recently acquired IWB expertise, but also to share her knowledge on other areas of CALL (e.g., language learning software, e-learning, Web 2.0 tools) with me and possibly with other teachers. This aspect of her practice can be seen in the following quote of the first VSR. When I asked her about the content and context of that specific lesson, the teacher replied: T2: The topic is telephoning in business, and the students are beginners, a lot of them come from the Hauptschule and we’ve just started French last September, but we do have to do telephoning because we are a business school and actually I thought about doing something nice and easy to really show off, but then I really have to teach telephoning. (T2, VSR 1)

As the teacher pointed out in line 4, even though she wanted to “show off,” that is, provide good examples of CALL integration, she was limited by the topic “telephoning,” which did not lend itself well to that purpose. This quote reveals the teacher’s (mis)understanding of her role in the production of classroom videos and in the subsequent VSR sessions. Other sources of data have also shown that T2 saw the VSR mainly as way to share her technological and pedagogical expertise. While T2 did not consider herself to have produced “perfect” lessons, she was confident that there were sufficient aspects that modeled good practice to be of interest to other pre- and in-service teachers. Therefore, the nature of the dialogue during the VSR was largely that of commentary by the teacher. Most of the time the teacher described her practice and explained the thinking behind her approaches, but she rarely identified aspects that could have been improved or reflected on what she could do next. As pointed out earlier, my main task during the VSRs was to stimulate reflection and self-evaluation. Our findings indicate that this aspect of my role was especially important in my interactions with T2 during the VSR sessions. My mediating role entailed guiding the teacher toward a better understanding of the format and goals of the sessions in order to ensure that T2 could take full advantage of the VSR as a professional development tool. For instance, as soon

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as I noticed the teacher’s overall attitude toward this tool, I reminded her (in VSR 1) of the main purpose of the VSRs: Teacher educator: I will look at it afterwards, so I will find out the details of the lesson, so the idea is for you really to think about the lesson and what you did and everything and also the difficulties maybe that you faced, the challenges and everything. (Teacher Educator, VSR 1)

In this quote, I reminded the teacher that the focus of the VSR should not be on the detailed description of the lessons, but mainly on self-analysis and self-evaluation. In line 4, I also encouraged the teacher to see the VSR as an opportunity to reflect on the potential challenges she faced, as she learned how to integrate a new technological tool into her practice. As teacher educator, my intent was to use the VSR as a way to create space for the teachers to externalize their pre-understandings and emerging understandings of new concepts. As pointed out earlier, having access to teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical thinking is an important condition for providing strategic mediation that is responsive to teachers’ emergent and immediate needs (Johnson, 2009, 2015). Therefore, it became important to clarify the nature and goals of this professional development tool in order to ensure that the expectations of both parties (the teacher and the teacher educator) were aligned. Apart from clarifying my own expectations as teacher educator, I also thought it was important to examine the teacher’s views of the VSR, and whether she saw it as having an impact on her professional development. In the following extract from VSR2, I explicitly asked the teacher to reflect on the role of the VSR in the program: Teacher educator: Do you think it’s good, the fact that you look at the lesson together with someone. Does it . . . Do you think about the lesson afterwards? I mean after you watch the lesson, does it make a difference for you? Have you thought about this? T2: Well actually, I have to be honest, I didn’t give it any thought. I thought: Well, if you (the teacher educator) . . . I mean, I’m very happy to talk about the lessons with you, coz I mean I realize that this is probably real life, this is, more or less, a normal lesson . . . . Teacher educator: For me it’s useful and I learn a lot by discussing with you. But what about you, do you think you learn something from this or it’s more . . . . T2: Well, it’s always good when you see something again and say: “well, next time I might do things a little different.” Teacher educator: So when you are watching the lesson you also think about “oh, maybe I should . . . .”

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T2: Yeah, I think, maybe, maybe some students I should have asked other students, I should have done this, I should have done that. (T2, VSR 2)

This sequence reveals several interesting aspects of the teacher’s general attitude toward the VSR. When asked about the impact of the VSR on her reflective processes, the teacher admitted that, until that point, she had not given any serious thought to it. Her next sentence, however, reveals her understanding of the main purpose of the VSR, that is, to contribute to my academic research by providing concrete examples of technology use in an authentic language teaching scenario. As she pointed out in line 7, she was “very happy to talk about the lessons with me.” In the next turn, I commented on her answer by saying the VSR sessions were definitely useful to me, but I wanted to know about the benefits to her as a teacher. The teacher’s response was interesting because she acknowledged that, during the VSRs, she evaluated her lessons critically and thought about alternative actions for the future. However, as discussed earlier, the findings showed that her talk during the VSRs was more descriptive in nature and seldom contained elements of reflection. One can only speculate on the reasons for such response; either the teacher was influenced by her subjective view of what I might want to hear, or she did reflect on her pedagogy during the VSRs, but failed to make these thought processes visible. Both interpretations supported the need for mediation strategies to assist the teacher in making her thinking visible, not only to herself, but also to the teacher educator, who could then recognize and target her emergent learning needs. Since T2’s VSR discourse was more descriptive in nature and contained few elements of self-analysis and self-evaluation, the findings have shown that I often made use of probing questions to promote reflection on the teacher’s pedagogical practice. These questions were meant as mediational tools to assist the teacher in engaging more deeply with the content of the video-recorded lessons. The teacher was encouraged to explain her pedagogical thinking, expand on her ideas, undertake a critical analysis of her practice, and engage in constructive discussions with the teacher educator. In the following, I show a few examples of questions that prompted the teacher to focus on different aspects of her practice: a. shifting the focus from the technological tools to the pupils and their learning processes: Teacher educator: And are you happy with your pupils’ participation? Are they concentrated? Looking at you? Answering? (T2, VSR 1)

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b. evaluating the added-value of the IWB Teacher educator: So in this part of the lesson, how do you think the whiteboard was supporting your teaching? (T2, VSR 1)

c. considering the impact of the IWB on teaching and learning processes Teacher educator: Do you think you work now, now that you have access to the whiteboard do you work more or less with the textbook or it didn’t make a difference? Like the way you work with the textbook, did it change after you started using the whiteboard? (T2, VSR 2)

d. reflecting on pedagogical decisions and practices Teacher educator: Yeah, they go and do it. So you think they like the work with the vocabulary worksheet, it calms them down. . . . So if you had for example asked them to practice the vocabulary, like in a, imagine they are in a restaurant. Do you think it wouldn’t have worked so well, I mean at this point? (T2, VSR 3)

These targeted yet open-ended questions were meant to create mediational spaces for the teacher’s conscious awareness to develop. The findings have shown that these questions played an important role in enhancing the level of reflection and self-evaluation during the VSRs. Even though the VSRs with T2 were less reflection-oriented than the VSRs with the other participating teachers, the data have revealed some sequences in which the teacher reflected critically on various aspects of her CALL practice. For instance, as T2 was encouraged to examine patterns of classroom interaction, she noticed (similarly to T3) that her emphasis on whole-class IWB-based work often created a situation in which only a few students were actually engaged and participating during her lessons. She then reflected on her current approach to IWB use: T2: I think it’s interesting, it also makes me realize again that next school year I want a room with an IWB so that I can have all my French lessons in that room and not like this, because it’s very difficult for me to put the lessons together thinking: What can I do without the IWB? (T2, VSR 2)

In this sequence, the teacher admitted that she tended to place an excessive focus on the IWB as a starting point for lesson planning and material design. Therefore, most of the classroom activities tended to revolve around the IWB, leading thus to situations where the technology dominated her lessons. At this point, she probably noticed a mismatch between her practice and the methodological principles underlying the TECALL professional development

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program, which emphasized learner-centeredness and learner self-discovery. In line 2, she suggested that a more complete access to the IWB would facilitate a more systematic and purposeful integration of the IWB into her teaching. In the same VSR the teacher also reflected on other approaches she would have used if she had more constant access to the technology: T2: And if we had had three lessons with the board today, then, I would have told them: “OK, now let’s cook something. Let’s put down, make a recipe, write down your recipe: ‘What could you cook with these ingredients?’” And I would have done a group work. I would have divided them in groups and I would have said: “Ok, you each come up with a very nice recipe with these ingredients.” And then: “Make, put together your shopping list, also with the quantities.” And then they would have gone to the online supermarket. (T2, VSR 2)

In this excerpt, the teacher reflected on alternative strategies and classroom activities that could create a more learner-centered environment through an emphasis on independent processes of exploration and peer collaboration. This sequence reveals T2’s belief in the importance of using the IWB and other technological tools to support and encourage learner-centeredness. It seems that the reflective analysis of pupil interaction and pupil involvement during her lesson enabled her to perceive a dissonance between her belief and her practice. Other sources of data (e.g., in-depth interviews and video-recorded lessons), however, have shown that this specific aspect of T2’s practice did not change significantly during the lifetime of the project (see also Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012 for a more detailed discussion of T2’s developmental path). In spite of her (peripheral) belief on the benefits of a learner-centered pedagogy, T2 still continued using a teacher-centered approach because of her core belief that her students needed more guidance and immediate feedback in their exploration of language. This, of course, does not necessarily mean that the teacher did not experience any form of transformation. Our findings have shown, for instance, that T2 took generally a more reflective stance toward her practice as the project developed. These findings point toward the important role played by strategic mediation provided by the teacher educator in correcting the teacher’s misunderstandings regarding the purpose and goals of the VSR as a professional development tool, and also in promoting reflective thinking that led to increased self-awareness and the identification of strategies for continued development.

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4 Summary and conclusion This chapter has followed literature recommendations for an increased focus on research shedding light on how the activities embedded in teacher education programs assist teachers as they move toward greater levels of expertise (Johnson, 2009, 2015). The findings presented here have shown important aspects of the cognitive processes at work in teacher learning. Through the analyses of dialogic interactions between a teacher educator and two teachers, we have been able to trace how the teachers’ understandings of new concepts developed over time and how this internal activity transformed their understandings of themselves as teachers and their CALL practice. The findings have also pointed toward the crucial role of the teacher educator in providing strategic mediation to support and enhance the professional development of these two teachers. In the case of T3, the findings indicate that strategic mediation enabled her to move toward increased expertise in the use of the IWB in a TBLT environment, and in the case of T2, the data suggest that expert mediation had a significant role in promoting reflective thinking that led to increased self-awareness and the identification of strategies for continued development. The findings also point to some challenges involved in enacting a dialogic pedagogy to teacher education. According to this approach, teachers should be given multiple opportunities to externalize their emerging understandings of new concepts in order to create space for strategic mediation. However, as the data have shown, even when teachers are provided with such opportunities, they might not use them in the ways they were intended. The findings have shown, for instance, that T2 misunderstood the main role of the VSR and failed to use this tool for reflective purposes in the initial stages of the program. These findings point toward the importance of promoting a clear understanding of the processes and goals of teacher education activities in order to ensure that teachers can take full advantage of these activities for their professional development. Another challenge has to do with the quality and timing of the strategic mediation provided by the teacher educator. According to the principles of the sociocultural theory, the teacher educator needs to able to recognize teachers’ emergent needs and work within their ZPD to reach their potential development. Our findings have shown that this process of adjusting and finetuning expert assistance must take into account not only cognitive aspects, but also the socio-emotional elements affecting teachers’ learning. As discussed in Chapter 3, current views of language teacher cognition encompass not only what teachers think, know, and believe, but now also attitudes, identities, and

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emotion (Golombek, 2015; Shelley, Murphy, and White, 2013). This chapter has discussed, for instance, an episode in which a participant teacher (T3) rejected the mediation provided by the teacher educator and adopted a defensive position. T3’s unresponsiveness to the teacher educator’s mediation may be the result of not being “ripe” for the mediation given, but it may also be linked to the face-threatening nature of VSR sessions conducted in collaboration with teacher educators. Therefore, one of the main challenges for teacher educators— especially for those working with experienced in-service teachers—is to create a positive learning atmosphere in which teachers feel comfortable to expose their weaknesses and vulnerabilities, and can trust the teacher educator. This is a critical point, since the full potential of strategic mediation can only unfold as the participating teachers open up and become more receptive to the mediation. This chapter has also shown that strategic mediation is only one of the many factors impacting teachers’ professional development. Our findings are consonant with previous research findings, showing that “the extent to which engagement in the practices of L2 teacher education will become internalized psychological tools for teacher thinking depends, in large part, on teacher agency and the affordances and constraints embedded within teachers’ professional worlds” (Johnson and Golombek, 2016, p. 6). Our data have shown, for instance, that even though T2 was responsive to strategic mediation that helped her to identify strategies for continued development, her new conceptualizations were not integrated into her pedagogical practice due to other important factors such as other (core) beliefs and external issues related to technology access in her school. This chapter has discussed various pedagogical tools and techniques that created mediational spaces in which teachers could develop new concepts and alternative ways of engaging in L2 teaching activities and of reflecting on their practice. It is hoped that these findings can contribute to show the value of creating structured mediational spaces where well-organized teaching and learning relationships between teacher educators and teachers are enacted and sustained.

5 Reflective questions Interpreting the study: analyzing your reading 1. This chapter discusses research findings indicating that T3 developed competencies for harnessing the affordances of the IWB for developing learner-centered language learning tasks. Create a table to trace how the

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teacher’s understandings of new concepts developed over time and the corresponding processes of mediation that promoted teacher learning. 2. What were the main scaffolding tools and procedures used by the teacher educator to encourage T2 to undertake a critical analysis of her practice? 3. The chapter discussed specific conditions and factors that created enhanced opportunities for strategic mediation in this teacher education context. What were they? Can you think of other factors that were not mentioned in the chapter? Going further: relating the findings to your own teaching context 4. Can you think of concrete professional development opportunities in which you perceived strategic mediation (e.g., by a teacher educator) as having a clear impact on your development as a teacher/teacher educator? What kind of mediation was provided and why do you think it was especially effective? Relate your reflections to the theoretical underpinnings discussed in the initial parts of the chapter. 5. The chapter discusses an episode in which a participant teacher (T3) rejected the mediation provided by the teacher educator and adopted a defensive position. Have you ever been through a similar experience as a teacher or teacher educator? Why do you think this happened? What do you think are the best ways to handle such situations? Making it happen: hands-on activities 6. In this chapter, I used transcriptions of VSR and workshop sessions to reflect on my own practice as CALL teacher educator in the TECALL program. Transcription of class recordings can also be a powerful tool for language teachers’ professional development. Make an audio or video recording of an activity in your own classroom. Choose two episodes to transcribe and analyze classroom interaction: one where you feel you provided strategic mediation that facilitated students’ learning and another where you think you were not successful in providing this type of mediation. Does the process of transcribing and reflecting on each episode confirm or refute your initial impression?

C h apte r 5

Pre-/In-Service Collaboration

Overview This chapter focuses on one of the key components of the professional development program, namely the pre-/in-service collaboration. The TECALL program brought the technological know-how and second language research background of student teachers (pre-service teachers) together with the craft knowledge and experience of practicing teachers in order to jointly design and implement CALL-based activities in the language classroom. The chapter discusses the in-service teachers’ views on (a) the advantages of these collaborative projects for their development as CALL practitioners and (b) principles and guidelines that should inform such collaborative efforts.

1 Introduction Collaboration is an important theme within the field of CALL teacher education. Several studies have explored the most effective means to encourage pre- and in-service teachers to become reflective CALL practitioners who value, and can successfully engage in, collaborative professional development. Studies have underscored several benefits of in-service peer collaboration in CALL teacher education. For instance, encouraging reflective practice (e.g., Bustamante and Moeller, 2013; Whyte, 2011; Whyte, 2015) leading to deeper understandings of technological concepts and processes (e.g., Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015), as well as the creation of networks and teacher-support programs that can serve as “apprenticeships in the practice of new technological knowledge and skills” (Hanson-Smith, 2006, p. 304). The literature has also reported on the potential benefits of collaboration between pre- and in-service teachers in situated contexts (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006;

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Egbert, 2006; Legutke and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2009). In these scenarios, the practical up-to-date technology skills of the pre-service teachers are combined with the pedagogical expertise of veteran in-service teachers to achieve the goal of thoughtful integration of innovative technologies into the in-service teachers’ classroom practices. Research findings (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006) have shown that the opportunity to collaborate with people with different types of expertise and levels of teaching experience created powerful learning opportunities for both pre- and in-service teachers. Researchers also argue for the inclusion of AR-based reflective practice as a key element in the successful implementation of such projects (Legutke and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2009; Fuchs, Hauck, and Müller-Hartmann, 2012), and their findings point to the importance of the establishment of partnerships and collaboration between language teacher education institutions and schools. Although the CALL literature has been replete with references to such innovative approaches, there has so far been relatively little focus on the analysis of the specific benefits of such collaborative efforts to the development of the participating in-service teachers. Most studies have focused on the general benefits for pre-service teachers. Some of the benefits are (a) providing pre-service teachers with opportunities for contextualized CALL instruction in the form of authentic technology-rich field experiences (Debski, 2006; Legutke, Mueller-Hartmann, and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2007), (b) enabling the important linking of theoretical knowledge with procedural knowledge (Meskill et al., 2006), and c) allowing them to reach genuine mastery experiences (Bandura, 1997) that support their development as CALL practitioners (Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014). These studies have made brief references to the potential gains for the in-service teachers, but these have not been discussed in sufficient detail. This chapter aims at filling this gap in the literature by focusing on the in-service teachers’ perceptions regarding the impact of such collaborative efforts on their development as CALL practitioners. Section 2 provides a detailed account of the literature on expert/novice teacher collaboration. Section 3 contextualizes my research by describing the service/ pre-service school-based collaboration as a specific component of the TECALL program. In section 4, the main findings will be presented and discussed before the final section draws the chapter to a conclusion with a brief consideration of possible ways to facilitate in-service teachers’ continued development in the area of CALL.

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2 Literature review: Pre-/in-service collaboration Research has shown that successful professional development programs typically allow individual teachers to explore their current pedagogy and help them to identify how the new technologies can support, extend, or transform their practice (Cutrim Schmid and Schimmack, 2010; Whyte, 2015). The findings obtained in Cutrim Schmid and Schimmack’s research, for instance, showed that the best learning opportunities were created when the teachers themselves were able to request technical and/or pedagogical support for implementing technology-enhanced activities in their own classrooms. Nevertheless, research has also shown that one of the main barriers for teachers’ use of new technologies is the lack of ongoing pedagogical and technical support (e.g., Hubbard and Levy, 2006). That literature has shown that, in spite of the growing interest in increasing the amount and quality of in-service ICT professional development programs, most of the programs provided today consist merely of a series of one-day workshops without appropriate follow-up at the school level (e.g., Moss et al., 2007). Furthermore, most schools are not equipped with skilled technical personnel to assist teachers in their individual exploration of technology. As a result, although teachers tend to be knowledgeable about the newest approaches in CALL, they lack a deep understanding of how these new technologies can help them to fulfill their own pedagogical goals. In order to tackle this challenge, the growing literature on CALL teacher education has proposed various approaches emphasizing key components for effective professional development, such as collaboration, situatedness, and reflective practice. One approach that can foster incorporation of these components is the pairing of in-service teachers with student teachers, who can then serve as classroom assistants with fresh technological (and pedagogical) know-how (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006; Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014). Meskill et al. (2006), for instance, report on a three-year longitudinal project that brought together novice pre-service teachers in collaboration with veteran in-service educators and doctoral students in collaborative CALL project work. As they pointed out, the in-service mentors contributed with their pedagogical expertise and experience, while the pre-service teachers brought new teaching approaches and fresh technology skills to their mentors’ classrooms. The doctoral students served as mentors to both these groups during the project work. Findings obtained in this project (Meskill, 2009) have also pointed toward

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the key role played by online instructional conversations carried out by the three groups in supporting their acquisition of CALL expertise. The author concludes: “Such instructional conversations should remind us of the value of ongoing professional exchanges and how much we can learn about our own practices and beliefs through professional dialoging with others (Meskill, 2009, p. 60).” The collaborative nature of this approach thus provides opportunities for preand in-service teachers to interact in meaningful ways, as they jointly explore the potential of CALL for enhancing language teaching and learning. Another element that, according to the literature, seems to contribute to the success of such approaches is the situatedness of the learning process. Egbert (2006), for instance, highlights the importance of providing teachers with opportunities for peer collaboration in situated learning contexts and for gathering sufficient evidence of the positive effects of technology-enhanced teaching. Since the in-service teachers develop projects in their own classrooms, these projects are grounded in real-world teaching problems. Some researchers (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006; Schocker-von Ditfurth and Legutke, 2002) have also highlighted that the reflective practice component is of paramount significance to the success of such approaches. Those researchers have mainly focused on the type of reflection carried out by pre-service teachers. However, they also emphasize the important role played by the in-service teachers in encouraging and supporting these reflective processes through collaboration. Meskill et al. (2006, p. 55), for instance, point out: “Educating novice teachers in thoughtful technology use needs to begin with the development of concepts, a complex process of implementation and reflection that can be greatly informed by the voices of experienced practitioners.” Therefore, one can conclude that, in such joint endeavors, both groups should be involved in a process of collaborative reflection that takes place in the midst of practice and generates insights that are grounded in a systematic evaluation of the actual teaching and learning processes. The establishment of such collaborative projects is not without challenges, however. One issue has to do with the conceptual and practical differences between novice and expert teachers. Research has shown that these differences can create barriers in communication and understanding between the two groups. Several studies have analyzed the conceptual and corresponding practical differences between novice and expert language teachers (e.g., Tsui, 2003, 2009; Johnson, 2005). These studies have outlined several advantages of expert teachers, such as more autonomy and flexibility in both planning and teaching, and a stronger focus on student learning. More specifically in the

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CALL literature, Meskill  et  al. (2002) found out that concepts and practices concerning new technologies varied considerably between these two groups. They found out, for instance, that novice teachers tend to view computers as agents in the instructional process more often than expert teachers, and while novice teachers tend to use new technologies as tools for managing learning, expert teachers are more likely to use technology to empower learners. Their findings have also shown that novices tend to focus more on what is done with the technology (i.e., the product), while expert teachers focus on the language learning processes that are enhanced by the use of technology. Research has shown that these conceptual and practical differences can hinder the pre-/ in-service collaboration in various ways (e.g., Cutrim Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014; Cutrim Schmid, 2015) Another challenge that has been discussed in the literature is related to the difficulties associated with establishing stable and fruitful partnerships and collaboration between language teacher education institutions and schools. Research has shown that, in the absence of well-established school-university partnerships, it is often a challenge to find in-service teachers who are willing to share their expertise and open their classrooms to pre-service teachers for observation and collaborative project work. Another challenge is to make these partnerships sustainable and responsive to the needs of both pre- and in-service teachers. Therefore, the literature (e.g., Hanson-Smith, 2006) has pointed toward the importance of expanding such cooperative efforts beyond classroom walls through online teacher networks in order to create opportunities for both the novice and in-service teachers to continue developing their knowledge and skills through collaboration.

3 Pre-/in-service collaboration in the TECALL program Following the situated learning design proposed by Meskill et al. (2002, 2006) and Egbert (2006), and the principle of research-oriented teacher education (Legutke et al., 2007; Fuchs et al., 2012), I have incorporated a collaboration component in the TECALL program, allowing knowledge exchange between novice and expert teachers. This collaboration was realized in the context of school-based CAR projects, in which the pre- and in-service teachers designed, implemented, and evaluated technology-enhanced EFL lessons. Following a “collaborative action research” (Burns, 2001) approach, the

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pre- and in-service teachers were supported by university researchers in a process of structured and systematic reflection on the relationship between practice and theory. All collaborative projects followed a similar structure and development. In the first phase, the pre-service teachers (my students) observed the in-service teachers’ pedagogical practice for a period of one to three months. In the second stage, they collaborated with the in-service teacher for the design, implementation, and evaluation of at least four CALL lessons, which were video-recorded and later described in detail for further analysis. Most students also collected data through pupil questionnaires as well as interviews with pupils and teachers. Finally, each of the involved pre-service teachers produced a 5000word project report in which they described and analyzed their data in detail. The student teachers were also encouraged to involve the in-service teachers in the data analysis process as much as possible. Prior to their engagement in the project, the participating pre-service teachers had completed at least one introductory CALL course in which they learned about the history and current state of CALL, and also gained hands-on experience of using CALL resources and designing CALL-based activities. The course used a task-based language teaching approach and covered various CALL topics, namely language learning software, web-based resources, social software (blogs, wikis, and podcasts), and IWB. The preservice teachers also received guidance in research design, methodology, and data analysis through lectures and supervision as part of their undergraduate degree. As already pointed out, the in-service teachers used a variety of different language teaching approaches (from project-based to more traditional PPP approaches) in their practice. They had attended at least two technology workshops provided by me before their first collaborative project. (More information about the profiles and knowledge base of the in-service teachers is provided in Chapter 2.) Once the pre- and in-service teachers got together as a team, they defined the pedagogical focus, the technological tools they wanted to exploit, and the research question they wanted to pursue in their projects. Every in-service teacher, except Teacher 7, developed at least one schoolbased project with a university student. Table 5.1 shows the exact number of collaborative projects developed by each of the in-service teachers. The remainder of this chapter discusses the impact of these collaborative projects on the in-service teachers’ learning processes and their evolving

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Table 5.1 Collaborative projects Teacher T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7

Collaborative Projects 1 1 4 4 2 2 0

attitudes toward technology-enhanced language teaching. In particular, the following two research questions are investigated: 1. What were the main benefits of the collaborative projects for the development of the in-service teachers as CALL practitioners? 2. What do the in-service teachers see as essential factors for the successful implementation of such collaborative efforts? In order to answer these questions, data were collected through in-depth interviews and video-stimulated reflection with the in-service teachers. These interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for detailed analysis.

4 Research findings 4.1 Advantages for in-services teachers’ CALL professional development Overall, the research findings have shown that the teachers valued the continuous pedagogical and technical support provided by the pre-service teachers. All teachers agreed that the school projects offered them highly valuable practical training directly connected to their teaching practice, and that the pre-service teacher support allowed them to improve their skills in ways that were easy to implement and realistic, and thus more sustainable. The main topics mentioned by the teachers in the interviews were (a) technical support for the design and implementation of technology-enhanced tasks, (b) access to new pedagogical approaches and ideas, (c) enhanced motivation through collaboration, and d) vicarious learning as they observed the pre-service teachers’ use of technology.

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4.1.1 Technical support for the design and implementation of technology-enhanced tasks The in-service teachers considered the lack of time to explore and experiment with the IWB as one of the main barriers for incorporating ICT into their practice. All participating teachers volunteered to take part in the TECALL program on top of their regular workload, and the task of incorporating the technology in their daily teaching practice was not part of their normal duties. Therefore, a recurrent theme in the interviews was their dissatisfaction with these circumstances. As one of the teachers pointed out: If you had had more time, we would have done better things . . . because the teachers really don’t have the time. Like you need many, many hours to sit there and try things out and if you’ve got the time it’s really great, but a normal teacher with twenty-seven hours a week doesn’t have the time. (T3)

One challenge faced by all teachers was the time necessary for the design of effective technology-based teaching materials. The in-service teachers were aware that the design of digital materials was integral to how the technology was used in the classroom, and its impact on teaching and learning. Therefore, this was for them a key issue in the process of technology integration. In the absence of communicative-based resources from publishing houses, most of the time they had to create their materials from scratch. They stated that, even when they had interesting ideas on how to exploit the IWB technology to enhance language learning, they often could not afford the time to design digital teaching materials that would allow them to put these ideas into practice. Therefore, these teachers welcomed the support of the pre-service teachers who could dedicate a greater amount of time and energy to this task. As can be seen in the following quotes: And he has the time to sit at home and try it out. I don’t have the time to sit like three or four hours at home and try until it works. And he did it and then he could show us. Yes, that is a good thing. He said, at some point he said that he tried something for three hours and I was like “I don’t have three hours!” (T3) And another thing I learned is that . . . she (the student teacher) was . . . she was putting a lot of energy as well in the whiteboard software to explore it and she did not give up, if she had an idea to include something, she did really search for a way to manage it. (T5)

As pointed out earlier, pre- and in-service teachers worked together for the development of lessons and classroom activities. However, the design of more complex multimedia materials (e.g., electronic flipcharts that involved

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programming of interactive effects) was often assigned to the student teachers. This extra support allowed the in-service teachers to be more ambitious in their technological pursuits, and enabled them to explore the technology more broadly and more thoroughly. However, the teachers also pointed out that both groups benefited most when they worked together and shared their complementary expertise in the design process. When discussing some of the benefits of the partnership, one in-service teacher pointed out: Yes, because we worked together on the flipcharts so I learned a little bit more again about the IWB software. . . . It’s . . . when I was alone at home I thought it’s really hard, and it was really the best thing to work together in pairs, because then you can try it out, you can help each other, and I liked that really better than just doing it alone at home. (T6)

The in-service teachers also considered this a more effective strategy for developing their autonomy as CALL practitioners. In the process of collaboration, the student teachers shared techniques, tools, and resources that the in-service teachers could use to produce their own materials. As one of the teachers pointed out: He told me about this website “Promethean Planet” and there are some lessons already on this website, and, on, we have a day “Tag der offenen Tür” (open doors day) when the new 5th graders or parents come and have look at our school, and I showed the whiteboard there, and presented the whiteboard and I really found some great lessons on this website, so, . . . yeah, I really want to use it more and do my own . . . flipcharts. (T3)

Furthermore, another barrier to technology integration frequently mentioned by the in-service teachers was their low self-confidence in dealing with technical difficulties that arose during their lessons. They emphasized that they were not comfortable with exposing their lack of skills in front of their technology-savvy pupils. As a result, their use of technology was sporadic and infrequent. These findings are in line with those obtained by other studies (e.g., Gray et al., 2007; Gray, 2010), which have shown that teachers will normally only try out what they are confident to cope with. The presence of technologically expert student teachers in their classrooms allowed them to try out their newly acquired skills within a supportive environment and before they had to face such situations alone. As these teachers noted: It was important to have Raissa there in the beginning to help and as a background. I knew every time if something doesn’t work I can ask her. And

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Therefore, the technical support provided by the pre-service teachers seemed to have played a very important role in removing technical barriers that hindered technology integration in that context. The availability of technical support allowed the in-service teachers to carry out the full cycle of design, implementation, and evaluation more frequently, which in turn provided them with increased opportunities to further develop their CALL competencies. These extra teaching opportunities were especially relevant since previous research (e.g., Kozlova and Priven, 2015) has shown that some CALL-related skills can only be mastered once they have been practiced in a teaching context.

4.1.2 Having access to new language teaching approaches and theoretical perspectives Our findings have shown that the in-service teachers did benefit not only from the technical expertise of the pre-service teachers but also from the knowledge of contemporary pedagogical concepts that the student teachers brought to the collaboration. As pointed out earlier, the student teachers had received recent training on modern approaches to language teaching, such as TBLT and projectbased language learning. They introduced new ideas in the projects that often required the in-service teachers to move out of their comfort zones and try something different. In the following sequence, Teacher 5 reflects on what she considers one of the main benefits of such collaboration: The fear I sometimes have is that I get too much used to the old-fashioned way to teach, that I was introduced when I was doing my training, when I had my Referendariat (practicum), so I don’t want to be a teacher who is somewhere stuck in the nowhere. For me it’s important to be up-to-date, I don’t want to be a trendy teacher but I want to have knowledge about what is important about teaching, so I think meeting more teachers is a very important new part of teaching and I don’t want to close my eyes and be blind about that. (T5)

In the following quote, another in-service teacher refers to a student teacher who collaborated with her for the development of a Content and Language

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Integrated Learning (CLIL) project, in which fifth graders were taught geography in English. The main aim of the project was to investigate the potential of IWBs for facilitating learning and teaching in the CLIL classroom. Since the in-service teacher had never worked with the CLIL approach prior to the project, she relied greatly on the student teacher’s expertise (and my supervision) for the design and implementation of classroom activities. When asked about what she liked most in this specific project, the teacher replied: Yes, the way we worked together. Then it was also Helga, she had lots of good and great ideas, because she’s a very creative student teacher, so she had lots of ideas, and then it was like the question how to select the ideas and how to choose an idea because she had so many ideas; so then it was just the question what can we use or what not. (T6)

In this sequence, the in-service teacher stressed the collaborative nature of the project and the important role of the pre-service teacher in providing creative input for the conceptualization of classroom activities. She also stated (line 3) that, while the student teacher contributed with creative ideas and fresh approaches, she applied her general pedagogical knowledge and experience to select the ones that were most appropriate to meet the needs of her pupils in that specific context. The research findings have also shown that, as the pre-service teachers introduced new teaching approaches (e.g., CLIL or TBLT), their ideas and suggestions triggered processes of reflection that often led to transformative practice. This was the case, for instance, for Teacher 3. The analysis of videorecorded lessons, especially in the early stages of the technology integration, showed that she placed special emphasis on pupils’ physical interaction with the IWB, and because of this, she tended to use the technology in all phases of her lesson. In one of the initial interviews, she expressed her disappointment with the technology, since she thought the use of the IWB had made her lessons more teacher-centered. As she pointed out: I think when you use the whiteboard it’s very frontal, so I always stand there and the students must come to the front. But normally when you learn English, it should be communicative so that they learn how to speak. And so I think this sometimes gets lost when you work with the whiteboard. (T3)

Halfway through the program, she collaborated with a student teacher who planned to write her Wissenschaftliche Hausarbeit1 on the topic “TBLT and Technology.” The lessons designed in this specific project encouraged pupils’

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use of the IWB at a different level, for instance, for sharing their knowledge by means of classroom presentations or for creating and implementing contentbased quizzes with the use of IWB-based voting software. The lessons also contained a good number of pair and group work activities that did not involve pupils’ use of the IWB. When asked about what she had learned from this TBLT project, the teacher replied: I just think that school project was the best one, because I had the experience and she (the student teacher) was very experienced in TBLT, or she had great ideas what we could do and so I think it was a good exchange. . . . This time we really managed it because we talked often about that, but we really did it this time, that the pupils had to talk first, and then we did it together on the board, what they found out in pair or group work. So it was just like using the whiteboard as controlling or checking what they did in their pair and group work. (T3)

This quote shows that the in-service teacher was able to explore the scaffolding opportunities created during the collaboration with the student teacher to further her professional development in CALL. She stated in line 3 that “this time we really managed it” in reference to the fact that they were able to find the right place for the IWB in their lessons and the technology was used to encourage and support pupils’ authentic communication in the target language. These findings point to the role of the tandem collaborations in supporting the in-service teachers’ exploration of their current pedagogy, and in helping them to identify how the new technologies could support, extend, or even transform their practice.

4.1.3 Enhanced motivation through collaboration All the participating in-service teachers saw peer-to-peer collaboration as a powerful means to foster professional development in educational technology. However, they also pointed out that they had few opportunities to collaborate with their in-service peers, mainly due to time constraints and lack of proper planning. Therefore, the in-service teachers valued the collaboration with the pre-service teachers in particular, as this enhanced their motivation to try out new approaches, take risks, and invest the time and effort to enhance their teaching. As these two teachers pointed out: And yeah, what I liked about the program was that I was working together with others so there is much more motivation to work with a whiteboard or to

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exchange ideas how you could use the whiteboard and you sort of . . . infect the other with your ideas. It’s like a very fruitful exchange. And they give you new ideas, different ideas how to use the whiteboard. (T5) When you work together you always come up with better ideas. Because one has an idea and the other develops it even a little bit more. And so I think this type of collaboration could also be good for the lesson, to develop better ideas. (T3)

The in-service teachers also noted that, even though the student teachers’ support facilitated technology integration (e.g., through their engagement in materials design), an effective collaboration also required a good amount of time investment on their side. Most teachers had to meet with the pre-service teachers outside the school hours and some of them even organized meetings during bank holidays in their homes. One teacher stated: It was a holiday, yes; it was one of these Thursdays in June, yeah. I think it was Father’s Day, the 12th of June. So he (the student teacher) came on a free day. He came and then we created it together and then, yes, I recognized that it takes quite a lot of time. So we created some . . . two lessons on this day. (T6)

This extra time investment shows the in-service teachers’ commitment to the tandem work, and it could be seen as another evidence of their enhanced motivation to advance their knowledge and skills through collaboration. In the following sequence, another in-service teacher expressed a similar attitude toward the pre-/in-service collaboration: We did everything together and we did a common process. So we exchanged information and we talked about how to do that and the problems, and we learned when we had difficulties with the technology. And after the lessons we were talking: ‘How can we do better? What was the problem?’ And this was something we did together. (T5)

At this point of the interview, the in-service teacher was explaining why the tandem experiences had enhanced her motivation to learn about CALL. In this quote, she emphasized the collaborative nature of their work, as they came together as a team to share their different expertise (exchanged information) to achieve a common goal. She also added, in lines 3–5, that they learned collaboratively (together) through problem-solving and process improvement. The teachers thus followed the recommendation proposed by Peters (2006, p. 163) that teachers should “work collegially, in an atmosphere where difficulties are not set aside but confronted and addressed, where in true socio-constructivist spirit everyone contributes their skills and knowledge.”

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Findings discussed in this section have shown that the in-service teachers acknowledged the added value of pre-/in-service collaboration and its role as a motivational factor to continue to improve their skills in CALL. It is also reasonable to conclude that, in line with a sociocultural approach to teacher education (Johnson, 2009), as teachers worked together through the process of planning, teaching, and reflecting on concrete activities, a space was created where dialogic mediation, scaffolded learning, and assisted performance supported their professional development. It is hoped that the positive experiences that both the pre- and in-service teachers have had throughout the TECALL program will motivate them to continuously seek collaboration opportunities with their peers beyond the program.

4.1.4 Vicarious learning as they observed the novice teachers’ use of technology Our findings also indicate that the in-service teachers experienced “vicarious learning,” as they observed the pre-service teachers using instructional technology with their pupils. As pointed out earlier, the conceptualization of the program involved collaborative design of technology-enhanced lessons, which were delivered by both pre- and in-service teachers, through team teaching or individual instruction. The in-service teachers pointed out that the opportunity to observe lessons “from the back seat” allowed them to analyze the pupils’ behavior more closely and evaluate the use of the technology from a different perspective. As can be seen in the quotes below, the teachers seemed to have learned from both successful and less effective lessons. In the following sequence, the teacher reflects on what she learned from observing a co-planned lesson being delivered by the pre-service teacher: And in Frederick’s lesson I learned, like we planned it together a little bit before, and then I saw “Okay, there we made some mistakes.” So I learned again what you have to think about when you prepare a lesson. Because when you do it alone you don’t see your mistakes, and when you see someone else doing the lesson you also thought about before, you see what you did wrong. So that’s always good for me to see again where I have to work on myself. (T3)

In this sequence, the teacher pointed out that the opportunity to observe the lesson delivered by the student teacher made it easier for her to identify the mistakes the team had made in the planning phase. She also added in lines 6 and

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7 that this experience raised her awareness to aspects she needed to improve in her teaching as well. Another teacher had a similar experience: Maybe I learned to avoid some things. Because she (the student teacher) put a lot of effects on one page. But this is because she does not have so much experience with teaching so she is over-motivated and she wants to please the pupils maybe with a lot of pictures, a lot of colors and so it was too much. And so I thought: “Okay, this is something I can learn as well,” that it’s important to do a lot of decoration and knick-knack but keep to the content of what you want to do, to what the lesson is about, to the aim of the lesson. (T5)

In this sequence, Teacher 5 explained that, as she observed a lesson taught by the pre-service teacher, she analyzed the materials that the student teacher used and the pupils’ reactions to them. The teacher noticed that the student teacher had made use of too many images and colors in her electronic flipcharts. She stated here that the observation of the student’s mistake had made her reconsider the importance of balancing the amount of stimuli presented to the pupils. She also pointed out that this is a principle that she can apply to her own pedagogical practice. In the following, an in-service teacher reflects on what she learned from the successful implementation of a communicative-based lesson delivered by a preservice teacher: But in this lesson that was what Frederick tried, that they communicate with support from the whiteboard. And I think that was really good. I saw you can also use the whiteboard to get them talking. That was really a good point I liked a lot in Frederick’s lesson. (T3)

As pointed out earlier, Teacher 3 had a special interest in using the IWB for communicative language teaching. In this quote, she reflects on how she experienced vicarious learning, as the student teacher was able to exploit the technology toward this goal in his lesson. This sequence shows the potential of the pre-/in-service collaboration in raising the in-service teachers’ awareness of technological affordances on which they might capitalize through observation of authentic examples of technology use. These findings also point to the relevance of situated meaning-making (Egbert, 2006). Since the collaboration and professional learning took place in a situated context, the teacher was able to gather evidence of the positive effects of technology-enhanced teaching in her own classroom. This learning experience most probably had a stronger impact on T3’s professional development than if she had had simply access to an example of best practice from a different context (e.g., through videos).

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The following section discusses the in-service teachers’ recommendations for principles and guidelines that should inform pre-/in-service teacher collaboration.

4.2 Principles and guidelines for the effective implementation of pre-/in-service teacher collaboration 4.2.1 Integrating technology use into regular curricular activities Research findings obtained in the first year of the program showed that the in-service teachers had reservations regarding the conceptualization of the school-based projects. One of the main issues raised by them was the fact that most of the school-based projects implemented in the first year were not embedded into regular curricular activities. Although the pre-service teachers were required to design their lessons in collaboration with their mentors, these lessons did not necessarily have to be connected to specific curricular goals and/or textbook content. As a result, some student teachers developed a series of lessons that were not strongly interlinked and did not have clear learning objectives. Three in-service teachers pointed out that this approach hindered the appropriate assessment of pupils’ learning during the project, and, consequently, made it more difficult for them to gather evidence of the positive effects of technology-enhanced teaching. They thus suggested that the student teachers design lessons that are integrated into the regular curricular schedule and also cover the objectives of a whole teaching unit. As Teacher 4 pointed out: It would be interesting to see what she (the pre-service teacher) can do in the next lesson with that. Does she go on or does she take some . . . . Is it only a fun hour? Or a fun lesson? Is it only for fun or does it have a deeper thing for the process, for the progress of the pupils? For me, ideally, they should stay a longer time, let’s say two or three weeks. Or four weeks. And you can see how it goes on from one lesson to the next lesson. (T4)

In this sequence, the teacher highlights the importance of designing technologyenhanced lessons that build on each other and have clear pedagogical goals. According to this teacher, this type of project is more effective in allowing the critical evaluation of lessons and pupils’ learning. As she pointed out in line 3, “Is the lesson only for fun or does it have a deeper meaning for the progress of the pupils?” In general, the in-service teachers recommended that the

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technology-collaborative projects be responsive to the needs of their pupils and relevant to their teaching practice. According to them, such objectives can best be achieved through lessons that are integrated with the pupils’ regular classroom curriculum and ensure a clear development of skills and knowledge. The in-service teachers also pointed out that this more holistic and situated approach would allow them to experience technology use in all areas of the language curriculum. In the initial phases of the program, some student teachers tended to avoid certain “dull” topics, such as grammar teaching, and designed lessons that focused on topics and learning objectives that could more easily be supported by the technology. As one of the in-service teachers pointed out: We had a really good lesson with Frederik because we had the pictures and we could choose the topic. But if you have the whiteboard every lesson, then I would like to see what you can do with the normal grammar lesson, for example. Or more boring things, how you can use it in . . . because that was really a perfect topic for it. We looked through the book and looked what can we take, and we took this exercise because it really fit. And I’d like to see how you can make a good lesson with the whiteboard with more boring topics and more difficult topics. (T3)

In this sequence, the teacher suggests that the student teacher should be encouraged to exploit the potential of the technology to achieve a greater variety of pedagogical goals. As she pointed out in lines 5 and 6, in their project they chose a specific activity from the textbook with their understanding of the potential of technology in mind; that is, the starting point for the choice of activity was the technology and not necessarily the learning goals that they wanted to achieve. In the last lines she adds that she would like to learn more about how to exploit the IWB to “make a good lesson” also for less obvious topics. In order to tackle these challenges, the in-service teachers suggested a stronger focus on curricular goals and learning outcomes in the design and implementation of the school projects. These findings motivated the development of new guidelines for these projects. For instance, from the second year of the TECALL program onward the student teachers were requested to develop lessons that covered the objectives of a whole teaching unit. As pointed out in the literature review, one of the main challenges of this kind of partnership is to make it sustainable and responsive to the needs of both pre- and in-service teachers (Hanson-Smith, 2006; Hubbard and Levy, 2006). Therefore, throughout the project adjustments were made in order to support the development of sustained and deeply rooted motivation for this type of collaborative work.

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4.2.2 Genuine collaboration between pre- and in-service teachers When asked about the main benefits of the school-based projects for their professional development, the teachers pointed that they benefited most from the projects that involved genuine collaboration. Teacher 4, for instance, acknowledged the importance of collaboration in the conceptualization of the project and lesson planning. She pointed out that, even though in general she benefited from observing effective technology-enhanced lessons delivered by the student teachers, she learned most from observing lessons that she had helped to develop. In the following sequence, she contrasts her work with two student teachers: As for Johanna, I couldn’t say anything to all of her lessons because I thought: “Okay, they are wonderful.” And with Kristin we said “Okay, let’s try this out in this special situation. Let’s do a similar thing.” And we tried out, and this was for me, especially for me, I learned more about the technology. And with Johanna I only saw, I watched a wonderful lesson. (T4)

In this sequence, in-service teacher first refers to Johanna, who developed four IWB-based projects focusing on the theme “musicals.” In other parts of the interview, the teacher pointed out that the topic itself appealed to the pupils’ interest and the lessons were “wonderful.” However, she did not perceive this project as contributing to her professional development to the same extent as the project of another student, Kristin, who welcomed her active involvement in the planning and implementation of lessons. She viewed Kristin’s project as a collaborative endeavor, as evidenced by her use of the pronoun “we” in line 3. In lines 4–5, she added that this hands-on, reflective approach was more conducive to learning than simply observing Johanna’s “wonderful” lessons. Teacher 3 also made a similar point when she contrasted the work with two other pre-service students: I benefitted from Frederik that I learned a lot about the whiteboard, because he showed me before the lesson how he did the flipcharts. So I learned how to work with the whiteboard. With Barbara I didn’t have contact before, she just sent me the lesson plan. So I didn’t know how she worked with the whiteboard. But with Frederik I learned how to work with it. (T3)

In this sequence, the teacher referred to the learning opportunities that were created when the student teachers shared their technical expertise through collaboration. Here she referred specifically to the design of digital materials,

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which was, as discussed earlier, one of the main challenges faced by the in-service teachers in the process of technology integration. Apart from developing their technological and pedagogical skills, the in-service teachers also regarded the collaborative projects as opportunities for enhancing their mentoring skills. Therefore, the in-service teachers also valued genuine collaboration because they regarded it as an important condition to make an impact on the student teachers’ learning. In the following sequence, Teacher 5 explained that, through the collaborative exchange and the teamwork, she was able to provide a meaningful contribution to Helen’s development as a teacher, while she had little impact on another student’s (Bernd) progress: Helen is now much more secure about what she does and she doesn’t . . . in the beginning, when I got to know her, I had the feeling that she wanted to please me or someone, and she was not really sure about what she wanted to do. And by now, I can say that she really says: “No, I do this because of this and that.” With Bernd I had a different feeling. I had the feeling of being . . . uhm, how do you say, in Germany we say: a “Null.” No, he didn’t want my support. (T5)

In this sequence, the teacher reflects on how her feedback and support during the project helped Helen to develop her self-confidence and autonomy in lesson planning and delivery. She then contrasts this experience with another project, in which she felt her pedagogical expertise was not valued by the student teacher. In other parts of the interview, the teacher also pointed out that, in the absence of genuine collaboration, it became difficult to raise this student teacher’s awareness regarding important issues involved in technology integration in schools: I remember that I was telling Bernd that he has to think of issues concerning pictures, personal data. Because the pupils had to write about themselves and the parents were very nervous, how do you say, about other people sneaking into this wiki-page. There were a lot of concerns from parents and he did not really . . . or he just gave me the impression that he was sort of smiling about these concerns. (T5)

In this sequence, the teacher regrets the fact that she was not able to sensitize the student teacher to important ethical issues related to ICT integration in schools. These findings are also in line with previous research (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006) showing that conceptual and practical differences between pre- and in-service teachers can hinder the collaboration in various ways. In general, the in-service teachers were committed to their roles as teaching mentors and wished to have a substantial impact on the student teachers’ development as CALL practitioners.

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However, they also stressed that this aim could only be achieved through a wellstructured process of genuine collaboration and powerful teamwork. These findings motivated a revision of the TECALL program to include a more explicit supervision of the collaborative projects. From the second year onward, a stronger focus was placed on preparing both the in-service teachers and the trainees for the collaborative practice. For instance, they were encouraged to jointly reflect on and discuss the specific areas of expertise they could contribute to their joint endeavor, and clearly outline their expectations regarding the professional development goals they aimed to achieve with the school project.

5 Summary and conclusion This chapter reports on the evaluation of one of the key components of the TECALL program: pre-/in-service collaboration. More specifically, the chapter discusses the in-service teachers’ perceptions regarding the main benefits of such collaborative efforts for their development as CALL practitioners, and their recommendations for principles and guidelines that should inform the collaboration. The research findings have revealed several elements that assisted the in-service teachers especially in furthering their professional development, such as (a) technical support for the design and implementation of technologyenhanced tasks, (b) access to new pedagogical approaches and ideas, (c) vicarious learning through observation of technology-enhanced instruction, and (d) enhanced motivation through collaboration. The essential points among the in-service teacher recommendations include a strong focus on (a) incorporating project activities into the school curriculum and (b) genuine collaboration and joint reflection. The findings have shown that this approach includes at least three elements of effective teacher professional development pointed out in the CALL literature: situatedness, collaboration, and reflective practice. Since the in-service teachers were provided with ongoing technical and pedagogical support for implementing technology-enhanced activities in their own classrooms, they could experience active and situated learning through collaboration with the pre-service teachers. The data indicate that the AR orientation of the school projects compelled both pre- and in-service teachers to get engaged in processes of self-analysis and critical dialogue for the purpose of improving classroom practice.

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Nevertheless, our findings have also revealed potential challenges for the implementation of this particular type of peer collaboration. The data have shown that conceptual and corresponding practical differences between novice and expert language teachers occasionally created barriers in communication and understanding between the two groups. The findings have also indicated that participants’ misconceptions regarding their roles in the joint endeavors sometimes hindered genuine collaboration and exchange. In spite of these challenges, the findings of this study have suggested that this model of teacher collaboration is worth pursuing, since it provides both pre- and in-service teachers with learning opportunities that enable them to achieve a deeper understanding of CALL processes and outcomes. The findings presented and discussed in this chapter also confirm the advantages of an approach that has been advocated in the literature on general language teacher education (e.g., Legutke and Schocker-von Ditfurth, 2009) and CALL (e.g., Meskill et al., 2006; Egbert, 2006), which is the establishment of partnerships and collaboration between higher language teacher education institutions and schools. As our findings have shown, the in-service teachers perceived these collaborative projects as having supported their development as CALL practitioners. These findings thus reiterate the importance of such partnerships for the future of pre- and in-service CALL language teacher education.

6 Reflective questions Interpreting the study: Analyzing your reading 1. According to the chapter, what are, in general, the main opportunities and challenges in pre-/in-service teacher collaboration? 2. What did the investigated in-service teachers perceive as the main advantages of this type of collaboration for their professional development in CALL? 3. The chapter discusses important conditions for the successful implementation of this particular type of peer collaboration. What are they? Can you think of other possible conditions that were not mentioned in the chapter? 4. According to the author, “The conceptualization of this type of peer collaboration is in line with the main principles of a sociocultural approach

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to CALL teacher education.” Explain this statement and provide some examples to back up your ideas. Going further: relating the findings to your own teaching context 5. How would this type of collaboration fit with institutional expectations and targets in your own teaching context? In other words, is this model feasible in your school/university? If not, what kind of alternatives might be possible, and what benefits for your professional development might they have? 6. The author argues that an important way to create the conditions for this type of collaboration is the establishment of partnerships between higher education institutions and schools. Can you think of possible initiatives that might facilitate the formation of such partnerships? Making it happen: hands-on activities 7. Search for online communities of practice for CALL practitioners and exploit their resources for peer collaboration. The following are three examples of online platforms where teachers can access open education resources and explore opportunities for collaborating with other teachers at various levels of technological and pedagogical expertise. They have been developed in the framework of European projects focusing on CALL teacher education. The Intent Project: http://www.intent-project.eu/ The iTILT Project: http://www.itilt2.eu/ The TILA project: http://www.tilaproject.eu/ ● ● ●

8. Share your experiences with these online platforms. Were they useful in connecting you to other CALL practitioners with whom you can collaborate and/or communicate?

C h apte r 6

Video-stimulated Reflection

Overview This chapter discusses the value of using VSR as a teacher professional development tool in the TECALL program. Research findings have shown that VSR sessions were used by the participant teachers as “effective opportunities to consider their motivation for using the technology, to evaluate the impact of technology on classroom interaction, to better understand specific concepts related to technology use, and to track their pedagogical development as technology users” (Cutrim Schmid, 2011, p. 268). This chapter focuses on the impact of the VSR sessions on the professional development of one of the participating teachers (T4). This choice was motivated by research findings showing that T4 was the participant teacher who made most significant progress toward transformative practice during the program. The chapter traces her pedagogical development through the analysis of VSR data and classroom episodes.

1 Introduction This chapter discusses the use of video-stimulated reflection as a means for teacher professional development in CALL. The chapter focuses on the VSR experiences of one of the participating teachers (Teacher 4). Our research results show that during the project the teacher made a transition: ●

from a teacher-dominated stage of IWB use where she focused mainly on form and controlled practice, and over-generalized the use of the IWB to the whole lesson, doing most activities with a fullclass focus (but she felt dissatisfied with students’ level of activity); {

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delivered authentic multimedia-based input (but she realized that students’ fascination for multimedia materials didn’t necessarily correlate with effective language learning); to a learner-centered stage where students had an opportunity for co-construction of knowledge (where the equipment was not the main focus, but was used as necessary to support language teaching and learning); had an opportunity for self-expression (where the IWB was used as a platform by the students to present student-produced materials). {

●

{

{

The analysis of the recorded VSR data suggests that the teacher made effective use of VSR to both foster and monitor this transition. In the following, I will first review the recent research on VSR. In the next section, I will recap some details about the research context and participating teacher (for further details see Chapter 2). Then, I will discuss the results of my data analysis illustrating how the teacher moved through these different stages. Although other sources of research data (e.g., video-recorded lessons, in-depth interviews) contributed to the research findings presented here, they are mainly drawn from the five VSR sessions conducted with T4.

2 Literature review: video-stimulated reflection as a professional development tool In recent years, classroom videos have become an important tool for teacher professional development. Several studies (e.g., Masats and Dooly, 2011; Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013; Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014) have investigated the affordances of video for teacher education, with findings showing that videos can be used by teachers as a means for constructing knowledge, building reflective skills, learning about evaluation and continual assessment processes, and developing critical media literacy skills. The literature has also discussed different purposes for integrating videos in pre- and in-service teacher education. For instance, as a method to focus teachers’ attention on certain topics (video-viewing) (Masats and Dooly, 2011), to give teachers access to examples of “best practice” carried out by expert teachers (video-modeling) (Whyte et al., 2014), to support teachers’ reflective analysis of their own lessons with the support of peers and/or supervisors (video-coaching) (Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014), to engage teachers in experiential learning through the production of video-based teaching materials (video-making) (Masats and Dooly, 2011).

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Research examining the use of videos for reflective analysis has shown that VSR can “encourage teachers to critically examine their values, assumptions, theories and strategies that underlie their behavior and their decisions in the classroom” (Masats and Dooly, 2011, p. 1155). The VSRs help them to gain insights into student thinking and improve their ability to notice and interpret important features of classroom interactions that might otherwise go unnoticed (Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013; Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014). Researchers have also underscored the potential of VSR for supporting a theorybased analysis of complex situations (e.g., Masats and Dooly, 2011; Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013). As they point out, when teachers attempt to make their practice transparent for themselves, their peers, and/or supervisors, they are encouraged to make connections between the applied educational theoretical frameworks and their teaching approaches, and this may lead to the development of practice-oriented scientific knowledge based on the integration of theory and practice. Research into VSR has also shown that viewing videos of oneself in action increases self-reliance and autonomy in teachers’ reflections. In Baecher, McCormack, and Kung’s study (2014), for instance, student teachers felt that the opportunity to examine their own performance through video prior to supervision sessions enabled them to take a more active role in the analysis of classroom practice. They felt they were better able to point to concrete instances of their instruction or of student actions during their supervised reflection. As the authors point out, once teachers “heighten their awareness of what takes place in the classroom and come to understand why it is taking place, they are in a better position to articulate their needs and determine the actions that are most likely to lead to improvement in their instructional practice” (p. 2). Researchers have also looked at how different types of videos influence teachers’ cognition, emotions, and motivation. For instance, some researchers (e.g., Seidel et al., 2011; Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013; Krammer and Hugener, 2014) have compared the emotional and cognitive processes experienced by teachers while they analyzed videos of their own or other teachers’ classroom instruction. Their findings indicate systematic differences between the two groups in terms of cognitive processes and emotional responses. For instance, the three studies mentioned above have produced findings showing that teachers in the “own” condition commented less critically and identified fewer consequences and alternatives to classroom practice than did teachers in the “other” condition. Seidel et al. (2011, p. 266) speculate that “the analysis of their own teaching might activate self-defense mechanisms that impede critical articulation and

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reflection,” and Kleinknecht and Schneider (2013, p. 13) suggest that “observing one’s own videos requires more prearrangement and scaffolding than observing others’ videos.” Regarding emotional responses, their findings have shown that watching “own” videos tends to lead to deeper engagement and more authentic, long-lasting motivation. Moreover, researchers have also looked at how the context may influence the way in which the video is interpreted. For instance, does it involve selfreflection on one’s own practice? Is it done in front of peers or in the presence of a coach? Or is it embedded within a task? The benefits of video-coaching, for instance, have been widely discussed in the literature (e.g., Masats and Dooly, 2011; Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013; Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014). Some researchers (e.g., Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014) have pointed out that classroom videos can cause the viewer to experience a sense of dissonance in reconciling what is viewed with what is remembered or perceived. Therefore, they argue that it is helpful to have an outsider participate in the video review in order to encourage reflection arising from this dissonance. Several researchers have argued that peers and coaches can play a critical role during VSR in bringing teachers’ attention to aspects of practice that go unnoticed or are perceived uncritically. Kleinknecht and Schneider (2013), for instance, suggest that with the guidance of a peer or facilitator, teachers are better able to harness the power of video review to notice, revisit, and investigate. Along the same lines, Masats and Dooly (2011) suggest that this model facilitates learning about evaluation and continual assessment processes. As they point out, while engaged in VSR teachers may become too self-critical or even frustrated about their possibilities to improve, and through the use of carefully oriented, focused introspection, coaches or supervisors can help pre- or in-service teacher to focus on positive aspects of their teaching, and avoid concentrating too much on what went wrong. Baecher, McCormack, and Kung (2014) also discuss the important role played by coaches or supervisors in facilitating teachers’ reflective processes through prompting and probing questions. They report on a model of preservice teaching supervision that used VSR. They conclude that supervisors supported the pre-service teachers in developing specific skills that are needed for effective noticing during the act of reflection, such as describing rather than judging and exploring rather than evaluating. Researchers have also highlighted the need for careful planning and designing of effective teacher education tasks when using video for professional development. Kleinknecht and Schneider (2013), for instance, highlight the importance of preparing teachers for VSR, and of providing them with questions

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or reflection tasks, especially if they are observing their own videos. Masats and Dooly (2011) report on a model of video-based professional development that used a holistic approach with structured reflection. In that context, pre-service teachers were invited to view, use, and produce videos at different points in their educational training through carefully designed and implemented stages. Their findings showed that the video-based learning experiences enabled the student teachers to “achieve higher critical awareness of their own teaching strategies and increased their understanding of the underlying complexity of teaching in different situations” (p. 1160). Although widely used in the broad area of language teaching research (e.g., Andrews and McNeil, 2005; Johnson, 1992), there have not been many reports on the use of VSR in CALL teacher education and CALL research. However, there has been an increasing interest in the field in using VSR both as a data collection instrument and as a professional development tool. Guichon (2009), for instance, used video-stimulated reflective analysis to investigate the key competencies that language tutors need to develop in order to manage synchronous online teaching. In this study, the trainees watched their own practice and reflected on it, while they were investigated regarding the skills they had acquired. Whyte (2011) used VSR interviews as one of the research instruments to investigate teachers’ cognition in the context of a videoconferencing project for FLS in French primary schools. Her findings suggest that the VSR sessions were used effectively by the participating teachers as tools for reflective practice and professional development. The iTILT European project (Whyte et al., 2014) is another good example of harnessing the potential of VSR for professional development. The project combined the implementation of a professional development program with the production of open educational resources focusing on the use of IWBs for communicative language teaching. In that context, teachers received training, then had their own lessons filmed, and were given the opportunity to reflect on them through VSR with the support of the involved researchers.

3 Research background and data collection method 3.1 Teacher profile T4 has been teaching English, German, and religious education at the secondary level for about twenty years. Her school specializes in education for physically challenged pupils, but it also welcomes children without disabilities.

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The school is very well equipped with new technologies and every classroom is equipped with three computers and an IWB. She had been using the IWB on a daily basis for three years when she joined the project. She works as a mentor for pre-service teachers and is eager to learn about new methodologies and approaches. Therefore, she is extremely open to new ideas. Although she did not receive specific training on task-based and project-based instruction, she is a strong advocate of these methodologies. In fact, her main motivation to take part in the project has been to expand and enrich her knowledge of how to exploit the IWB for the implementation of such approaches. According to the teacher, one of the main advantages of working at a private school is the fact that she has more autonomy (in comparison to public schools) to try out various teaching approaches and resources. My analysis of the teacher’s lessons and general approach to teaching led me to the conclusion that T4 presents several features of an “expert teacher” (Tsui, 2009), such as thinking about her lesson plan and implementation in detail, focusing on her learners’ needs, problematizing her classroom reality, and looking for new challenges.

3.2 Video-stimulated reflection in the TECALL program Throughout the data collection cycle of over a period of one and a half years, T4 underwent five VSR sessions in different phases of the project. All sessions followed the same pattern: the teacher was shown a videotape of a 45-minute lesson in which she used new technologies. She was then encouraged by me (the teacher educator/coach) to take the initiative in identifying the aspects of her teaching she wanted to comment on, and provide commentaries on thoughts, decisions, and reflections related to the chosen actions. All VSR sessions were audio-recorded for transcription and thematic analysis. The main purpose of these sessions was thus to probe the teacher’s explicit pedagogical thinking and her reflections on directions for her future professional development. My role was restricted to stimulating reflection and self-evaluation, and to asking questions for clarification of the teacher’s thinking. The intention was to support the dialogue in order to ensure that the teacher had the opportunity to talk about any important topics or themes, without giving any indication of expected answers or preferences. The following are some examples of questions posed by the researcher: What do you think were the main competences your learners developed in this school project? (VSR 2, T4)

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If you didn’t have such a nice group, for example, how could you involve the learners who are not . . . who are just watching, not doing anything at the board? (VSR 2, T4)

During the VSRs, the teacher also sometimes sought feedback and invited the researcher to engage in a discussion. The following are some examples of questions posed by the teacher: Do you think they (the pupils) are more motivated? (VSR3, T4) I’m trying hard to find digital pictures . . . how can I go on working with the ninth graders (without them)? (VSR 2, T4)

VSR was used in the project as both a research method and as a professional development tool. As a professional development tool, VSR was used to support the participant teachers’ reflective practice. Therefore, my role (as teacher educator/researcher) was not to judge the lessons against a pre-determined model of good practice, but merely to support a reflective dialogue between professional colleagues. As a research method, VSR was used to collect data on the teachers’ developmental paths as CALL practitioners, and their perspectives toward technology integration.

4 Research findings The research findings indicate that the VSR sessions provided T4 with effective opportunities to reflect on her practice and to track her pedagogical development as a CALL practitioner. She used VSR to evaluate her technology-enhanced teaching critically, and to reflect on alternative actions that eventually led to transformative practice. As the data analysis will show, in the first stages of the project, the teacher used the IWB mainly as a presentation tool to guide students into the exploration of grammar and practice of vocabulary and to deliver authentic multimedia-based input; but as the research project progressed she started to use it to support the implementation of task- and project-based activities.

4.1 Teacher-dominated stage 4.1.1 Whole-class focus Research findings indicate that, in the initial stages of technology integration, Teacher 4 experienced an “implementation dip” (Fullan, 2001), creating tensions

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between her language teaching beliefs and her classroom practice (Phipps and Borg, 2009). As pointed out earlier, prior to her engagement in the TECALL program, T4 used a communicative-based methodology in her EFL lessons, thus emphasizing learner centeredness and learner autonomy. However, the research findings obtained in the initial phases of the TECALL program showed that the teacher used a behaviorist approach to IWB use (Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012), where she took a central role in defining learning objectives and the steps required to reach them, and then implemented carefully structured whole-class lessons, using, for example, the PPP approach. In her first VSR session, T4 analyzed a sixth grade lesson entitled “At the doctor’s” in which she introduced new vocabulary, useful phrases, and language structures that students needed to perform a dialogue at a doctor’s surgery. Most of the technology-based activities she designed for this lesson had a focus on form and accuracy, and the IWB was used throughout the lesson to project new vocabulary and to support teacher-controlled practice of related language forms. The teacher designed electronic flipcharts that encouraged pupils’ interaction with the IWB in a whole-class environment through a variety of activities, such as matching pictures and words (drag and drop), mind mapping (electronic pen), and interactive effects (white-out effect, etc.). She thus designed activities that revolved around the IWB, leading to a situation where the technology “dominated” her lesson. As the teacher reflected on this lesson, she placed special emphasis on the analysis of the learners’ active engagement in the learning process. In the beginning of the VSR, she showed satisfaction with the whole-class teaching approach that she used in the lesson. However, as the analysis of VSR data will show, as the VSR continued, she started to question her pedagogical decisions and to think of alternatives to her classroom practice. In the following VSR sequence, the teacher analyzed the students’ engagement during one of the first IWB-based classroom activities focusing on the introduction of new vocabulary: I think the pupils are very active. All our classes work like that because it’s not a big class, only thirteen children. And nobody can disappear. . . . And they are interested. They like to write on the smartboard. (VSR 1, T4)

In line 1, the teacher evaluates the classroom behavior of her pupils and concludes that they show an active learning attitude during the lesson. However, other parts of the quote indicate that the word “active” does not necessarily refer to an active engagement with the learning content, but to pupils’ motivation to write and manipulate objects on the IWB. As she points out in line 3, the pupils are very

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interested in this type of activity, and this is a pattern that she has observed in other lessons. In fact, the analysis of video-recorded data shows that, throughout the lesson, pupils often volunteered to go to the board by raising their hands. In other parts of the VSR, however, the teacher started to question her use of whole-class teaching in preference to pair or group work. She made several self-initiated comments related to the topic of teacher-centeredness, noting tensions between her practice and the constructivist approach emphasized in the TECALL program. In the following quote, the teacher tried to explain her rationale for using a more controlled and teacher-centered approach, but also acknowledged in the end that this approach was not successful in promoting learner engagement and active learning. As she pointed out: I wanted them to feel self-confident enough for acting a dialogue, because they need a lot to do a dialogue. Yes, they need the words, they need self-confidence in using the words, they must be relatively sure in what they are doing. . . . But I think, yeah, they are too little active for me. (VSR 1, T4)

In this sequence, the teacher explained that the teacher-led introduction of linguistic structures and highly controlled practice of new vocabulary were meant as preparatory activities intended to prepare her learners for a communicative activity (acting out a dialogue at the doctor’s surgery). However, she noticed, as she pointed out in lines 4–5, that this approach placed her learners in a passive rather than an active role. In several parts of the VSR the teacher examined her whole-class, teacherled approach and reflected on the rationale for her methodological choices in relation to the IWB. In the following sequence, she highlighted the importance of giving all learners the opportunity to interact with the IWB physically in order to familiarize themselves with the functionality and features of this technology. As she pointed out: I had to also to practice the drag and drop on the whiteboard, yeah. So that they are used to do that. . . . Okay, it took too long, it was not how I planned it. I wanted it shorter, but they trained to drag and drop. (VSR 1, T4)

As the teacher explains, in this lesson all students were given opportunities to write and manipulate digital objects on the IWB, which caused difficulties with time management. However, she also highlighted the key role played by such activities in supporting the development of the pupils’ technological skills (e.g., how to drag and drop objects smoothly on the screen) that are essential for the implementation of future IWB-based activities. In another sequence, the teacher reflects that she often resorted to a more teacher-dominated pattern

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of interaction due to her learners’ unfamiliarity with the technology. As she pointed out: I think this time the IWB had an effect on my behavior, because I had to go to the whiteboard, I wanted to step back, but sometimes I had to go there, because of the technique, technical issues. So and I hope when my students are, get more used to it, that I can keep more and more in the background, you see. (VSR 1, T4)

In this sequence, the teacher explained that, in the planning stage, she intended to use the IWB-based activities to create a collaborative learning environment in which the learners supported each other in the completion of exercises. However, as she pointed out, in line 4, her intention to “keep in the background” could not be fulfilled because she often needed to go to the front to provide technical support to the learners using the IWB. The data discussed so far have shown that Teacher 4 was experiencing a conflict at times between her essentially positive perception of herself as a teacher and her negative feelings associated with the analyzed lesson, which she perceived as being teacher-dominated and drill-oriented. In several parts of the VSR, she expressed dissatisfaction with the transmission model of learning that she had employed in this lesson, which resulted in the students being “too little active.” These findings point to the potential of reflective practice for reducing the gap (i.e., the dissonance) between teachers’ beliefs and practice (Farrell and Ives, 2015). During the VSR sessions, the teacher was encouraged to articulate and reflect on her beliefs, which possibly helped her to become more aware of the impact of these beliefs on her classroom practice. Throughout the VSR, the teacher elaborated on possible justifications for her pedagogical and methodological decisions (as discussed above), but she also reflected on alternative courses of action that might be taken to tackle the problems identified in the lesson. This can be seen in the following VSR sequence: So when I will do that the next time, maybe I would take also some laptops and I would do, maybe let them do it in pair work or group work with the laptops or so, and then keep, save it on the school system, yeah, for the class, and then compare it with the others, yeah, and then it’s more active for everybody. Yeah, this is what I noticed when watching. (VSR 1, T4)

In this VSR sequence, the teacher referred to some practical strategies for exploiting the technological tools in a learner-centered manner. As she pointed

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out, in order to enhance active participation, she could, for instance, provide the students with more opportunities to work in pairs or individually (e.g., on their laptops) before engaging in whole-class, IWB-based activities. In line  5, she concluded, “Then it’s more active for everybody,” thus pointing to the importance of designing and implementing IWB-based materials in ways that engage all students in class and not just the one at the board. In line with findings of previous research (e.g., Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014), these findings indicate that, once the teacher developed her awareness of what took place in her classroom and came to understand why it took place, she was in a better position to articulate her needs and her students’ needs and determine the actions that were most likely to lead to improvement in her instructional practice.

4.1.2 Multimedia-based input Our data analysis has shown that Teacher 4 also experienced a conflict regarding the enhanced use of multimedia-based resources in her teaching. On one hand, she praised the potential of the technology for enabling a seamless integration of authentic multimedia resources into her teaching. However, in several parts of the VSR session she also reflected on the fact that her students’ fascination for multimedia materials did not necessarily correlate with effective language learning. In the following quote, the teacher reflected on the impact of the technology on her teaching practice concerning the use of multimedia-based resources: I think I’m much more creative. I’ve got now the opportunity to find real material that is motivating, that shows them reality. I can bring information into the classroom, I can quickly jump into a series when it’s possible, when the time is fitting or so. I can be very close to reality. I’m much more . . . I would say I’m much more creative. I’m always thinking what would fit to this situation. (VSR 2, T4)

In this sequence, the teacher discussed how the technology offered her a seamless and effective (“she can quickly jump”) access to a great variety of multimedia resources that allowed her to create a more authentic, life-like environment in her lessons. She also pointed out that these resources facilitate the process of bringing more creativity and variety into the classroom. In the following quote, the teacher pointed out that the availability of digital resources also allowed her to add more flexibility to her lessons, as she could draw on multimedia and web-based resources to “go off-trail” in order to respond to learners’ needs as they arose: You are so flexible, you see. You can find pictures, you can find videos, you can find music, you can find everything and it just helps a lot to make a . . . lively lesson. (VSR 2, T4)

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In this sequence, the teacher discusses the advantages of the multimedia resources for providing “scaffolding” to her pupils’ language development. The use of multimedia resources was seen as facilitating the process of making her teaching materials easier to comprehend by the learners. For instance, during the lessons the teacher often spontaneously found illustrations online (e.g., Google images) to explain the meaning of new words and guide students in the process of knowledge construction. In the final part of the quote, the teacher acknowledged that the use of these resources made her lessons more “lively.” Moreover, the analysis of the video data obtained through the recorded lessons and in-depth interviews of Teacher 4 shows that the ease of access to multimedia resources led to the adoption of a show-and-tell teaching style in some of her lessons. However, the observation of her pupils’ behavior during the VSR sessions caused her to question this approach. The teacher often reflected on the possible negative consequences of excessive use of the IWB as a presentation tool and stressed the importance of providing learners with opportunities to access and work with the learning content through different modes and methods. In the following quote, she reflected on the needs of a specific pupil who had been diagnosed with a learning disability: He has audio-visual problems. So listening, looking at something. . . . He can’t keep the information . . . it has to do with his handicap. Our school psychologist tested him and he told me about that. I should be careful, yeah, when working with the whiteboard, that he will not keep the information, yeah. He has to write it down. . . . But I think, from my point of view, there are also healthy pupils that have problems with audio-visual learning. (VSR 1, T4)

In this quote, the teacher referred to a child with special needs who has shown difficulty in absorbing information through audio-visual methods. However, she also points out in lines 5–7 that the same challenge can be faced by healthy pupils, who might feel overwhelmed or distracted by too many stimuli presented via the IWB. In the following quotes, she reflects on the importance of providing learners with different learning experiences so that they can have various opportunities to learn new content through various channels, including digital and print media: This is what I’m always doing with young pupils, that, so that they have the experience also, you see. Learning, yeah, with different channels . . . moving . . . touching. (VSR 1, T4)

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And what I like a lot is changing situations in the classroom, yeah, breaking rules of a typical lesson . . . and changing, yeah, the inputs are different, so I would say . . . now let’s drag and drop (on the IWB) and let’s not give out any paper . . . and now let’s write it on a paper. (VSR 2, T4)

These quotes reveal one of the main challenges faced by Teacher 4 in her professional development as an IWB user—that is, finding the “right place” for the IWB in her teaching in order to be able to attend effectively to her students’ language learning needs. These findings show the potential of VSR to help teachers gain insights into student thinking and students’ difficulties and to adjust their teaching approach based on those insights (Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013). Another important aspect of the sequences above is the teacher’s engagement in drawing connections between the theoretical knowledge (scientific concepts) acquired during professional development workshops and her classroom practice (everyday concepts). The need to meet the needs of students with various learning styles (e.g., audio/visual, kinesthetic/tactile; analytical/global) during technology integration was a key topic discussed during the professional development workshops. These findings confirm the results of previous research showing that, when teachers attempt to make their practice transparent for themselves, they are in a better position to make connections between educational theoretical frameworks and their teaching approaches (Masats and Dooly, 2011). The data reviewed so far have shown that the reflective process that took place during the VSR sessions challenged the teacher to rethink at least two aspects of her practice with respect to technology use and pupils’ learning: an excessive focus on whole-class teaching and excessive use of the IWB as a presentation tool. My analysis presented and discussed in the following section reveals a different stage in her development, in which she placed stronger emphasis on using the IWB to enhance student engagement and authentic target language use in her lessons.

4.2 Learner-centered stage Research findings have shown that in later stages of the project, the teacher was able to exploit the IWB in a more learner-centered manner. She enhanced her ability to design technology-enhanced activities in which the IWB was not the main focus but was used as a necessary tool to support language learning tasks. She also provided more opportunities for co-construction of knowledge, once the IWB was used as a platform to show student-produced Web 2.0 materials,

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which were presented by the students themselves. The results also show that the teacher used VSR to track her development journey as a CALL practitioner, as she reflected on her changing practice. In the following quote, for instance, she reflected on her increased self-confidence: I’m so proud. In the beginning, my first lessons teaching with the IWB, two years ago it was, I was so . . . running here, doing this, running to the board. Did you notice that? And I found that I was more relaxed, more self-confident. When something is not working, okay, it doesn’t work. I think . . . okay, if you are having the shape problem, you draw it and it looks the way it looks. (VSR 4, T4)

In this sequence, the teacher demonstrates satisfaction with at least two aspects of her changing practice. In the first lines, she refers to her initial aspiration (in the teacher-dominated stage) to keep control of everything that happened in the classroom, including IWB-based work. In line 4, she points out that, once she felt more self-confident with the technology, she was able to hand over more control to the learners themselves, and this allowed her to feel more relaxed during her lessons. She also added that she felt better prepared to deal with technical difficulties, once the technology did not play such a prominent role in her teaching. Our research findings have also shown that, as the teacher gained more confidence in exploiting the affordances of the IWB, she developed a better understanding of its potential for broader technology use in which multimedia resources, the internet, and other computer applications are part of a seamless learning environment. This change of perspective thus created new possibilities for exploiting the affordances of the IWB to support the implementation of more learner-centered approaches, such as task-based and project-based language learning. In later stages of the TECALL program, the teacher developed two language learning projects in her ninth grade in collaboration with two of the pre-service teachers. Each project consisted of five lessons. The first project was entitled “Into the World of Work” with the main aim of preparing pupils to acquire the language necessary to design a CV and take part in a job interview. The second project offered the students various language learning opportunities centered on the topic “The stolen generation of Australia.” The main outcome of the project was a class documentary, in which the pupils played the role of members of the “stolen generation,” and responded to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s apology speech in short interview sequences. In the following excerpt of the VSR 3, the teacher reflected on the first project. She had been asked whether she thought

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this specific IWB lesson had been more learner-centered compared to previous ones. She then replied: Yeah, I would say so. Because they had time . . . they had to find out things . . . and then they had to describe things and think about their own personality . . . it’s a mixture. It was very exhausting for me, I had to prepare the material, it was a lot of work and I needed a lot of time. But later on they are . . . it’s their turn, and this was my input. (VSR 3, T4).

In five sessions, the students learned about various job options, familiarized themselves with job ads and ways of responding to them, filled out and analyzed personality quizzes, and designed and performed job interviews. T4 thus used the IWB as a digital hub for the integration of a variety of multimedia resources (e.g., videos, websites, digital pictures), which added an element of authenticity to her lessons and provided support for the various language learning tasks that the students needed to accomplish. As she reflected on the way she exploited the IWB in this specific lesson, T4 identified an important development in her practice. This becomes clear in the last line where she states, “It’s their turn,” emphasizing that, in contrast to previous lessons where students were conceived of as mere recipients of information, in this teaching unit the pupils were given relevant and stimulating input via the IWB, which motivated them to engage with the tasks and to co-construct knowledge with their peers. In lines 1 and 2, she defined the students’ activities in terms of “finding out,” “describing,” and “thinking.” Therefore, an important feature of her teaching in this phase of development was her view of the students as active agents in their own learning. In the following quote, she confirms her focus on a learner-centered pedagogy, where both the learner and the teacher share the responsibility for the learning process: While teaching and planning with David (the pre-service teacher), we were talking about the teacher-centered aspect. But I don’t know if you noticed that they are always working on their own and doing pair work and group work and things like that. So I didn’t have stress during the lesson. (VSR 4, T4)

In this quote, the teacher pointed out that her change of perspective had a direct impact on (a) the nature and structure of her classroom activities and (b) the interaction patterns between the pupils and the teacher as well as among the pupils themselves. In the lessons carried out in the learner-centered phase, her pupils were given more opportunities to work independently, but also to be engaged in pair and group work activities for enhanced language practice and collaborative learning. She also pointed out in line 4 that this approach reduced

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the level of stress associated with the use of technology, since it was no longer seen as the first priority, but merely as a tool to facilitate language learning. The research results discussed in this section suggest that the changes experienced by the teacher during the TECALL program allowed her to step back from a more controlling role and gradually put the spotlight on the students’ active engagement in a collaborative dialogue with their peers. The data also indicate that the teacher made effective use of VSR to both foster and monitor her development. Throughout the TECALL program, the teacher was also invited to reflect on her perceptions regarding the impact of this form of reflective practice on her professional development. The following section presents some of the important aspects discussed by the teacher.

4.3 Benefits and challenges of VSR The research data indicate that the teacher perceived the VSR sessions as having a positive impact on her professional development. In the following quote, the teacher underlined the key role played by VSR in fostering her learning journey throughout the TECALL program: So, sometimes when I was watching the videos, so I . . . became a little bit more aware of what is going on with me. So maybe you can tell better than me, but okay, I try. . . . Maybe I was more conservative at the beginning. So, I tried to exploit what I got, so my book, the CDs, sometimes I brought pictures, posters, but I got more flexible, so . . . because I had the opportunity I could be more flexible. (Final interview, T4)

In this sequence, the teacher had been asked if she had noticed any development in her CALL practice during the program. She begins her response by acknowledging that the VSR sessions enabled her to achieve an enhanced awareness of herself as a teacher and of her developmental path as a CALL practitioner (“what is going on with me”). In lines 3–6, she outlined what she thought was her main areas of development. As she pointed out, she started out with a “conservative” approach to technology use, and as the professional development program progressed, she was able to develop a more “flexible” way of exploiting the technological tools at her disposal. In line with research findings (e.g., Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014; Masats and Dooly, 2011) discussed in Section 1, the teacher also highlighted the important role played by me (the teacher educator/researcher) in facilitating her reflective processes through prompting and probing questions. In the following

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sequence, the teacher had been asked whether she preferred a VSR, in which she could comment freely on the lesson without any interference, or a VSR with questions raised by the teacher educator/researcher: I think both are good. I would not like it all the time only to comment on it. Sometimes it’s good to have one session that I know your questions help me to look, to get a better look on the problems, maybe the ideas or what is important. So this helps me to get a better look at the topic. (VSR 4, T4)

In this quote, the teacher argued for a combination of both approaches. On the one hand, she would like to keep an active role in the analysis of lessons and to have the freedom to select aspects of classroom practice to comment on. On the other hand, she also pointed to the important role played by the researcher in bringing her attention to aspects of practice that perhaps go unnoticed or are perceived uncritically. Therefore, she seems to subscribe to an approach in which teachers and researchers co-construct a deeper understanding of classroom practice through collaborative analysis of video-recorded lessons. Although the teacher found the VSR sessions extremely valuable for her professional development, she also mentioned challenging and painful aspects associated with them. At the end of the first VSR, the teacher reflected on the process of self-analysis in that context. In the following sequence, the teacher summarized several difficulties involved in being engaged in self-reflection and self-evaluation, especially in collaboration with a teacher educator: First, there were a lot of things to watch. And so the first time I was, the first minutes I was, I felt uncomfortable. I felt, hummm. . . . And then, but I think when it goes on and we came to the part where I was more content with the sequence of the events in the lesson. So it was like I had planned, yeah, that’s when I felt “Okay, it works” or “It worked,” then I relaxed a bit. So I could sit . . . this is what I noticed, that I sat on the side and didn’t feel so much pressure. . . . Because I wanted to show, yeah, that I can do it. (VSR 1, T4)

In the first line, she mentioned that the experience was sometimes overwhelming because there were so many elements of classroom practice that could be explored (e.g., technology use, student learning, and teacher behavior). Since the teacher was given the freedom to comment on any aspect of the lesson, she often found it difficult to define the focus of her observations and commentaries. This issue has also been discussed in the literature, and several researchers (e.g., Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013) have argued for more careful planning and design of effective teacher education tasks in order to better exploit the potential of VSR

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for professional development. Therefore, an interesting topic for further research might be to compare the effects of more open versus more structured forms of VSR. In line 2, T4 introduced another challenge related to the teacher-researcher collaboration. The teacher revealed her discomfort in exposing her weaknesses during video-based reflection. As she pointed out at the end of this sequence, she “wanted to show that she could do it.” Therefore, it seems to be the case that, at this stage of the project, T4 saw her video-recorded lessons as a way to demonstrate to the teacher educator/researcher that she was able to implement the ideas and strategies discussed during the professional development workshops. In this sequence, she refers to two critical incidents that produced opposing feelings: discomfort, when she perceived parts of the lesson as not being successful, and relief, when she was content with her own performance. This shows that, even though it was made clear to the teacher that the main aim of the VSR was to support teacher reflective practice, the teacher still seemed to perceive the teacher educator/researcher as having a supervisory role during VSR sessions. In further stages of the project, these issues were discussed with the teacher and measures were taken to minimize this potential problem (e.g., fewer questions posed by the researcher, increased focus on positive aspects of the lessons). However, as discussed in Section 1, the challenges pointed out by T4 can be seen as the inherent difficulties involved in being engaged in VSR, especially in collaboration with peers and/or trainers (e.g., Seidel et al., 2011; Krammer and Hugener, 2014). In spite of these difficulties, the findings presented here indicate that the teacher was able to use the VSR sessions as effective opportunities to evaluate the impact of the IWB and other technological tools on classroom interaction, to better understand specific concepts related to technology use, and to track her pedagogical development as a CALL practitioner. These findings are in line with previous research suggesting that VSR can be used by teachers as a means for constructing knowledge (e.g., Seidel et al., 2011), building reflective skills (e.g., Baecher, McCormack, and Kung, 2014), examining the theories and strategies that underlie their behavior in the classroom (e.g., Masats and Dooly, 2011), and supporting a theorybased analysis of complex situations (e.g., Kleinknecht and Schneider, 2013).

5 Summary and conclusion This chapter has discussed the developmental path of one of the participant teachers (T4) through the analysis of VSR data. The main purpose of the chapter

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was to show the potential of VSR as both a research method and a means for teacher professional development. The research findings discussed here indicate that T4 made effective use of this tool to foster and track her professional development as a CALL practitioner. The data presented also point to the potential of VSR as an “effective research method to gain access to teachers’ perspectives on technology integration, and if employed in longitudinal work, to gain a more detailed picture of their developmental paths as adopters of new technologies” (Cutrim Schmid, 2011, p. 268). Our findings indicate that T4 made significant progress toward the “invention stage” of technology integration, that is, when the technology has a positive transformative impact on teachers’ classroom practice (Sandholtz, Ringstaff, and Dwyer, 1997). An overall analysis of the teacher’s developmental path throughout the professional development program has shown that the teacher was able to transition from a teacher-dominated stage of using the IWB where she focused mainly on form and controlled practice to a learner-centered stage in which students were provided with more opportunities for co-construction of knowledge and self-expression (see also Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012). The main goal of this specific chapter was to show how the teacher exploited the potential of VSR to foster and monitor this transition. The qualitative findings discussed here have shown that T4 used VSR to examine the personal theories or beliefs that underlay her behavior in the classroom, to carry out theory-based analyses of complex aspects of her teaching practice, to identify gaps in her professional development, and finally, to establish focal points for further exploration or improvement. Analyses of the teacher’s perspectives regarding the role and impact of VSR on her professional development have also revealed a few challenges involved in video-based reflection. The data have shown, for instance, that T4 faced difficulties in defining the focus of her observations and commentaries during the analysis of video-recorded lessons, especially in the initial stages of the project. She also experienced discomfort in exposing her weaknesses in the presence of a teacher educator/researcher, whom she perceived as having a supervisory role. These issues raise important topics for further research in this area. For instance, the role of peers and coaches in amplifying the potential of VSR for supporting transformative practice, the comparative effects of more open versus more structured forms of video-based reflection, and the development of educational tasks that facilitate and support the process of self-reflection and self-analysis during VSR.

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6 Reflective questions Interpreting the study: Analyzing your reading 1. According to the literature discussed in this chapter, how can VSR support teachers’ professional development? 2. The chapter traces T4’s pedagogical development as she transitioned from a teacher-dominated stage of using the IWB to a learner-centered stage. How did the VSR sessions support this development? Illustrate your answers with examples from the data. 3. What were the main roles of the teacher educator during the VSR sessions? Did she experience any challenges? If so, which ones? Going further: Relating the findings to your own teaching context 4. Have you ever used videos for reflective analysis? What types of videos? Did you analyze your own videos or other teachers’ videos? What did you learn from this experience? Would you recommend this professional development activity to other colleagues? If so, why? If not, why not? 5. Do you prefer more open or more structured forms of video-based reflection? Why? What are, in your opinion, the possible advantages/ drawbacks of both options? Making it happen: Hands-on activities 6. Video-record one of your CALL lessons and watch it on your own. Take note of any aspects that you think are relevant for your professional development. What have you learned from watching yourself on tape? Then video-record one of your CALL lessons and watch it together with a colleague. Ask your colleague to ask questions and make comments as you watch it. What have you learned from watching yourself on tape together with a colleague? Compare these two experiences. Which one do you think was more conducive to learning? 7. Design a professional development activity that includes VSR and implement it with a colleague. Think of questions or tasks that may facilitate and support your colleague’s reflective processes during the VSR. You might want to check some of the references provided in the chapter for some task models.

C h apte r 7

Peer-assisted Collaborative Learning

Overview Peer-assisted collaborative learning has been found to be a useful method in CALL teacher education. Several studies have shown that peer collaboration and the exposure to multiple perspectives can help trigger deeper reflection and learning among CALL in-service trainees (Whyte, 2011; Whyte, 2015; Haines, 2015). This chapter discusses research findings showing that, in addition to the collaboration with pre-service teachers, the participant teachers were able to co-construct knowledge with their in-service peers during professional development workshops. This chapter includes the analysis of peer-to-peer interactions during these workshops to discuss the learning opportunities that were created through peer scaffolding and dialogue. The chapter concludes with the discussion of specific features of the professional development workshops that facilitated mutual support and collaboration.

1 Introduction As explained in Chapter 4, the TECALL program is based on a sociocultural approach to language teacher education (Johnson, 2009). Consistent with this approach, the conceptualization of the program placed special emphasis on structuring collective activities in ways that positioned the participant teachers as equal partners and created social conditions for teachers to receive support and assistance to do more than they would be able to do independently. Therefore, it was important to create mediational space for the teachers to engage in systematic and reflective examinations of their teaching practices and their students’ learning. Chapter 4 focused on expert mediation provided by the teacher educator, while this chapter focuses on the important role played by in-service

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peers in providing strategic mediation that supported the participant teachers’ professional development. As pointed out by Johnson (2009, p. 95), early interpretations of the ZPD positioned the more capable peer or expert as necessary to lead the development of a less-skilled learner. However, more recent, expanded interpretations of the ZPD recognize that peers engaged in collaborative goal-directed activities function as legitimate mediators of learning. Studies of peer interaction from a sociocultural perspective (e.g., Donato, 1994) have found that peers can successfully scaffold one another in ways that are similar to how experts scaffold the performance of novices. The L2 teacher education literature has also described several models of teacher education, which are based on peer collaboration and teamwork. These models are grounded in the principle that participation and context are essential to teacher learning, and they support the notion that teachers’ professional networks can function as powerful sites for professional development. Johnson (2009) and Johnston (2009), for instance, review a variety of schoolbased, practitioner-driven, collaborative, inquiry-based models of language teacher professional development. All these models share a focus on dialogue and peer collaboration as core processes in teacher learning. Some examples are: (a) Critical friends groups—creating a structured environment (guided and monitored by a facilitator) where teachers can talk through a dilemma, collaboratively coming to understand it, and seeking possible solutions; (b) Peer coaching—the process where teams of teachers regularly observe one another and provide support, feedback, and assistance; (c) Lesson study—in this model a team of teachers co-plan a lesson that focuses on a particular content or unit of study. The lesson is then taught by one member of the team, while the others observe and then discuss their observations during a panel discussion; (d) Cooperative development—involves peer teachers investigating their own work through carefully designed forms of nonjudgmental discourse; and (e) Narrative inquiry—teachers tell stories about their teaching experiences and work in collaboration with other teachers to reinterpret and bring meaning to these experiences. As Johnson (2009) points out, all these approaches position the collaborative sharing and analysis of classroom experiences as a powerful mechanism for systemic change in teacher thinking and classroom practice. The recent L2 teacher education literature has discussed research findings showing a positive impact of peer collaboration on teachers’ professional development. Kiely and Davis (2010), for instance, investigated the effect of collaborative discussion among experienced teachers participating in a

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continuing professional development program. In their study, the teachers analyzed and reflected on classroom-based critical learning episodes (CLEs) in a number of different ways: in dialogue with a coach, with other teachers in workshops, or within “buddy” groups. Their findings showed that the collaborative analysis of the CLEs provided a mediational space for teachers to gain new insights into their professional practice. Kaur (2015) evaluated a practitioner-driven approach to teacher education, which aimed at advancing ESL teachers’ instructional knowledge about writing. The approach used a threepart activity structure in which the teachers had to design language teaching activities, implement them, and reflect on the results in collaboration with a coach and other teachers through an online platform. The author discussed qualitative findings showing how the members of the class learned from one another and reflected on differing views, as they negotiated evolving perceptions of writing. In the CALL area more specifically, several researchers (e.g., Hanson-Smith, 2006; O’Dowd, 2015) have also underlined the importance of peer mentoring and teacher-to-teacher collaboration in CALL teacher education. In the following section, I discuss research findings indicating the positive impact of peer collaboration on teachers’ CALL professional development.

2 Literature review: Peer-assisted collaborative learning in CALL In the last decade, CALL researchers have consistently discussed the importance of creating opportunities for productive and sustained peer collaboration in CALL professional development (e.g., Hubbard and Levy, 2006; Whyte, 2011). Fortunately, the recent CALL literature presents several studies describing approaches for achieving this aim. Their findings indicate the positive impact of peer collaboration on teachers’ CALL professional development (e.g., O’Dowd, 2015; Haines, 2015; Whyte, 2015). Kozlova and Priven (2015), for instance, report on a model of CALL in-service teacher education that employed a collaborative situated learning approach. The model included a pre-teaching stage, in which teacher trainees developed language learning tasks, and a teaching stage, in which they implemented their tasks with real students in 3-D VWs. Throughout the project, the participating teachers were instructed to collaborate on task development, exchange feedback in teaching simulations, and share their reflections on their

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teaching experience through online journal entries. Their findings have shown that the participant teachers benefited from this collaborative approach in many different ways: they were able to incorporate peers’ suggestions and borrow peers’ ideas when developing tasks on wikis, they incorporated peers’ feedback during teaching simulations, they used peer feedback to reflect critically on their own teaching sessions in journals, and they also made necessary changes to their tasks after observing peers’ teaching sessions and reading reflections in the journals. Meskill and Sadykova (2011) report on a professional development activity that used the fishbowl technique, which is a widely employed instructional format used to promote peer collaboration, critical observation, and conceptual development. In their study, this technique was employed in a Moodle environment where six participants in an online professional development course were positioned outside of the metaphorical fishbowl observing their students learning in well-orchestrated, conversationally rich online activities. The teachers then reflected on and discussed these interactions with their peers. Their findings have shown that the fishbowl experience had a positive impact in the professional development of the EFL teachers as online instructors, since they were able to observe and consider more active roles on the part of their students. The findings also indicate the special role played by the peer-to-peer collaborative discussions in fostering the teachers’ conceptual development. Whyte (2011) investigated the relationship between learning opportunities and teacher cognition in the context of a videoconferencing professional development program for FLs in primary schools. The program incorporated several elements (e.g., web-based sharing and online communication tools) that supported peer collaboration. Her findings reveal the participant teachers’ positive evaluations of these tools. According to the teachers, these tools (e.g., the project wiki and the discussion forum) allowed better communication and clearer insights into their own and colleagues’ classroom experiences. In that context, the teachers found it reassuring and helpful to be able to compare experiences and ask for help from the group, and even those who posted little claimed to read everything and find benefit, particularly in terms of social interaction. In addition to that, the sharing of messages, class video clips, and learner feedback as the program advanced allowed for reflection and discussion, and helped teachers to adjust later sessions in accordance with their experience of earlier ones.

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CALL researchers have also discussed structures for sustained peer collaboration and for providing ongoing pedagogical support for teachers interested in continuing professional development. Several studies have shown the special role of online platforms in encouraging the formation of communities of practice to support peer collaboration not only during training programs, but also beyond them (e.g., Haines, 2015; O’Dowd, 2015; Whyte, 2011, 2015). O’Dowd (2015), for instance, reports on the findings of the INTENT project, which developed a platform (www.unicollaboration.eu) where educators can find the resources and training materials necessary to learn about and to set up telecollaborative exchanges. As described by O’Dowd (op. cit., p. 70), this online platform uses several tools or approaches to facilitate peer collaborative learning. First, practitioners are allowed to add their own sample projects and tasks to the different databases of the platform, thereby sharing their own experiences and examples of good practice. These contributions can then be commented on and rated by fellow practitioners. The platform also includes an online community of forums where telecollaborative practitioners can post problems and receive help and feedback from experienced peers. Finally, the training section of the platform offers practitioners a collection of videos where experienced practitioners speak of their own experiences and opinions related to issues such as finding a good telecollaborative teaching partner, developing effective tasks, and so on. The project findings have shown that the online spaces for sharing and collaboration were especially welcomed by novice telecollaborators, who benefitted from the professional advice and insights provided by their more experienced peers. Haines (2015) suggests building up an (online) database of teachers’ perceptions of technological affordances. According to her, developing understanding of learning affordances should be more actively supported in professional development programs by building in time for reflection on pedagogical purposes in relation to new tools and by encouraging teachers to share the affordances they perceive. Haines (op.cit.) bases her recommendations on a longitudinal study she conducted with two experienced FL teachers working together. The study describes how their perceptions of the affordances of two CMC tools (blogs and wikis) developed over time. The research findings showed that working collaboratively as a team was integral to their learning and the collaborative nature of the team helped broaden their perceptions of affordances. Haines concludes that teachers could benefit from an appreciation of how other teachers perceive language learning affordances, both in ways that are generalizable and

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are specific to individual contexts. This aim could be achieved by creating online platforms where teachers could read about and observe technology use, and also participate in discussions with experienced users of new tools. Researchers have also emphasized the importance of developing collaboration skills that will allow teachers to continue their professional development informally through experimentation and group practice in their workplace. Tai (2015), for instance, designed a CALL professional development program that incorporated peer teaching and feedback from colleagues with the aim of facilitating the development of collaboration skills. In her study, teachers were given several opportunities to collaborate with peers. For instance, they could use an online learning community to share thoughts, support each other on lesson planning, reflect on their learning, and learn from each other by reading and commenting on peers’ reflections. Haines (2015) also highlights the importance of collaborative skills for informal learning. Her study shows how the participant teachers’ understanding about the possibilities for using blogs and wikis in the classroom developed considerably during the investigation period. However, as the authors pointed out, their situated learning largely consisted of using the tools in practice and experimenting individually and collaboratively to find out what worked in their particular contexts. Therefore, most of their learning occurred informally rather than through formal means. Hampel and Stickler (2005) and Hampel (2009) also cite the exchange of experience, ideas, and opinions with their peers as one of the main sources for support and continuing development available for online tutors beyond training. These findings indicate the importance of conceptualizing CALL teacher education programs that create space for in-service peer collaboration. This section has discussed research findings showing that collaborative sharing and analysis of classroom experiences can function as a powerful mechanism for systemic change in teacher thinking and classroom practice. These findings also indicate the potential of collaborative, inquiry-based models of language teacher education in fostering the development of collaboration skills, which can empower teachers to use their professional networks to continue their learning informally in their workplace. The principles and ideas discussed in this section informed the overall conceptualization of the TECALL program and, more specifically, the design and implementation of the professional development workshops. In the next section, I provide a detailed description of the main structure, content, and aim of these workshops. This section will be followed by one in which I discuss

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research findings showing how the in-service teachers supported each other’s conceptual learning and professional development through peer scaffolding during workshop sessions.

3 TECALL professional development workshops My decision to include input-based workshops separate from the in-service teachers’ classroom teaching was motivated by several considerations. First, I believe that having a dedicated course on using new technologies in the classroom ensured that sufficient time was allotted for teachers to learn the necessary technological and pedagogical skills under the guidance of an academic expert. Secondly, it also helped the participants to concentrate on learning how to use the technologies without having to worry about immediately applying the new knowledge to a teaching situation. Thirdly, a separate workshop with a focus on teacher development also strengthened the program and enhanced its status in the participating schools. Another practical advantage was the possibility for the participating teachers from different schools to take the course together and thus share their experiences. The first step for the design of the professional development workshops was to conduct a needs analysis and an assessment of teachers’ levels of technopedagogical competencies, since decisions needed to be made as to what needed to be taught and to what level. As explained in Chapter 2, the first stage of the program focused on the investigation of teachers’ pedagogical practice, their level of technology literacy, and the degree of integration of computer technology into their teaching. Data were collected through in-depth structure interviews and classroom observations for a period of three months. I have drawn on Hubbard and Levy’s framework (2006) to define the main competencies to be developed by the in-service teachers during the TECALL program. The design of the workshops also followed guidelines proposed in the literature (e.g., Guichon and Hauck, 2011; Haines, 2015), which emphasize the importance of developing skills for lifelong learning and self-development, such as competencies that can be transferred and applied in different CALL contexts, collaboration skills, and strategies for identifying learning affordances of new technologies. Having defined the main goals and competencies to be developed by the teachers, I needed to customize the content and teaching approach according to their needs. Since most teachers were beginner users of the IWB, it was thought

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that teachers needed to develop basic technical skills to use the technology before they could discover how to implement it in the classroom. Therefore, during the first half of the professional development program the workshop sessions had a stronger technology focus. In these sessions, we looked at various applications, that is, the IWB software, Web 2.0 tools, and language learning software, among others, to explore their potential to support constructivist classroom practice. In later sessions, a more pedagogy-driven approach was used, in which we started by identifying a set of learning principles and then used the technologies to implement them. For instance, if teachers want to teach vocabulary in a way that maximizes retention, how could the IWB assist them in achieving this purpose? Or, if teachers want to teach grammar in a communicative way, what ICT tools could facilitate this process? In line with a sociocultural approach to teacher education, the teaching approach used during the workshops also followed recommendations in the CALL literature (e.g., Reinders, 2009). Therefore, special focus was given to the modeling and constructing of authentic tasks and the relating of theory to practice through practical examples and applications. The aim was to move beyond an understanding of technology to an understanding of how technology can be exploited to enhance language learning. Although the main focus of the workshops was to learn how to exploit the IWB for teaching, I used a more generic approach to technology education in order to provide the participant teachers with basic skills that would enable them to apply many technologies to a teaching situation. The idea was to equip teachers with general technologybased education skills that are independent of any particular technology, and thus future-proof (e.g., criteria for the design and evaluation of digital educational resources, analytical skills for the evaluation of technologymediated interaction). Another important aim of the workshops was to support peer collaboration and sharing of expertise among the participating teachers. In the following, I provide further information on the content and pedagogical approach used in the workshops. Ten different types of workshops were conceptualized, but the total amount of workshops actually implemented was higher since there were two groups of teachers in different settings. A group of three teachers attended the workshops at their school (Group 1), while the other four teachers attended the workshops at the university (Group 2). All teachers were invited to the final whole-day workshop, which took place at the university. Regarding the composition of the two groups, Group 2 had a steady team, who maintained

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regular attendance and commitment to the workshop throughout the program. In Group 1, however, participation was more sporadic and inconsistent. Also, other school teachers often joined the meetings spontaneously. Each workshop, which lasted on average for two hours, focused on a particular topic and targeted the development of specific technical and pedagogical skills. The structure and process of each workshop also varied, depending on its objectives. However, all sessions followed a general format including the following phases: sharing personal technology-based classroom experiences, input from the academic expert, whole-group evaluation of ICT tools, making connections to current classroom practice, identifying potential gaps in professional development, and collection of the teachers’ suggestions for future topics and activities. At the beginning of the workshops, the teachers were invited to ask questions about the content of the previous session, to share their personal experiences with the application of their newly acquired ICT skills, and to report on any other professional development opportunities they had outside the TECALL program. This phase usually lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes. Next, I described the focus and general structure of the session and provided them with printed resources related to the topic at hand. Some articles were researchbased articles. They were mainly based on my previous research, but also on case studies and more practice-based articles written by pre- or in-service teachers. The next step involved the presentation of the target ICT tools and resources in order to model technology use (e.g., an electronic flipchart used in a taught lesson or prepared for use in a future lesson with the IWB, or ready-made software that can be used in conjunction with an IWB, etc.). These materials then triggered whole-group discussions focusing on the critical examination of the ICT tools and resources in question in connection with their own practice. In the final part of the sessions, the teachers reflected on what they had learned and made suggestions for topics or resources that could be included in future workshops. In the following, I provide a brief description of the content and structure of each session. ●

Workshop 1: “Discovering London”—the main aim was to provide teachers with general ideas of language teaching activities that can be developed with an IWB. The teachers took the role of language learners, while I demonstrated an IWB-based lesson focusing on the topic “Planning a Trip to London.” The aim of the session was to show how the IWB tools and resources could be integrated in different phases of a ninety-minute lesson.

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Workshop 2: “The Interactive Whiteboard Software”—this workshop addressed the design of electronic flipcharts with the IWB software (ACTIVstudio and Notebook). The teachers became familiar with the software tools that were used to design the electronic flipcharts used in the previous session and were introduced to the basic process of designing new digital materials. Workshop 3: “Let’s Go Hands-on”—in the first part of the session the teachers received individual support from pre-service teachers to practice the design of electronic flipcharts. They were free to choose the topic and learning focus of their materials. In the second part, they were invited to explain the design process and to use their flipcharts to peer-teach the whole group. Workshop 4: “Planning an IWB-based Lesson”—during this workshop, a prepared lesson was used to trigger and contextualize a discussion on different aspects of interaction and classroom management in IWB-based lessons. Two teachers (one pre-service and one in-service) presented the ideas and digital materials for one of their lessons to the whole group, who provided feedback on different aspects of the planned lesson and made concrete suggestions for improvement. Workshop 5: “Whiteboards and Language Learning Software”—this workshop introduced the teachers to examples of ready-made language learning software that can be used in conjunction with IWBs. It included software that is specifically designed for IWBs and touch screens (e.g., Face2Face from Cambridge English) and others that have a more general application (e.g., mind mapping software, gaming software). The teachers were invited to evaluate these materials critically and reflect on practical strategies for integrating them into their own lessons. Workshop 6: “Whiteboards and Web 2.0 Tools”—this workshop focused on practical strategies and ideas to exploit the potential of Web 2.0 tools to support constructivist practice in IWB-based lessons. The participants were introduced to several tools and resources (e.g., Quizlet) that were tested in whole-group activities and assessed for suitability and added value. Workshop 7: “Using the IWB to Support Speaking”—during this workshop the participants took the role of language learners and participated in several learning activities that demonstrated the potential of the IWB to enhance the development of speaking skills. The teachers were also

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invited to reflect critically on these activities and share their own ideas on the topic. Workshop 8: “Using IWB-based Flipcharts to Teach Grammar”—this workshop focused on two main topics: (a) teaching grammar in a communicative way and (b) defining criteria for the design and evaluation of IWB-based language learning materials. In the first part of the workshop, the participants reflected on the main principles of grammar teaching based on a communicative approach. In the second part, they were invited to evaluate available grammar teaching resources for the IWB (electronic flipcharts) based on these principles. The participants were also involved in defining relevant criteria for the design and evaluation of IWB-based resources in more general terms. Workshop 9: “Teaching Vocabulary with an IWB”—the first part of the workshop focused on principles and techniques for vocabulary teaching and learning. In the second part, the teachers were shown video clips of pre- and in-service TECALL teachers using the IWB to introduce, practice, or recycle vocabulary. They were then invited to reflect on how the potential of the IWB was exploited in each activity and how effective the techniques were in promoting vocabulary learning. Workshop 10: “The Integration of Whiteboards in the British Council”— this final workshop was a whole-day event provided by a guest speaker from the British Council and had a more general focus. The trainer reported on a model for the integration of IWBs followed by the British Council, and provided teachers with concrete examples of classroom activities. The workshop also had a hands-on component where participants could put their ideas into practice.

This section summarized the overall structure and aims of the professional development workshops. As explained here, during these workshops the teachers were given many opportunities to reflect on and critically evaluate concrete examples of technology-enhanced classroom activities. This approach created space for collaboration and dialogue. As will be seen in the research data discussed in the following section, the social interaction that took place during the workshops worked as a mediational means that supported teacher learning. For reasons of space, the data analysis focuses on peer interactions that took place in Group 2. The choice of this specific group was based on the fact that the group was more successful in creating a team atmosphere that facilitated knowledge exchange and network building.

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4 Research findings The analysis of peer-to-peer interaction has shown that the participant teachers in Group 2 used various scaffolding tools and techniques to support each other in broadening their knowledge and expertise, gaining new perspectives on technology use, and in envisioning further opportunities for professional development. In this section, I discuss a few sequences of peer interaction that show how the teachers supported each other’s conceptual learning and professional development through various means, namely by sharing their theoretical and practical knowledge, by providing critical and constructive feedback to each other, and by encouraging and nurturing each other’s selfesteem.

4.1 Sharing knowledge with each other As discussed in Chapter 2, the participant teachers had different teaching profiles and levels of technology competence. This situation increased their opportunities for learning from each other and for exchange of experiences. The following sequence, for instance, shows a more experienced teacher (T2) sharing her knowledge about Web 2.0 with a less technically expert teacher (T4), who was not familiar with this concept: T2: I think the Web 2.0 is, in my opinion, the most . . . what can I say . . . the most important, the most significant development ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press. Because now the average person can actually be active on the Web. . . .You have blogs; you can share your blogs. Everybody can publish, collaborate, interact, and cooperate with everybody else. T4: Is this the same when I go to the Teachers’ TV video? Are they all teachers who use this kind of Web? T2: The way it would work is that you would go to a blog . . . there are blogs for teachers. You can write a comment, or you can ask how did you do this? And maybe you have something interesting that you would like to share, so you add to it. . . . The whole world kind of works together and it goes on Twitter. T4: Is it the same system when you use YouTube and you can comment on things? T2: Yes, YouTube is a perfect example. (Workshop 6)

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Before this sequence, I had asked the teachers if they were familiar with the definition of Web 2.0. All teachers but T4 said that they knew what it meant. I then asked the group to explain the concept to T4. T2 took then the lead and explained it by providing several concrete examples from her practice, including her personal use of several tools like https://del.icio.us/ (not shown in this sequence). The response of T4 in line 7 shows that, in spite of T2’s detailed explanation, she still could not grasp the full meaning of Web 2.0. The teacher initially thought that the Web 2.0 had to do with sharing content online that can be used by others, as for example, the UK-based online platform “Teacher’s TV.” T2 then went on to explain that the Web 2.0 went beyond knowledge sharing and included collaboration and exchange of ideas. She scaffolded T4’s understanding of the concept through concrete examples and detailed explanations. T4’s final question suggests that she understood the concept and benefitted from peer scaffolding to develop through her ZPD. Our findings have also shown that the social interaction that occurred during the workshops opened up a pedagogical space for the teachers to engage in collaborative exploration of the affordances of the new tools introduced in the program. In line with previous research (e.g., Haines, 2015), our findings have shown that the participant teachers assessed the affordances of technology in relation to their local context and their students’ needs. Therefore, their perceptions of the potential of a particular technological tool to support learning differed in many ways. This created a positive scenario in which the teachers could benefit from each other’s insights and experiences. In the following field note sequence, I describe a workshop episode in which one of the teachers shared her experience in using the IWB to add more flexibility to her lessons, as she could draw on internet resources to “go off-trail” in order to respond to her pupils’ needs as they arose. I wrote: Then we talked about the potential of the whiteboard to be used to provide more flexibility to the lessons. T7 said that she usually uses google to check the collocation of words during IWB-based lessons. She explained the use of inverted commas and she also used the search strategy “site:co.uk” in order to make sure only British websites will appear. T4 did not know that and she said that she would start doing that from now on. She explained that she has a Scottish student and she was sometimes not sure whether his sentences were correct because, although he is a native speaker, his English is not so good. I demonstrated this on the whiteboard and also added that they could use the file type command or the file format option on the advanced Search screen to

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limit their research to PowerPoint presentations or other document types. (Field Notes, Workshop 6)

In these notes, I described a sequence in which T4 indicates her intention to incorporate T7’s ideas into her practice in order to fulfill her own purposes. The data obtained through video-recorded lessons and VSRs (see Chapter 6) indicate that T4 incorporated this strategy into her teaching in a later phase of the program. My interview data show that peer contributions (like the one above) that pointed toward specific (unknown) technological affordances were especially valued by the participant teachers because they emerged from teachers’ everyday practice with technology in contexts that are similar to their own. Findings of previous research have also shown the special role played by peer feedback and peers’ ideas in supporting teachers’ conceptual development and understanding of affordances (e.g., Kozlova and Priven, 2015; Haines, 2015). In my research, the teachers also valued the opportunities to take up the role of more competent peers who can assist their colleagues in developing new skills and knowledge. My interview data also show that these opportunities were important for enhancing teachers’ self-esteem and motivation to continue investing in their professional development in CALL.

4.2 Challenging each other’s pedagogical thinking In her position as technology expert teacher in the group, teacher T2 played an important role in pushing her peers to take greater risks in their technologyenhanced teaching. For instance, she often used her practical or theoretical knowledge to challenge the other participants when they showed reluctance to try out new resources and ideas. In the following sequence, for instance, the teachers had been introduced to the concept of wikis and their role in language pedagogy. One of the examples provided was the use of mind mapping and online collaborative writing. T7 expressed her skepticism toward using this tool in her own context because of the open structure of the wiki and the potential risk of vandalism by students. T2 then challenged her by drawing on research findings obtained in the UK, which showed that, once students take ownership of their product, it is unlikely that they will vandalize it: T7: I’m pretty sure in our classes you won’t have a mind map later on because one of the students just freaks out and deletes the whole thing. T2: I don’t know. . . . When I was at BETT in London in January, I attended a presentation about things like this in the classroom and one of the teachers

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attending said exactly the same thing, and then this presenter who had tested it in a large district in the north of London with really bad students said No! . . . The basic thing is that the students won’t destroy this because it’s their own . . . because they created it. So we just have to try. (Workshop 6)

This sequence shows that, once T7 was given the opportunity to externalize her understandings of new technological concepts and her questions concerning them, a mediational space was created where she could rethink her personal theories. This interaction sequence also shows the special role played by T2 in challenging her peer’s beliefs and in pushing her toward new levels of understanding and insight. It is not clear whether T2’s comments had an impact on T7’s thinking at that point of her professional development, but my interview data reveal that T7 eventually used this technological tool in her teaching. During the workshop discussions, the teachers also challenged each other regarding the pedagogical use of the new technologies introduced in the program. As pointed out earlier, the teachers used a variety of language teaching methods (from project-based to grammar translation) in their practice. Therefore, the mind-set with which they approached technology use in the classroom also differed depending on their views about language and language learning. This variation proved to be a positive element of the program because it allowed teachers to have access to different pedagogical perspectives and evaluate their practice from different angles. This can be seen, for instance, in the following sequence, in which the group was reflecting about the potential of a specific Web 2.0 tool—Quizlet—to enable learners to create online exercises to test each other in various language areas: Teacher educator: I just wonder how it would work if pupils produce things and they make mistakes, for example . . . . T2: I was wondering about that too, and I thought maybe it might be good to let them type it on a word document first and have the teacher go over it, and the teacher can say: you can’t create a game immediately, we first have to work a bit on the spelling. Otherwise, you might end up with spelling problems. . . . I think in the beginning only the teacher uses Quizlet and tries to work together with the class. T4: I think in my class I know that two or three students could find mistakes and say: Hey there was a mistake; also . . . I think it’s also a chance . . . to have a closer look. I think the advantage is bigger than the disadvantage.

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T7: I know what you can do, you just tell them to email the teacher if they find any spelling mistakes. Teacher educator: So they correct each other and would be learning with each other. T2: Yes, ok, so the others would have to edit it. (Workshop 7)

In the first line, I pose a question to trigger a discussion about the possible challenges of using this technology, since pupils might create online exercises that contain language mistakes and could end up learning wrong grammar/ spelling from each other. T2 was the first teacher to react to that by saying that she had the same concern. She then suggested an approach to technology use that is more teacher-centered but could minimize the chances of pupils’ mistakes. T4 then disagrees with her ideas and proposes an approach where the learners take responsibility for correcting each other. In line 13, T7 contributes to the discussion by proposing a solution that includes both ideas. This is an interesting sequence because it shows how the teachers’ pedagogical views impact their thinking about the potential of this specific technological tool. As described in Chapter 2, T2 and T4 started off the program with very different views about their roles in the technology-enhanced classroom. T2 used a more teacher-centered approach because of her core belief that her students needed more guidance and immediate feedback in their exploration of language, while T4 was a strong advocate of task-based and project-based approaches, which see students as active agents in their own learning. Therefore, in line with her pedagogical orientation, T4 points out that, in this context, even though the teacher might lose control, “the advantage is bigger than the disadvantage” because the students will be able to support each other’s learning. In the last line, T2 confirms that she understood the approach proposed by T4. Although it is not clear whether T2 incorporated T4’s ideas into her practice later on, this sequence shows that, through social interaction, she was challenged to think about new approaches that created a cognitive conflict that may result in a change of her pedagogical thinking. It is also important to highlight that, even though I initiated this episode of reflective analysis, my main aim was to create a dialogic space for reflection, where the teacher educator and the teachers could act as partners exploring a pedagogical issue together. In this sequence, all participants felt free to ask open questions and propose speculative analysis. In line with a sociocultural approach to teacher education (Johnson, 2009), the scaffolding was therefore mutual and reflective and the

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pedagogical knowledge sought was not held by any of the participants, but was co-constructed through dialogue and reflection, as all participants sought to develop a better understanding of the issues in question. My research data also show that the participating teachers often raised general issues about technology use in the classroom, which caused their in-service peers to rethink specific aspects of their own practice. In the following sequence, for instance, T7 referred to a challenge faced by her colleagues in her school. Her contribution then triggered a discussion on the issue of “pace” in technologyenhanced lessons: T7: The interactive whiteboard was also a topic in our last teacher conference. And some of our teachers complained that the software is a little bit slow picking up their writing. . . . So you’re not as quick as on the whiteboard or blackboard, and so they always want to get on with it and very quickly, so they complained about it. . . . I think they are probably traditional ones who want to develop the picture, everything on the board during the lesson . . . . Teacher educator: But I think this developing . . . I really liked when my math teachers developed things together with the whole class, when there was this interaction. Because nowadays when I teach I use PPT a lot, I notice that sometimes I go too fast and some students can’t follow me. The good ones can follow and they benefit because it’s so nicely prepared, but some of them get lost because I go too fast. If I had to write on the board, because I need the time, and then these students would be able to follow me and ask questions and I could stop. ... T7: Yeah, I will let them know that they get more students in the way that they write (slowly), so more slowly, right? T4: I noticed that in these six lessons with the IWB, we created a lot in a very short time, and afterwards I thought, I was so fast . . . I could not have done that with the blackboard. I liked the lessons, but afterwards I was absolutely exhausted and the pupils also. (Workshop 9)

In this sequence, T7 brought up a topic that had bothered her during a teacher conference in her school. She explained that some of her colleagues had problems in adapting to the IWB because they wanted to use it in a similar way as a blackboard, that is, by writing on it and developing the content with the students during the lesson. She referred to them as the “traditional ones,” probably in contrast to more technologically oriented teachers who tend to use more predesigned electronic resources, which can save time and increase pace

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in lessons. I reacted to her contribution by discussing the relationship between lesson pace and learner understanding. I provided an example of my own practice, showing that the use of predesigned materials can be counterproductive to student learning. In line 16, T7 stated her intention to share this new “insight” with her school colleagues. Another interesting aspect of this sequence is the impact that T7’s contribution (and further discussion) had on T4’s reflective processes. While analyzing her own practice, T4 admitted that she had not thought about these issues when she recently developed six IWB-based lessons in collaboration with a pre-service teacher. In hindsight, she realized that the excessive use of electronic resources might have led them to work in a very fast-paced environment that compromised student learning and classroom well-being. As discussed in Chapter 6, T4 used these insights gained during the workshop to evaluate her lessons during video-stimulated reflective sessions. The analysis of interaction in the sequence above shows that the teachers also supported and challenged each other indirectly, through their spontaneous contributions or questions. These findings show that, since all teachers were facing similar techno-pedagogical challenges, they were often in a better position to raise issues and concerns that were also relevant to their in-service peers’ practice. The topic discussed in this sequence is in fact a very important aspect of technology use in general, and of IWB use in particular. The balance between lesson pace and learner understanding is often debated in the IWB literature. Jewitt, Moss, and Cardini (2007), for instance, state that the use of predesigned presentation materials on the IWB increases the pace of the lesson and helps the teacher to control the rhythm of the class by structuring the lesson in advance. However, they also point out that “the use of such prepared presentational texts may result in a rigid scaffolding and superficial interactivity” (Jewitt, Moss, and Cardini, 2007, p. 311).

4.3 Encouraging and nurturing each other’s self-esteem Apart from sharing their knowledge and challenging each other’s pedagogical thinking, my research data also show that the teachers supported each other’s professional development through encouragement and praise. The teachers often shared positive professional development opportunities they had experienced and recommended them to the group. In the following sequence, we can identify one of those moments: T7: If you want to have a website, you should use Moodle.

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T4: Some of my colleagues are doing further education in Moodle, but I already have so much to do. T7: But you’re already an expert! T4: I should keep in mind, this is very important. . . . Maybe I can offer exercises like these to the students. T7: But this is very specific, you can only use with the whiteboard software, but there are so many other options, like hot potatoes and stuff. There is so much you can upload to Moodle and your pupils can do. You can put this into a PPT presentation and then you can have on one slide you have an exercise with gaps, and the next slide with the answers. You can copy and paste the sentences from your flipchart to the PPT presentation, which is not much more work. T4: Yeah, I should join it. T2: There is going to be a Moodle workshop for language teachers. T4: Where? (Workshop 8)

This discussion was triggered by T4’s interest in offering her students a way to use the IWB-based materials she produced to practice their language skills outside the classroom. She then asked the whole group if they knew of an online platform where she could upload her materials for the students. In the first line, T7 suggests Moodle, since this a platform she and T2 having been using in their practice for a long time. In the next lines, T4 states that she is familiar with the term, she is interested in learning more about it, but she cannot afford the time to do it. After that, T7 gets engaged in persuading her to use a technological tool that she finds useful and effective. It is also interesting to observe T7’s commitment (in lines 7 to 13) to raise T4’s awareness to the possibility of using different resource formats that can be more accessible to the students. In the last line, it can be seen that T7 has managed to awaken T4’s interest to attend a further development course on that topic. In fact, in a subsequent workshop (Workshop 9) T4 reflected on her experience in attending a course on Moodle. Another important aspect of this sequence is the important role played by T7 in nurturing T4’s professional self-esteem. In line 4, she uses the statement “But you are an expert!” as a way to remind T4 that the skills she had already acquired in the TECALL program would facilitate her understanding of this new tool. Therefore, she would not need so much time to learn about that technology and incorporate it into her practice. In general, my research findings show that the participating teachers experienced improved confidence and self-esteem

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through the mutual support offered by their peers. As discussed in Section 2, recent research (e.g., Haines, 2015; O’Dowd, 2015) has shown that this type of peer support and encouragement is especially important in technologyenhanced scenarios, since teachers often experience frustration and anxiety as they learn about technology and adapt their practice to integrate its use. In another occasion, it was T4’s turn to encourage T7 to try out a specific strategy for professional development. At this point of Workshop 9, the teacher had been talking about what she had learned from a collaborative pre-/in-service school project that she had been involved in recently. In the following sequence, we can see that T7 shows interest in the project and asks further questions about it: T7: What kind of project was it? Did you pair up with another teacher? The German teacher? T4: No, with a student. T7: So the guy you mentioned was not a teacher, he was a student. T4: Yeah, a student from the PH (University). So we talked about the planning together, and sometimes I said, “Daniel it’s your job” (laughing). Teacher educator: Did you like working with him? T4: Yeah, it was fun and he’s very nice. T7: My colleague is working with a student, she says she is very nice, she helps a lot, but she never wants to take over any lessons. T4: My student is so open-minded. So I ask: “Would you like to plan it together, yes, yes,” and I say “I will do that, that, that, and you do the rest.” (Workshop 9)

In the first line, T7 wanted to find out more about the type of collaboration that took place in the project. It had not been clear to her, for instance, that T4 had collaborated with a student teacher. T4 then went on to explain that this had been a successful collaboration with a pre-service teacher who was very openminded and willing to support her in the planning and teaching processes. It is important to note that, at this point of the TECALL program, T7 was the only participant in-service teacher who had not paired up with a pre-service teacher yet. T4, on the other hand, had already developed a few collaborative projects, and she was very enthusiastic about the potential of this strategy for supporting her professional development in CALL. At this point of the program, T7 was still skeptical about this strategy. In line 9, she also mentioned the experience of a colleague who had a mixed experience with a pre-service teacher. It is reasonable to conclude that T4’s positive testimony may have worked as encouragement for

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T7 to take advantage of the pre-/in-service collaboration strategy as opportunity for professional development within the program. This section has shown that the participating teachers supported each other’s development by sharing positive professional development opportunities they experienced inside and outside the program, and by encouraging each other to step outside their comfort zones and explore new opportunities for further developing their CALL competencies. Research has shown that this type of suggestions and recommendations provided by peers have the potential to be particularly influential because they are based on teachers’ personal experiences, and thus, have a special relevance to their immediate environments and teaching contexts. It is also important to highlight that the trust and respect that was created in Group 2 facilitated this process of knowledge exchange and mutual support. In that context, the teachers felt completely comfortable in sharing and welcoming ideas from colleagues with whom they had already established rapport. As pointed out in the beginning of this chapter, the same level of trust and respect could not be built in Group 1 because the group attendance was irregular, which made it more difficult to create a team culture.

5 Summary and conclusion This chapter has discussed research data collected during the professional development workshops showing that the in-service teachers learned from their colleagues’ expertise, experience, and insights. The analysis of social interaction shows that they benefitted from their peers’ scaffolding to gain new information, explore new pedagogical perspectives, and envision new opportunities for professional development. The chapter also related the research findings to previous literature on peer collaboration, which emphasize the benefits of this type of scaffolding to develop new conceptual understandings that may lead to transformative practice. The chapter has also pointed toward several important principles for the design of professional development workshops that enrich the opportunities for peer collaboration, namely (a) creating space for social interaction and critical reflection, (b) positioning teachers as partners in the educational process, (c) working with tasks that are grounded in practice, and (d) cultivating a supportive and positive environment within the group.

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As already pointed out in the descriptions of the workshops, the developed activities included opportunities for teachers to share their CALL experiences, reflect on their professional learning, and identify strategies for further development. The “sharing and reflection” phases of the workshops created an open forum for teachers to externalize their current understandings of concepts, raise issues of interest and concern, and request support from the teacher educator and colleagues. The findings have shown that this feature enabled the creation of a fruitful learning community where teachers could benefit from each other’s scaffolding to gain a better understanding of issues that were directly relevant to their individual interests and to their practice. Another feature of the workshops that facilitated peer collaboration was the view of the teachers as partners in the educational process. In line with this perspective, the teachers were invited to contribute actively to the design and development of workshop activities. Therefore, in my role as the teacher educator and main organizer of the professional development program, I did not see myself as “the expert,” but as a coach or facilitator who supported the teachers’ learning processes and also learned from them. For instance, I often reminded the teachers of the great significance of the knowledge and expertise that they were developing as regular users of the IWB in the EFL primary and secondary classroom. The aim was to empower them to take ownership of their professional development and also to assume responsibility for each other’s learning. Since the teachers had different levels of technological expertise, the more experienced ones often took the role of “peer experts” and assisted their colleagues in their continual development process. For instance, they took pride in sharing their newly acquired competencies and often took control of the IWB to demonstrate a new skill they had acquired on their own and wanted to share with the group. Peer collaboration was also encouraged through the use of authentic tasks that were grounded in classroom practice. As discussed in Chapter 2, other elements of the TECALL program, for example, pre-/in-service collaboration and VSR, focused on the design and analysis of CALL activities and resources embedded into the teachers’ regular classroom practice. During the professional development workshops, however, the teachers were mostly involved in the analysis of authentic materials and classroom activities, which were relevant to their teaching, but not directly based on their regular practice. The main aim was to give teachers the opportunity to analyze technology-enhanced teaching from different perspectives: the student perspective (e.g., while assuming the

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role of pupils in lessons taught by the teacher educator), the peer perspective (while analyzing video sequences of lessons taught by other teachers), and the trainer/researcher perspective (while developing criteria for the design and analysis of IWB-based materials). My findings have shown that this practiceoriented approach supported peer collaboration because the teachers’ practical expertise could be brought to the forefront and used as a powerful resource for critical analysis. The teachers could then draw upon their practical pedagogical knowledge and evolving understandings about the use of technology to make insightful contributions that were relevant to all group participants, including the teacher educator. Finally, my research findings have shown that the participants were more likely to collaborate and support each other when trust and rapport were established over time. The analysis of social interaction during the meetings has shown that the two workshop groups were characterized by different degrees of peer collaboration. While Group 2 was able to create a team culture that facilitated knowledge exchange and network building, fewer instances of peer collaboration could be identified in Group 1. Several internal and external factors might have contributed to this. My findings have shown that one of these factors had to do with the composition of the two groups and the group dynamics. Group 2 had a steady team, who maintained regular attendance and commitment to the workshop throughout the program. In Group 1, however, participation was more sporadic and inconsistent. Furthermore, the fact that other school teachers often joined the meetings spontaneously on an ad hoc basis may have had a negative impact on the social-emotional dynamics of that group. These findings point toward the importance of attending to issues related to group composition and group dynamics in order to create a learning environment that supports peer collaboration and teamwork. As already pointed out, an important aim of the TECALL program was to create opportunities for the participant teachers to continue their professional development beyond the TECALL program. Therefore, the conceptualization of the program included elements to encourage the building of networks of support among the participant teachers. My initial plan was to use Moodle as a platform to set up a virtual learning environment where teachers could complete ongoing logs recording their classroom use of IWB, provide feedback to each other, and exchange ideas about technology. Unfortunately, this aim could not be fulfilled because the participating teachers had problems with juggling their normal workload and could not find time to take part. However, my research

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data have shown that the participants of Group 2 exchanged their email addresses and phone numbers, and also exchanged ideas and resources beyond the workshops. This shows that, once trust and rapport are established, teachers may find their own informal and preferred ways to keep in touch and continue their collaboration. These findings point toward the importance of creating space for teachers to get to know each other’s skills and strengths, and to develop trust and confidence in each other. This way they will be in a better position to identify points where they can complement each other’s expertise and carry out effective collaboration beyond professional development programs.

6 Reflective questions Interpreting the study: Analyzing your reading 1. This chapter discussed research data showing that the participant teachers provided strategic mediation that fostered their in-service peers’ professional development. What were the main scaffolding tools and techniques used by the teachers to support each other? 2. What were the main CALL-related skills or competencies gained by the teachers as a result of peer scaffolding? 3. The chapter also discussed the role of the CALL teacher educator in encouraging and supporting this type of collaboration. What were the main points made in the chapter? Going further: Relating the findings to your own teaching context 4. In Chapter 5, we showed the benefits of pre-/in-service collaboration, while this chapter has focused on in-service/in-service collaboration. What do you think are the main differences between these two types of collaboration? Discuss the opportunities as well as the challenges. 5. Teachers usually point out that it is hard to find the time to collaborate with their in-service peers. Can you think of individual or institutional initiatives that can create more room for collaboration in schools? Could you implement any of these initiatives in your own context? Making it happen: Hands-on activities 6. Researchers have emphasized the importance of developing collaboration skills that will allow teachers to continue their professional development

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informally in their workplace. Please do some research on definitions of “collaboration skills.” In your opinion, what is the best definition? What do you think is the most effective way to develop such skills? 7. This chapter relies on the transcription of peer interactions for the analysis of scaffolding and its role in cognitive development. Make an audio or video recording of a pair or group activity involving student-student collaboration or teacher-teacher collaboration. Can you find any examples of peer scaffolding and peer collaboration? What tools or techniques were used by the peers to provide strategic mediation? How effective were they? What have you learned from transcribing these interactions?

Part Three

Summary, Implications, and Final Recommendations

C h apte r 8

Impact and Relevance of the Research

Overview This final chapter summarizes the main research findings presented and discussed in this book and outlines implications drawn from this study for the design and evaluation of future CALL teacher education programs. The chapter concludes with the main recommendations and suggestions for further research.

1 Introduction As explained in the preface, the research presented in this book is situated at the intersection of the study of second language teacher cognition research and the investigation of the integration of IWB technology into language education. Second language teachers’ cognitions were investigated as they integrated the IWB (and other associated CALL tools) into their regular foreign language classes and participated in a professional development program—the TECALL program. The program promoted the use of the IWB in accordance with the principles of current models of language teaching pedagogy, such as task-based and project-based language learning. The study investigating this program used a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective as the basis for a conceptual framework to research language teacher cognition (Cross, 2010). The purpose of the study was twofold: (a) to investigate teachers’ developmental paths as they acquired new competencies to use the IWB along with a variety of CALL tools in accordance with current theories of language teaching pedagogy, and (b) to trial a model of CALL teacher education based on a sociocultural approach. The study was carried out in the form of seven in-depth longitudinal case studies with FL teachers at different levels of technology expertise and teaching experience. In the following, I summarize the main findings regarding these two research questions.

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2 Teachers’ developmental paths The research data presented and discussed in this book have focused primarily on research question 2, that is, the evaluation of the TECALL program. A summary of the findings will be presented in Section 3. Moreover, in order to provide the readers with a better overview of my research, this section provides a summary of findings pertaining research question 1. More detailed discussions of the participant teachers’ developmental paths throughout the program are published elsewhere (Cutrim Schmid, 2010; Cutrim Schmid, 2011; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012; Sailer, Cutrim Schmid, and Koenraad, 2014) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission. My findings suggest that in spite of communicatively oriented training, the participant teachers used the IWB to implement a variety of different language teaching approaches, from traditional grammar translation through behaviorist drilling to more communicative and constructivist models of task- and project-based learning (see also Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012; Cutrim Schmid, 2010, 2011; Sailer, Cutrim Schmid, and Koenraad, 2014). The findings also indicate that the individual teachers’ approaches were shaped by a variety of factors, such as their teaching and learning experiences, their pedagogical beliefs, and institutional demands. In the following, I describe the participant teachers’ developmental paths and draw on theories of teacher cognition to outline possible reasons for teachers’ pedagogical choices and actions.

2.1 Teacher 11 Teacher 1 participated in the TECALL program for one year. During this time, she attended five professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from a research assistant, who was working toward her master’s degree. She carried out one pre-/in-service collaborative project and underwent three in-depth interviews, but did not participate in any VSR sessions. Eight lessons were video-recorded in different phases of the program for detailed qualitative analysis. Our research findings have shown that Teacher 1’s language teaching practice combined elements of a communicative approach, for example, by having students perform role-plays and information-gap pair-work activities, with more traditional grammar-translation activities, such as

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creating vocabulary lists and translation drills. However, the IWB was mainly used to support the implementation of the latter type of activities. Most of the time the teacher employed the technology either as a substitute for the traditional blackboard, that is, to annotate grammar rules, grammar exercises, vocabulary items, and construct mind maps, or as a presentation device to display textbook-based information (e.g., reading passages), or selfdesigned worksheets, which were either scanned documents or MS Word files. Therefore, most of the materials projected on the whiteboard by the teacher followed the same design principles of the print-based resources she used before the installation of IWBs in her classroom. The worksheets projected on the IWB screen contained mainly fill-in-the-gaps vocabulary, translation, or grammar exercises. These materials were sometimes completed as a wholeclass activity directly on the board, or pupils were given printed versions to work on individually before annotating their answers on the IWB. The teacher also employed a variety of IWB tools, for example, reveal tool, spotlight, highlighter, and different colors to annotate on these documents and draw students’ attention to key lexical items or grammatical structures. The IWB was also sometimes used for whole-class examination of texts produced by the students. Our findings indicate that the potential affordances of the IWB did not seem to have a transformative effect on T1’s practice. After a one-year participation in the TECALL professional development program, the main change implemented by the teacher was the digitalization of the print-based materials she used before the installation of the technology. The use of the IWB also did not seem to have a profound impact on her language teaching methodology, since she developed merely a limited understanding of the potential of the technology as a “high-tech chalkboard” or projection screen. In spite of these constraints, she still perceived the IWB as having enhanced her teaching, since it allowed her to draw on a great variety of computer-based tools that added more “color” and “excitement” to the pedagogical activities. She also mentioned its positive impact on student motivation and the fact that the technology allowed for a desired seamless access to tools and resources. Possible reasons for the teacher’s conservative use of the technology are her limited engagement in the program (e.g., only one collaborative project with a pre-service teacher and no participation in VSR sessions) and her pedagogical beliefs, which included positioning herself as the source of knowledge and expertise.

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2.2 Teacher 22 Teacher 2 participated in the TECALL program for one year and a half. During this time, she attended six professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from a research assistant, who was working toward her PhD. She carried out one pre-/in-service collaborative project, underwent three in-depth interviews, and participated in three VSR sessions. Eight lessons were video-recorded in different phases of the program for detailed qualitative analysis. The findings have shown that T2 used the PPP method in most of her lessons. The IWB was thus mostly used to facilitate the process of creating a suitable context for the presentation and exploration of grammar topics and as a framework for controlled language practice. For the teaching of grammar, for instance, T2 used an “inductive approach” in which students were guided by her into the discovery of grammar rules with the use of electronic flipchart pages that provided stepby-step multimodal scaffolding (e.g., through the use of drag and drop exercises, hide and reveal techniques, and leading questions). The teacher also used the IWB to integrate a variety of multimedia materials (e.g., songs, YouTube videos, and games) into her practice. These materials were often integrated into the general purposes of the lesson, but sometimes only used as “rewards” for students’ good behavior. T2 believed the introduction of the IWB caused her lessons to become more learner-centered, since the students had more opportunities to interact with the presentations, in contrast to a computer-projector set up where presentations have a more “static” nature. She also often pointed out that the availability of the technology had a positive impact on the students’ willingness to take part in activities that are IWB based. Therefore, her view of learnercenteredness meant basically enhanced learner participation in the context of whole-class interaction. During the reflective sessions, T2 had the opportunity to analyze the classroom interactions and learners’ engagement in more depth, and this situation prompted her to make several self-initiated comments related to the topic of teacher-centeredness. In her analysis, she often noticed a mismatch between her practice and the methodological principles underlying the TECALL program, which emphasized learner-centeredness and learner self-discovery. However, T2 justified the necessity to remain firmly in control of the teaching and learning cycle by referring to the special needs of her students, who have obtained a lower secondary education (level 2—according to the International

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Standard Classification of Education) and thus required more guidance and support in their language learning. She also emphasized the importance of a whole-class arrangement for the work with grammar because this way she could attend to any difficulties, or any grammar misconceptions, as soon as they arose. Therefore, most of her IWB-based activities contained carefully planned steps to move students gradually from language recognition through practice to production. These findings point toward the importance of understanding not only what language teachers have cognitions about but also how the different elements in their cognitive systems interact with each other (Phipps and Borg, 2009). In this case, T2 justified her instructional choices with reference to her core beliefs about teaching and learning. Therefore, in spite of her belief in the importance of using the IWB to support and encourage learner-centeredness, she still insisted on using a teacher-centered approach because of her core belief that these specific students needed more guidance and support, and immediate feedback in their exploration of language. Our findings have shown that Teacher 2 used the IWB in ways that did not reflect clear pedagogical transformation toward constructivist practices. Chapter 6 presents research findings indicating that the teacher further developed her self-reflective skills during the program, and she was able to identify several aspects of her practice that she would like to improve. During the VSR sessions, for instance, the teacher often referred to technology-enhanced task-based activities or projects that she planned to carry out with her pupils in the near future. This shows that the TECALL program planted a few seeds within the teacher that may empower her to find other, more learner-centered ways of exploiting the potential of the technology.

2.3 Teacher 33 Teacher 3 participated in the TECALL program for one year and a half. During this time, she attended six professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from an academic expert, three undergraduate pre-service teachers and one Master-level pre-service teacher. She carried out four pre-/in-service collaborative projects, underwent five in-depth interviews, and participated in five VSR sessions. Twelve lessons were video-recorded in different phases of the program for detailed analysis. In the first year of the professional development program, T3 used the IWB mainly to introduce and practice specific grammar structures, thus, focusing

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predominantly on the IWB affordances that “increased teacher control over the learning process.” Most of the IWB-based activities she designed focused on teacher-controlled practice of language forms. In contrast to T2, who thought that this approach would best serve the needs of her learners, T3 showed some concern that the greater emphasis on whole-class teaching tended to make her lessons more teacher-centered, thus bringing her teaching a step backward. In her attempt to exploit the technology toward a learner-centered approach, she prepared flipcharts that encouraged pupils’ interaction with the IWB. However, most of the IWB-based activities she designed in that stage of the study focused on the level of physical interactivity with the interface of the board (e.g., by clicking on an object to hear a sound, completing fill-in-the-gaps exercises), and there were only a few examples of activities in which cognitive interactivity (Aldrich et al., 1998) or pedagogical interactivity (Beauchamp and Kennewell, 2010) were supported by the use of the technology. In later stages of the project, however, T3 was able to implement pedagogical activities that encouraged pupils’ use of the IWB at a different level. For instance, her students used the IWB to share their knowledge by means of classroom presentations or for creating and implementing content-based quizzes with the use of IWB-based voting software. Therefore, our findings indicate that, although the technology seemed to have had a negative impact on her T3’s practice in the first stages of the TECALL program, she seemed to have gradually redirected her focus from the IWB affordances which “increase teacher control over the learning process to those affordances that open up the classroom to the outside world and to more flexible approaches” (Gray, 2010, p. 74). The findings have shown that T3 benefitted greatly from the pedagogical and technical support provided by the pre-service teachers and the academic expert. As discussed in Chapter 4, T3’s professional development was facilitated by her openness to critical self-scrutiny and the use of dialogue during VSRs, and her strong wish to improve her practice. Chapter 5 also discussed several findings showing how T3 was able to explore the scaffolding opportunities created during the collaboration with the student teachers to further her professional development in CALL.

2.4 Teacher 44 Teacher 4 participated in the TECALL program for one year and a half. During this time, she attended seven professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from an academic expert and

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four undergraduate pre-service teachers. She carried out four pre-/in-service collaborative projects, underwent three in-depth interviews, and participated in five VSR sessions. Thirteen lessons were video-recorded in different phases of the program for detailed qualitative analysis. Drawing on the five evolutionary stages in technology development—entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and invention—identified by Sandholtz, Ringstaff and Dwyer (1997), the findings indicate that T4 was the participating teacher who made the most significant progress toward the “invention stage” of technology integration; that is, when the technology has a positive transformative impact on teachers’ classroom practice. The research data have also shown that, as T4 gained more confidence in exploiting the affordances of the technology, she developed an understanding of the potential for broader technology use. Like other teachers in the program (e.g., T2 and T3), in the first stages of the program T4 used the IWB mainly to guide students into the exploration of grammar and practice of vocabulary, but as the research project progressed she started to use it to support the implementation of task- or project-based activities. Chapter 6 discusses research findings showing that she used the VSRs to reflect on the possible negative consequences of excessive use of the IWB as a presentation tool and to propose strategies for allowing learners to access and work with information through different modes and methods. The research data have shown that T4 developed important competencies enabling her to provide students with stimulating and relevant input via the IWB, motivating them to engage with the various tasks and creating opportunities for co-construction of knowledge. Another essential feature in her teaching with the technology was her view of the students as active agents in their own learning, and not mere recipients of information. The program helped her to integrate computer technology more fully into her teaching, for instance, through the use of Web 2.0 tools (e.g., blogs), email projects, and online platforms (e.g., Moodle). In the last months of the project, the teacher changed schools and many aspects of her professional development became more salient. Because of this change, she was encouraged to share her ICT knowledge with other teachers. Since the new school did not have IWBs, she was invited to supervise the purchasing of new IWB equipment and to provide IWB training to her new colleagues. Later on, she was also invited by IWB manufacturers to provide training to language teachers in other schools and test their equipment with her pupils. These new activities as teacher trainer motivated her to continue searching for self-development. For instance, she took the initiative to visit

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technology fairs to inform herself about new technological tools and educational resources. The data include a variety of factors that might have contributed to T4’s development: (a) a more extended use of the IWB in comparison with the other teachers, (b) her private school environment, which gave her more freedom to try out various approaches and enabled more access to computer-based resources, and most importantly, (c) her strong commitment to the IWB professional development program.

2.5 Teacher 55 Teacher 5 participated in the TECALL program for one year. During this time, she attended five professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from two undergraduate pre-service teachers. She carried out two pre-/in-service collaborative projects, underwent three in-depth interviews, and participated in three VSR sessions in different phases of the program. Eight lessons were video-recorded in different phases of the program for detailed qualitative analysis. In general, T5 evaluated most of her investigated lessons as having a high degree of teacher-centeredness. However, research findings drawn from the VSR sessions and video-recorded lessons indicate that, by the end of the program, the teacher was gradually developing the ability to exploit the technology for the implementation of a more learner-centered approach. The research data have shown that, as T5 exploited the potential of IWBs for the implementation of a socio-cognitive communicative approach to language teaching, she developed competencies mainly in three areas: (a) designing IWB-based interactive materials, (b) managing IWB-based classroom interaction, and (c) finding the right balance of technology use. In the area of material design, for instance, in the initial stages of the program, the teacher was not satisfied with the level of interactivity and authenticity of the materials she created. However, she was constantly thinking of new ways of exploiting the technology toward the use of materials that allow pupils to influence the course of the lesson through their own ideas and needs. Another issue raised by the teacher regarding material design was the consideration of the amount of visual information presented to the pupils on the whiteboard. At an early stage of technology use, the teacher designed materials that contained a great amount of visual stimuli, which might have distracted the pupils from the

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actual learning objectives. However, as the program progressed, T5 developed an increased awareness of the dangers of overwhelming pupils with too much stimuli and instead designed digital materials that were better suited for her objectives. During the video-triggered reflective sessions, the teacher also looked closely at how she managed the interactions around the IWB. She observed, for instance, that the patterns of interaction during the IWB-based activities generally followed the IRF (initiation-response-feedback) structure. The teacher acknowledged, for instance, the fact that she was predominantly in control of the IWB also played an important role in increasing the degree of teacher control in communication. During VSR sessions, she reflected on possible strategies to address this problem. She proposed, for instance, the combination of media (print plus digital) and interaction patterns (individual plus whole class) in order to encourage learner engagement and involvement in the learning process. The research data also show that throughout the research project the teacher developed a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of the IWB technology. In the beginning of the program, the teacher tended to use the IWB in all stages of the lesson. However, as she improved her knowledge of the technology, she grasped a better understanding of the “place” of this technology in the language classroom. She also highlighted the importance of retaining essential aspects of language teaching methodology, such as role-plays, pair work, handling real objects, miming activity, and so on. Our findings have shown that T5 made effective use of the VSRs to reflect critically on her practice and to identify areas for growth and development. The findings also indicate that the teacher invested a good amount of time for the collaborative projects with the pre-service teachers. As discussed in Chapter 5, the teacher valued this collaboration and was always willing to move out of her comfort zone to try out new contemporary didactic concepts introduced by the student teachers. Since she was the first teacher to join the project, she also played an important role in helping to test and refine the research instruments of the TECALL program. She also supported the program by recruiting two colleagues in her school for the main phase of the project and by providing support to these teachers. She attended a few professional development workshops in the main phase, in which she acted as a more competent peer, motivated the other participants, and took the lead to share her recently acquired knowledge and expertise.

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2.6 Teacher 66 Teacher 6 participated in the TECALL program for one year. During this time, she attended six professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from the academic expert and two undergraduate pre-service teachers. She carried out two pre-/in-service collaborative projects, and underwent four in-depth interviews in different phases of the program, but she did not participate in any VSR sessions. Ten lessons were video-recorded in different phases of the program for detailed qualitative analysis. T6 was probably the participating teacher who placed most value on the collaboration with the pre-service teachers. In the initial interviews, she pointed out that she would not have been able to join the program without the technical and pedagogical support of the pre-service teachers. She cited the lack of time to dedicate to the design of IWB materials and her low level of technological expertise as the main reasons for her reluctance. In the final interview, she pointed toward the important role played by the pre-service teachers in motivating her to try out new approaches, take risks, and invest the time and effort to enhance her CALL teaching. One of the best ways to track her professional development in the program is through the evaluation of a school project she developed in collaboration with a pre-service teacher, in which fifth graders were taught geography in English. The main aim of the project was to investigate the potential of the IWB to facilitate learning and teaching in the CLIL classroom. More specifically, the project investigated the potential of the IWB to (a) facilitate the presentation and structuring of content and language material, (b) enhance pupils’ engagement with curriculum content, (c) assist learners in expressing understanding, and d) develop intercultural competence. The analysis of video-recorded lessons and in-depth interviews has shown that the project had a special impact on T6’s professional development. One of the main challenges faced by the teacher during the project was to support her learners’ active involvement during lessons, especially because of their limited proficiency in the target language. After having noticed that the lessons carried out in the pilot phase of the project showed a high degree of teacher-centeredness, T6 and her assistant (pre-service teacher) established learner-centeredness as a key objective of the main phase of the school project. During the project, the teacher made use of a variety of visualization techniques to facilitate understanding of the input. Graphic representations

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(e.g., charts, pictures, maps, diagrams) were used to structure information and to facilitate understanding of concepts, and video-based authentic materials were used to help maximize the students’ exposure to the target language and to model the appropriate use of the language. However, both the design and implementation of the activities posed problems, which the teacher attributed to a misunderstanding of the potential of the IWB as a digital hub. She noticed, for instance, that although pictures can indeed help make input comprehensible, they must be integrated into lessons in ways that make sense to learners and allow time for reflection and formulation of responses if active learner involvement is a priority. In her IWB-based lessons, she also tended to place too much emphasis on the inclusion of multimedia resources, without always considering their appropriate pedagogical exploitation. During in-depth interviews the teacher reflected that her pupils would have needed more time to think and make sense of certain concepts or correlations, and concluded that the use of predesigned presentation materials on the IWB increased the pace of the lesson and helped her to control the rhythm of the class, but often resulted in a rigid scaffolding and superficial interactivity. Throughout the project, the teacher and her assistant reflected on possible strategies to address these issues and on how to find a balance between lesson pace and learner understanding. For instance, they reflected on the importance of involving learners actively in the pedagogical exploitation of multimedia resources (e.g., digital pictures and films), reducing teacher-talking time, and providing learners with enough opportunities for authentic language use in pairs and groups. The analysis of their project data has shown that the teachers developed some important competencies in integrating digital images in IWBsupported instruction in ways that reduce the cognitive load and support the learners in constructing knowledge. For instance, during the main phase of the school project, the teachers planned more group and pair work activities and created more paper-based worksheets to be used in combination with IWBbased activities to support individual reflection as preparation for whole-class discussion.

2.7 Teacher 7 Teacher 7 participated in the TECALL program for six months. During this time, she attended seven professional development workshops and received ongoing technical and pedagogical support from an academic expert. She underwent two in-depth interviews in different phases of the program, but did not participate

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in any VSR sessions. Since the teacher had to withdraw from the program due to family reasons, we were not able to video-record any of her CALL lessons. T7 was an active participant in the professional development workshops in which she often provided many interesting insights and ideas that also benefited the other teachers. The analysis of the two in-depth interviews has shown that the teacher perceived herself as having developed several aspects of CALL expertise during her participation in the program. The teacher pointed out that, due to the lack of extra time, her lessons were the main context for experimenting with the IWB and for trying out her newly acquired skills. She also pointed out that, even though she was not comfortable with this approach, it ended up being effective. She stated that she had become a model for the other teachers attending her classes to learn about the technology, and her students had also developed technical skills that they were then sharing with the other teachers. During the second in-depth interview, the teacher demonstrated some activities on the IWB which showed that she had taken a good amount of information from the professional development workshops and had slowly implemented them in her lessons. Regarding her developmental path, she pointed out that she had started to use the IWB simply as a “high-tech chalkboard” or projector (showing Word documents and PPT presentations), but had gradually developed an understanding of the potential of the technology for enabling broader technology use. Later on, she started exploiting the IWB software to create interactive exercises and used the IWB to integrate internet resources in connection with Moodle. The teacher also pointed out that, since she started using the technology, she felt more enthusiastic and motivated to teach because she could draw on a greater amount of resources during her language lessons (e.g., YouTube videos and digital games), and she thought it became easier to get her students’ attention and engagement. Since the teacher had already developed competencies in other areas of CALL, her learning curve was shorter in comparison to most participating teachers. Before the TECALL program started, she had already started preparing herself to become a teacher trainer on other topics, such as Moodle and language learning software. She also acknowledged that, since she had colleagues coming to her classes to learn about the IWB, she felt some pressure to continue learning in order to be able to show them interesting uses of the technology. Since we were not able to video-record any lessons from T7, the analysis of her developmental paths is only based on her own perceptions.

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2.8 Summary Our findings have shown that the participating teachers took a variety of paths regarding implementation of CALL after training. These findings are in line with previous studies on teacher cognition (e.g., Feryok, 2012; Chao, 2015; Haines, 2015) showing that changes develop in unpredictable ways, that is, they are not directly proportional to input. The seven participant teachers developed differently according to their prior knowledge, teaching context, attitudes, and general pedagogical knowledge, all of which affected how they identified affordances of IWB technology and how they reacted to challenges. The research data thus revealed a considerable variety, both in the ways in which the IWB was exploited pedagogically by the participating teachers and in the extent to which they transformed their classroom teaching practices. Some teachers (e.g., T1 and T2) appropriated the IWB to suit their own needs in maintaining teacher control of learning processes and in managing pupil behavior. However, other teachers (e.g., T3 and T4) were able to use the technology to support the implementation of task- or project-based activities, in which pupils were provided with more opportunities for co-construction of knowledge and self-expression. This shows that each teacher found appropriate matches between technological affordances and their individual pedagogical priorities. However, as Orlando (2009) points out, the evaluation of teacher education programs also needs to consider the “non-constructivist” impacts ICT may have on teachers’ practices. In this specific study, the data have shown that teachers who did not change to a constructivist style of teaching by the end of the program (e.g., T2 and T6) also experienced changes that allowed them to develop novel ways for reflecting on their teaching practices and increased their enthusiasm for trying new teaching strategies. Our findings confirm the highly context-sensitive nature of teacher cognitions. They show that what goes on inside teachers’ heads is inextricably tied to what goes on outside their heads, that is, in the social and educational context in which their teaching takes place (Cross, 2010). Our data have shown that the teachers could not always exploit the IWB in the ways they believed were more appropriate due to a variety of constraints they faced, such as lack of time, lack of access to the technology, and their learners’ abilities. In Chapters 4 and 6, for instance, we have seen that on many occasions the teachers’ stated beliefs did not correspond to what they did in the classroom. The reality check of contextual factors such as workload demands and institutional expectations often functioned as sources of discrepancy. These findings are consistent

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with previous research in teacher cognition showing the special role played by contextual factors in mediating the extent to which teachers are able to implement instruction that is consonant with their cognitions (Feryok, 2012). The data also provide evidence on a range of teacher beliefs that impacted on teachers’ classroom decisions and actions concerning their use of the IWB. While some beliefs were found to hinder the exploration of the IWB toward constructivist practice (e.g., T2’s core belief that her students needed strong guidance and immediate feedback in their exploration of language), other beliefs seemed to facilitate the implementation of a more learner-centered approach to technology use (e.g., T4’s belief in the potential of task- and project-based learning to support language learning). The data have also shown the value of reflective practice as an approach to reduce the gap (i.e., the dissonance) between beliefs and practice. Throughout the program, the teachers were given the opportunity to engage in a productive and sustained examination of their beliefs and reflect on ways of developing their classroom practices. Findings discussed in Chapters 4 and 6 show how T2, T3, and T4 used the VSRs to identify discrepancies between beliefs and practice and to develop strategies to reduce the dissonance between them. These findings illustrate the complexities of technology integration in CALL and show how teachers often adapt innovation to construct their own representations of the technology, which are more in line with their curricular and personal goals, and the constraints they experience regarding practical work. They also point toward the importance of considering individual differences and reaching teachers on their own levels in order to make the content of professional development programs relevant to their specific needs, predispositions, and contexts.

3 Evaluation of the TECALL program In my work on teacher professional development elsewhere, I have suggested a number of principles for the design and implementation of IWB training programs (Cutrim Schmid and Schimmack, 2010; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2014). This section will review those recommendations in light of the findings presented in this book. In the following, I suggest five key principles to inform the design and implementation of CALL professional development programs: (a) sound theoretical underpinning of

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teaching practice, (b) the embedding of professional development in teachers’ own classroom contexts, (c) reflective practice, (d) professional collaboration, and (e) ongoing support for professional development. The TECALL program was conceptualized and implemented with these principles in mind. In the following, I discuss how these principles have been incorporated into the program and summarize the research findings pertaining to each recommended principle.

3.1 Pedagogical framework based on theoretical foundation CALL professional development programs should have a sound theoretical basis and a clear pedagogical framework All chapters have emphasized the value of CALL professional development rooted in established language learning theory. As discussed in Chapter 2, the TECALL professional development program incorporated a pedagogical framework based on a socio-cognitive approach to CALL (Warschauer, 2000). The task-based approach to language teaching (Willis, 1996) was used as the pedagogical framework for the design and implementation of IWB-based lessons. The teachers received training on TBLT by means of several professional development workshops, but also through the pedagogical support they got from pre-service teachers and the academic expert/researcher. The curriculum of the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) program at our university has a strong focus on TBLT, and the pre-service teachers involved in the project had received recent training on this teaching methodology as part of their degree requirements. Throughout the program, the in-service teachers were also provided with readings based on recent research investigating the use of the IWB to support constructivist practice. The data have shown that not all teachers were able to develop their IWBbased practice toward constructivist approaches to language education during the lifecycle of the program. However, all participant teachers valued the fact that the program was rooted in established SLA and LT theories, which set a direction for their professional development. Furthermore, this theoretical basis provided the participants with a clear framework for analyzing teaching materials and classroom practice. The findings have also shown that even the teachers who did not develop their practice toward constructive approaches often made comments during the VSRs that indicated that they were aware

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of mismatches between their practice and the methodological principles underlying the TECALL program.

3.2 Contextually embedded professional development CALL professional development programs should focus on teachers’ immediate pedagogical needs and be embedded in the work teachers actually do The design of the program was informed by the concept of situated learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991). As discussed in Chapter 1, this concept is related to experiential learning and focuses on the notion that learning of knowledge and skills takes place best in contexts close to those in which they will be used. Therefore, throughout the program the participating teachers reflected on IWB use that was embedded in their own practice. This aim was achieved through the teachers’ engagement in different professional development activities, such as pre-/in-service collaboration, VSR sessions, and professional development workshops. Through the pre-/in-service collaborative projects, the in-service teachers were provided with opportunities for peer collaboration in situated learning contexts and for gathering evidence on the positive effects of technologyenhanced teaching in their own classrooms. Since the in-service teachers developed projects in their own classrooms, these projects were grounded in real-world teaching problems. These partnerships also enabled them to find “just in time” situated support, as they integrated technology into their practice. It is reasonable to conclude that these learning experiences had a stronger impact on the teachers’ professional development than if they simply had access to examples of best practice from different contexts (e.g., through videos or reports). Through VSR, the teachers were also encouraged to reflect on their own practice and act on the results of that reflection to improve their teaching. And finally, during the professional development workshops, the teachers worked with teaching resources that were as close as possible to their practice in order to ensure that they could develop contextualized confidence within certain teaching domains or types of technology that were directly relevant to their own contexts. Since the teachers were developing CALL expertise that was based on the development of their own classroom practice, it was important to ensure a balance between intervention and teacher empowerment. On the one hand, the teachers’ growth had to be stimulated through the mutual exploration of

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technological affordances in order to build the teachers’ understanding of when and how IWBs could be most appropriately exploited for specific pedagogical aims. It was thought that a “less intrusive” approach could reinforce a relatively conservative use of the technology as teachers adapt it to their existing pedagogic style, without significantly extending their current practice (Moss et al., 2007). On the other hand, it was also important to allow for considerable freedom of action on the part of the teachers so that they could have the time and opportunity to make their own decisions regarding the most appropriate use of the technology in their specific contexts. Our findings have shown that the teachers needed the time to develop their own understandings of the technology on a trial and error basis, experiencing all the different stages of IWB integration, in order to take ownership of the technology and its use. Therefore, the program incorporated a pedagogical intervention into its design, but the teachers determined both, the pace and the direction of their progress.

3.3 Reflective practice CALL professional development programs should create opportunities for teachers to reflect on their practice The TECALL program included a strong element of reflective practice by involving the participating teachers in critical reflection through videostimulated reflective sessions, in-depth interviews, and workshop group discussions. Chapters 4 and 6 have discussed findings which indicate that the VSRs provided the participants with effective opportunities to track their pedagogical development as CALL practitioners and helped them to develop further expertise in the analysis and evaluation of technology-enhanced language teaching and learning. Chapter 6 discussed the potential of VSR as a means for teachers’ professional growth in particular. It focused on the impact of the VSR sessions on the professional development of one of the participating teachers (T4). The findings indicate that the VSR sessions provided T4 with effective opportunities to examine the personal theories or beliefs that underlay her behavior in the classroom, to carry out theory-based analyses of complex aspects of her practice, to identify gaps in her professional development, and to establish focal points for further exploration or improvement. Therefore, she used VSR to evaluate her technology-enhanced teaching critically, and to reflect on alternative actions that eventually led to transformative practice.

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An analysis of the teachers’ perspectives regarding the role and impact of VSR on their professional development has also revealed some challenging aspects involved in video-based reflection. The data show, for instance, that T4 experienced discomfort in exposing her weaknesses in the presence of a researcher/trainer, whom she perceived as having a supervisory role. She also faced difficulties in defining the focus of her observations and commentaries during the analysis of video-recorded lessons, especially in the initial stages of the project. In spite of these difficulties, the teacher pointed to the important role played by the researcher in bringing her attention to aspects of practice that can go unnoticed or are perceived uncritically. As discussed in Chapter 6, these issues raise important topics for further research in this area. For instance, the role of peers and coaches in amplifying the potential of VSR for supporting transformative practice, the comparative effects of more open versus more structured forms of video-based reflection, and the development of educational tasks that facilitate and support the process of self-reflection and self-analysis during VSR. Kleinknecht and Schneider (2013), for instance, highlight the importance of preparing teachers for VSR, and of providing them with questions or reflection tasks, especially if they are observing their own videos. My findings point to the merits of a VSR approach in which the teachers and researchers co-construct a deeper understanding of classroom practice through collaborative analysis of the lessons.

3.4 Professional collaboration CALL professional development programs should create opportunities to establish professional contacts and undertake collaborative projects Several chapters in this book have dealt with the relationship between collaboration and professional development. Chapter 5 focused specifically on the component of pre-/in-service collaboration. Thirteen pre-service teachers participated in the program through their involvement in small-scale AR projects in collaboration with the participating in-service teachers. My findings suggest that this model of peer collaboration is worth pursuing, since it provides both pre- and in-service teachers with CALL learning experiences that include situated, collaborative, and reflective practice. Overall, the findings have shown that the school projects provided the participating in-service teachers with practical training that was directly connected to their teaching, and the pre-service teacher support allowed

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them to improve their skills in a way that was more realistic and thus more sustainable. The main benefits of this type of collaboration, which were identified by the in-service teachers in the interviews, are: (a) the technical support for the design and implementation of technology-enhanced tasks, (b) access to new pedagogical approaches and ideas, (c) vicarious learning as they observed the pre-service teachers’ use of technology, and (d) enhanced motivation through collaboration. Nevertheless, the findings have also revealed potential challenges for the implementation of this particular type of peer collaboration. The data have shown that conceptual and corresponding practical differences between novice and expert language teachers occasionally created barriers in communication and understanding between the two groups. The findings also indicate that the participants’ misconceptions regarding their roles in the joint endeavors often hindered genuine collaboration and exchange. My findings point toward the importance of preparing both the pre- and in-service teachers for the collaborative practice. Both sides should jointly reflect on and discuss the specific areas of expertise they could contribute to the joint endeavors, and clearly outline their expectations regarding the professional development goals they aim to achieve through their collaboration. In-service/in-service collaboration was also supported during professional development workshops. Ten different types of workshops were conceptualized with the purpose of bringing the in-service teachers together to exchange ideas about technology integration and to learn from each other. During the workshops, the teachers were given many opportunities to reflect on and critically evaluate concrete examples of technology-enhanced classroom activities. My findings show that this approach also created a fruitful space for collaboration and dialogue. The analysis of the peer-to-peer interactions (in Chapter 7) has shown that the teachers used various scaffolding tools and techniques to support each other in broadening their knowledge and expertise, gaining new perspectives on technological applications, and identifying further opportunities for professional development. Chapter 7 has also pointed toward several principles underpinning the design of these professional development workshops which have enriched the opportunities for peer collaboration, namely by (a) creating a space for social interaction and critical reflection, (b) positioning teachers as partners in the educational process, (c) working on tasks that are grounded in practice, and (d) cultivating a supportive and positive environment within the group.

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3.5 Ongoing support for professional development CALL professional development programs should provide teachers with  enough opportunities for gradual accumulation of knowledge and experience within their constraints of time and energy In addition to the support obtained through the collaboration with the preservice teachers (teaching assistants) and their peers (mainly during workshops), the participating in-service teachers could also draw on situated pedagogical support from myself, as the academic expert and main researcher of the program, and two research assistants, who were working toward a master’s degree. To do this effectively, we have watched all of their technology-enhanced lessons on video and observed several of them personally in the classroom. During the VSR sessions, professional development workshops, and monthly school visits, we were able to provide the teachers with feedback as well as technical and/or pedagogical support for implementing specific technology-enhanced classroom activities that were embedded in their own practice. The results show that this approach allowed the participating teachers to improve their skills in a way that was more realistic and more sustainable, as they were provided with enough opportunities for gradual development within their constraints of time and energy. Chapter 4 has specifically focused on the role of expert mediation in directing the teachers’ attention to key concepts and in triggering cognitive conflict that enabled change and led to transformative practice. Chapter 4 has shown that the prompts provided by myself (the academic expert) during the professional development activities (e.g., VSR sessions and workshops) played a crucial role in the teachers’ professional development. In the case of T3, for instance, the findings indicate that strategic mediation during VSR sessions enabled her to move toward increased expertise in the use of the IWB in a TBLT environment, and in the case of T2, the data suggest that the expert mediation had a significant role in promoting reflective thinking that led to increased self-awareness and the identification of strategies for continued development. It is hoped that these findings can contribute to show the value of creating structured mediational spaces where well-organized teachinglearning relationships between teacher educators and teachers are enacted and sustained. Chapters 4 and 6 have also discussed important conditions and factors that create enhanced opportunities for strategic mediation. Throughout the program,

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sufficient space was created for teachers to reflect, practice, confer, and exercise autonomy. First, as the teacher educator, I held initial in-depth interviews to find out about the teachers’ pre-understandings and expectations toward the program, and subsequent interviews to establish a sense of how teachers were experiencing the practices of teacher education. Secondly, the teachers’ learning was grounded in classroom experiences and they were given many opportunities to externalize their emerging understandings of new concepts through the analysis of their own lessons (e.g., during VSRs). Thirdly, during the workshops the teachers were provided with space to participate in dialogic, collaborative, problem-solving activities in order to be able to produce their own meanings relevant to personal practical knowledge. The findings indicate that these approaches and professional development tools enabled the teacher educator to provide mediation that was responsive to the teachers’ emergent and immediate needs.

4 Implications of the research findings The analysis of my research data confirms the value of cognition research by shedding light on how and why teachers react in particular ways to technological innovation. The study has produced many findings that reveal important aspects of the development of teachers’ cognition in the context of CALL classroom integration, the challenges associated with adopting a new technology, and the new competencies that are needed to exploit it to support constructivist practice. It is hoped that this knowledge can inform the design of future CALL teacher education programs. My findings are especially relevant because they fill in a gap in the literature. As previously discussed, the voices of non-native speaker teachers are too often unheard. As Wyatt (2009, p.1) points out, this is an unfortunate situation because “in the absence of research evidence as to the cognitions and behavior of such practitioners, the designers of teacher education programs are left with assumptions that may be erroneous.” This study has also contributed to the further evaluation and refinement of professional development tools and models that have been advocated in the literature. For instance, the findings obtained on the potentials and challenges of VSR and pre-/in-service collaboration were used to draw recommendations for the effective implementation of these professional development activities. I also

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hope that the qualitative accounts of teachers’ classroom practices and of their rationales can be used in other teacher development contexts to encourage other teachers to reflect on their own beliefs and practices. Finally, my findings can be relevant to curriculum designers, as they can help to assess the gap—in both practices and beliefs—between what is intended by the curriculum and the teachers’ current situation. Research has shown (e.g., Zheng and Borg, 2014) that curriculum innovation is very often not congruent with and does not take into consideration the cognitive and contextual realities of the teachers’ specific work context. Therefore, the analysis of the teachers’ cognition can be used to inform support systems that are necessary to facilitate curriculum implementation. Thus, findings as the ones presented in this book can have important implications for the design of effective CALL professional development programs that account for the needs, priorities, and expectations of L2 teachers, and can assist them in developing the needed competencies for transformative practice in CALL.

5 Recommendations for future research 5.1 Involving learners as co-investigators in action research As discussed in Chapter 2, a significant challenge for the research on language teacher cognition will be to reveal how teachers’ professional learning influences their teaching and, in turn, how that teaching influences their students’ learning. As several researchers (e.g., Borg, 2006; Kubanyiova and Feryok, 2015) have pointed out, most of the teacher cognition research so far has failed to take this next logical and necessary step toward examining the link between teacher cognition and student learning. Therefore, an important area for future teacher cognition research is to examine how teacher cognition relates to students’ language learning experiences in the classroom. The research presented in this book has dealt with learners’ perceptions and their L2 development processes only to a limited extent. Even though learners’ perspectives were viewed as being of central importance, the main focus of the study was on the teachers’ perspectives and their developmental paths. The teachers’ analyses of their own practice are likely to have been influenced by the pupils’ reactions to their teaching, and my analysis of the teachers’ developmental paths also included the evaluation of the pupils’ engagement and

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their learning processes during the video-recorded lessons. As it could be seen in the discussion of the findings, the participant teachers evaluated their pupils’ reactions and reflected on reasons for those reactions (e.g., during VSR sessions and in-depth interviews). Therefore, they seemed to have seen the effects of their CALL practice on student learning as an essential aspect of their professional development. During pre-/in-service collaborative projects, the in-service teachers (in collaboration with the pre-service teachers) collected data on pupils’ reactions and perceptions through group interviews and questionnaires. However, these data were mainly analyzed by the pre-service teachers, who were advised by me to focus their research questions on the learners’ perceptions and learning outcomes. The research findings were presented in the form of research reports (academic papers, monographs, and an M.A. dissertation), and shared with the participating teachers. However, the analysis of the learner data was seen mainly as responsibility of the research assistants or pre-service teachers, and these data were not included as feedback for the main program, as the focus was mainly on the participant teachers’ perceptions and practices. Therefore, one possible shortcoming of the present research is the fact that the learners were not involved as agents in the investigation. The teachers and the researcher observed learners’ actions and opinions but did not involve them as co-investigators in the analysis of pedagogical practice. In my view, a stronger involvement of learners in reflective teaching (and teacher cognition research) could yield valuable insights into interdependencies of expectations, actions, and subjective perspectives that exist between teachers and learners. To this date, comparisons between teacher and learner beliefs are largely based on questionnaires (e.g., Gabillon, 2012). More specifically for CALL research, such research could also be beneficial for identifying technological affordances that actually support student learning. Haines (2015), for instance, has shown how in her study the students helped their teachers to understand the affordances of a new technology. As the students learned how to exploit wiki tools for their language learning, they alerted their teachers to the affordance of the wikis for editing their own work over time and for supporting collaborative work online, for instance. Haines concludes that there is a need for research that identifies the degrees of alignment between the kinds of affordances that student perceive in new technologies and those that are perceived by their teachers. This aim can only be achieved if teachers and learners are encouraged to reflect collaboratively on the technology use.

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5.2 Investigating strategies to promote sustainable teacher education The issue of continuity is always a central one in teacher professional development. Therefore, another promising topic for further research could be the development of strategies for promoting sustainable teacher education. As already pointed out, several CALL researchers have highlighted the need for developing models to create and maintain communities of practice as extensions of CALL teacher education programs. In the TECALL program, for instance, I used a pre-/in-service collaboration model. However, a key challenge remains, namely to give continuity to this type of teacher collaboration once the students have completed their university degrees. A strategy I am currently exploring is to invite novice in-service teachers who took part in the TECALL program as pre-service teachers to serve as school mentors for new generations of pre-service teachers. Furthermore, I am exploring ways to strengthen the research partnerships between schools and higher education institutions, as for instance, through the inclusion of a research (AR) component in the practicum. Sustainable teacher education is also dependent on teachers’ autonomy and their capacity for self-directed learning. In the literature (e.g., Benson, 2010), teacher autonomy has been viewed as a complex construct involving a certain kind of relationship between professional freedom and internal capacity. As Benson (2010, p. 263) points out, “Some degree of professional freedom is required if the internal capacity for teacher autonomy is to grow, while the teacher’s exercise of this capacity can also widen the space of professional freedom in which it is exercised.” In this sense, therefore, autonomy can be understood both as a working condition that allows room for a teacher’s experimentation with new ideas and as the capacity of a teacher to create this working condition within institutional constraints. My findings show that the participating teachers could not always pursue innovation successfully due to institutional constraints, including limited access to technological tools, lack of leadership support and recognition, and lack of time to learn and develop teaching materials. These findings are in line with previous literature (e.g., Benson, 2010) showing that the working conditions of teachers often do not allow them to exercise the capacities for autonomy that might be gained during teacher education programs. Therefore, in my view, future research on teacher education should place special focus on teacher autonomy and investigate professional development tools that support the

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development of skills for self-directed learning and collaborative work. Teachers should be encouraged to reflect on the constraints upon their practice and develop strategies that will allow them to find the spaces and opportunities for maneuver in their own contexts. As teachers develop a better sensitivity to the affordances in their working conditions for autonomy and experimentation, they will be in a better position to pursue innovation and continue developing their knowledge and skills.

Notes Chapter 1 1 A thorough discussion of this approach is provided in Chapter 4.

Chapter 4 1 Pseudonyms are used to protect the participants’ anonymity.

Chapter 5 1 A Wissenschaftliche Hausarbeit is a short thesis (60–80 pages) which the student teachers have to submit as part of their final academic evaluation.

Chapter 8 1 I published parts of this section elsewhere (Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission. 2 I published parts of this section elsewhere (Cutrim Schmid, 2011; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission. 3 I published parts of this section elsewhere (Cutrim Schmid, 2011; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission. 4 I published parts of this section elsewhere (Cutrim Schmid, 2011; Cutrim Schmid and Whyte, 2012) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission. 5 I published parts of this section elsewhere (Cutrim Schmid, 2010) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission. 6 I published parts of this section elsewhere (Sailer, Cutrim Schmid, and Koenraad, 2014) and some excerpts are reproduced here with permission.

Glossary AR (Action Research)—a form of systematic investigation which is controlled and implemented by the practitioners themselves with the intention of improving some aspect of their own practice. CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning)—the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning (Levy, 1997, p. 1). CAR (Collaborative Action Research)—a type of action research (AR) that involves collaborative activities among colleagues searching for solutions to everyday, real problems or looking for ways to improve their practice and increase student achievement (Burns, 2005). CLE (Critical Learning Episode)—a segment of interaction in the classroom that is perceived as important for teacher learning. CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning)—pedagogical concept which integrates the acquisition of a foreign language into the regular learning of a content subject. CLT (Communicative Language Teaching)—an approach to second language teaching which focuses on meaningful interaction, as opposed to grammar and drilling, for example. CoP (Community of Practice)—groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger-Trayner, 2015) FL (Foreign Language)—often used to denote second language teaching and learning in an environment where the target language is not commonly spoken, for example, learning English in Germany (cf. second language). EFL (English as a Foreign Language)—English as taught to people who are non-native speakers and who live in a country where English is not the official or main language Digital hub (or multimodal hub)—the IWB can be used as a digital hub; the transport or computer analogy refers to the storing and retrieval of many different digital technologies in one place. Flipchart—an IWB file; particularly associated with the Promethean IWB brand. ICT (Information and Communication Technology)—an umbrella term referring to all technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. Interaction—in the second or foreign language classroom, interaction refers to exchanges among participants or between learners and resources.

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Interactivity—a key element of multimedia software, distinguishing it from traditional “passive” media (TV, print, radio, etc.), since users can interact with multimedia in more varied ways than they can with traditional media. IWB (Interactive Whiteboard)—a touch-sensitive electronic presentation device. Fully-functioning interactive whiteboards usually comprise four components: a computer, a projector, an appropriate software, and the display panel. IWB page—one page of an IWB file, comparable to a single slide of a slide deck (e.g., PowerPoint presentation). IWB file—a digital file developed with IWB software, usually created on a computer and displayed, manipulated, and/or modified during class (see flipchart). L1—first language; native language or mother tongue. L2—second language; a language learned after the native language, usually as a teenager or adult. OERs (Open Educational Resources)—any type of educational materials that is in the public domain or introduced with an open license. PBLL (Project-Based Language Learning)—a teaching model that organizes language teaching and learning activities by doing projects. Scaffolding—the support from teachers, parents, or “better others” that enables children/learners to perform a task at a level beyond their present competence. Second Language—often used to denote second language teaching and learning in an environment where the target language is spoken, for example, learning English in the USA (cf. foreign language). SLA (Second Language Acquisition)—(a) the name of the discipline (the study of how second languages are learned) or (b) the learning of a non-native language after the learning of the native language, regardless whether it is the second, third, fourth, or fifth language. TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching)—a meaning-based approach to second language learning and teaching which engages learners in real communication and prepares them to deal with the wide range of language encounters they may experience in the real world. (Willis and Willis, 2007). TCK (Technological Content Knowledge)—knowledge of how ICT can be used to access and process subject matter. TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language)—teaching English to non-native speakers in an environment where English is not the official or main language. TPK (Technological Pedagogical Knowledge)—knowledge of how ICT can support and enhance learning. VSR (Video-stimulated Reflection)—a professional development activity in which teachers watch videos of their own lessons and reflect on their practice and on their students’ learning processes. VW (Virtual World)—a computer-based simulated environment populated by many users, who can create a personal avatar and explore the virtual world, participate in its activities, and communicate with others.

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TECALL (Teacher Education in CALL) program—the professional development program discussed in this book. ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development)—the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers (Vygotsky, 1978).

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Index action research (AR) ix, xii, 12, 18, 19, 20–2, 26, 34, 64, 88, 91, 106, 178, 180, 184. See also collaborative action research blog

12, 92, 133, 134, 140, 163

co-construction of knowledge 12, 39, 63, 65, 67, 110, 121, 127, 163, 169 cognitive assistance 65 change 42, 50, 51 conflict 51, 71, 144, 176 development 50 interactivity 162 load 167 systems 42, 161 collaborative action research (CAR) ix, xii, 18, 20–2, 34, 39, 58, 64, 91, 184 (see also action research) learning 12, 13, 118, 123, 148 (see also peer collaborative learning) communicative approach 28, 32, 72, 139, 158, 164 competence 53 language teaching (CLT) 23, 31, 32, 48, 101, 113, 116, 184 community of practice (CoP) 69, 108, 133, 180, 184 computer-assisted language learning (CALL) competencies xii, 6–8, 25, 57, 96, 149 expertise 6,7, 24, 90, 168, 172 computer-mediated communication (CMC) 11, 133 conceptual development 132, 135, 140, 142 tools 10 understanding 11, 50, 52, 74, 149

constructivism 52, 53 constructivist 10, 52, 53, 58, 136, 138, 158, 161, 169–71, 177. See also socio-constructivist content and language integrated learning (CLIL) 20, 96, 166, 184 contextual influences on teaching 42, 48, 49, 53, 54, 56, 169, 170, 178 continuing professional development (CPD) 131, 133 cooperative development 130 critical awareness 12, 133 friends group 69, 130 incident 71, 75, 126 learning episode 131, 184 media literacy skills 110 reflection 11, 12, 63, 64, 78, 149, 173, 175 dialogic activities 68, 177 interaction 51, 67, 70, 71, 73, 84 learning 76 mediation 65, 69, 100 pedagogy 63, 64, 67, 77, 84 teaching 67 experiential modelling 3, 5, 8, 11, 69 expert mediation xiii, 14, 63, 64, 74, 77, 78, 84, 129, 176. See also mediation fishbowl technique 14, 132 inquiry-based awareness 51 model 18, 69, 130, 134

200

Index

learner autonomy 11, 116 beliefs 179 engagement 74, 117, 165 learner-centred approach 71, 76, 122, 123, 161, 162, 164, 170 pedagogy 83, 123 methodology 32 tasks 57, 64, 71, 85 learning outcomes 7, 103, 179 styles 121

scaffolding xiii, 135, 141, 149, 152, 153 physical interactivity 162 podcasts 92 project based language learning (PBLL) xi, 5, 8, 24, 31, 32, 69, 92, 114, 115, 122, 144, 157, 158, 163, 169, 170, 185

mediation xiii, 14, 51, 63–86, 100, 129–31, 152, 153, 176, 177 mediational means 139 space 68, 70, 74, 75, 77, 82, 85, 129, 131, 143, 176 tool 71,81 mobile technology 57 multimedia based activities 110, 119 materials 94, 119–23, 160, 167

situated learning ix, xi, 4, 10, 13, 17, 23, 90, 91, 101, 106, 131, 134, 172 situated practice x, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 14, 69, 174 socio-cognitive approach to CALL 23, 24, 28, 164, 171 socio-constructivist 10, 99 strategic mediation 63–71, 78, 80, 83–6, 130, 152, 153, 176. See also mediation

narrative inquiry 56, 69, 130 online activities 11, 132 collaboration 7, 142 communities of practice 108, 133, 134 platform 12, 108, 131, 133, 134, 141, 147, 163 teacher networks 91 teaching 6, 7, 56, 57, 113 teaching competencies 6, 7 open educational resources 8, 113, 185 pedagogical interactivity 162 peer assisted learning 12, 17 coaching 69 collaborative learning ix, xi, 5, 8, 12, 23, 51, 69, 83, 87, 90, 98, 107, 108, 129, 130–6, 149–53, 172, 174, 175 mentoring 69, 131

reflective practice ix, xi, 17, 19, 23, 26, 27, 39, 49, 51, 71, 87–90, 106, 112, 113, 115, 118, 124, 126, 170–4

task-based language teaching (TBLT) 24, 53, 76–8, 84, 92, 96–8, 171, 176, 185 teacher autonomy 19, 20, 180 beliefs ix, 7, 8, 16, 41–57, 69, 70, 80, 85, 90, 116, 118, 127, 143, 158–61, 169, 170, 173, 178 cognition ix, xi, xii, 16, 22, 34, 37, 40–59, 66, 70, 84, 132, 157, 158, 169, 170, 178, 179 collaboration 39, 63, 69, 88, 102, 107, 131, 153, 180 research 20, 126 self-efficacy 16, 50 thinking 66, 85, 130, 134 teaching simulation 131, 132 technological content knowledge (TCK) 57, 185 pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) 6 pedagogical knowledge (TPK) 57

Index telecollaboration 6, 8, 11, 12 telecollaborative exchanges 7, 133 practitioner 133 videoconferencing 16, 57, 113, 132 video-stimulated reflection 109–28

201

virtual worlds (VWs) 14, 57, 185 Vygotsky, Lev 24, 45, 64–6, 70, 186 web 2.0 79, 121, 136, 138, 140, 141, 143, 163 wikis 12, 92, 105, 132–4, 142, 179 zone of proximal development (ZPD) 65, 68, 74, 84, 130, 141, 186