Przeglądaj wg Autor "Verzella, Massimo"

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    A Telecollaboration Project on Giving Online Peer Feedback: Implementing a Multilateral Virtual Exchange During a Pandemic
    (National Research University Higher School of Economics, 2021) Ennis, Michael Joseph; Verzella, Massimo; Montanari, Silvia; Sendur, Agnieszka M.; Pissarro, Marieta Simeonova
    Abstract: "Telecollaboration, also called virtual exchange or online intercultural exchange, is a form of collaborative learning whereby language learners in different locations engage in computer-mediated communication to complete tasks online. There is ample evidence that telecollaboration promotes the acquisition of language skills, intercultural competence, and digital literacies. Challenges faced implementing virtual exchanges include differences in time zones, learning objectives, academic calendars, and cultural attitudes. The present article describes a case of a multilateral telecollaboration project based on the facilitated dialogue model involving four institutions—two in Europe and two in the United States—that was designed to prepare students for the experience of giving online peer feedback on collaborative writing assignments. Our initial goal was to explore the challenges students would face and the benefits they would receive from a complex telecollaboration project involving multiple institutions and two task sequences: 1) input and reflection on giving and receiving peer feedback, 2) completion of the collaborative writing task to be peer reviewed. However, new challenges and opportunities emerged after the switch to emergency e-learning and remote teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic. Relying upon multiple data sources—including correspondence, observations, class discussions, surveys, reflective writing, and information stored in virtual learning environments—our methods of data collection involved convenience sampling, while data analysis was predominantly descriptive. Our results demonstrate that even during a global pandemic, students and instructors face similar logistical challenges and reap similar benefits as has been reported in the literature. Yet our experience also reveals the resiliency of telecollaboration in the face of extreme disruption as well as the potential to exploit virtual exchange to develop learning strategies—such as methods for giving and receiving peer feedback—and meta-awareness of how language is used in the real-world—such as the implications of English as a lingua franca."(...)
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    A telecollaboration project on writing for tourism
    (Routledge, 2019) Verzella, Massimo; Sendur, Agnieszka M.
    Abstract: "This paper is a case study of an international project that linked two English as a foreign language classes in Italy and Poland and an English composition class in the United States. The goal of the project was to foster intercultural communicative competence and an understanding of English as a cosmopolitan language. English learners in Italy and Poland collaborated with students in the US to develop tourist brochures. Our data set consists of preproject questionnaires and feedback comments offered by the participants. We inductively identified patterns in the way students approached collaboration in cross-cultural virtual teams and the type of feedback they tend to offer. While English learners rarely criticized the texts produced by their project partners, students in the US addressed design flaws, problems in content strategy, and the lack of attention to preferences and motivations of the target audience. Our study shows that collaborative writing activities in first- and second-language classes help students see writing as an act of mediation between authors and audiences. International collaboration stimulates students to appreciate the value of becoming curious and open to difference while engaging with the Other, which is a key step in the development of intercultural competence for twenty-first century global citizens."(...)