During the symposium week, October 19-24, Virtual Presentations were available to symposium registrants with asynchronous discussion fora. See the authors, titles, and summaries in the list below the live schedule on this page.
In addition, live interactions with authors of some presentations (marked with * below) were scheduled during that week. Participants were asked to have viewed the relevant virtual presentation before attending the live discussion.
Schedule for Live Discussions of Individual Virtual Presentations (all times MST)
Tuesday, October 20:
9-9:30 am | Müge Satar (Newcastle University) and Mirjam Hauck (The Open University), Differential Learner Skills in Virtual Exchange: Digital Equity Revisited! |
9:30-10 am | Solange Aranha (UNESP – Sao Paolo State University), Research using MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus): Sharing Possibilities |
10 – 10:30 am | Sarah Dietrich (Southeast Missouri State University), “Me, teach?”: Voices from an Intercultural Online Teacher Education Project |
10:30 – 11 am | Lara Lomicka Anderson (University of South Carolina) and Stacey Benoit (Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées), Critical Virtual Exchange through Digital Collaborations and Image Sharing |
Wednesday, October 21:
10-10:30 am | Marta Giralt (University of Limerick), Liam Murray (University of Limerick), and Silvia Benini (University of Limerick and University College Cork), Developing Critical Digital Literacies within Erasmus+VE: From Obligation to Realisation |
10:30-11 am | Boris Vazquez-Calvo (University of Burgos), Leticia Tian Zhang (Beijing Foreign Studies University), and Liudmila Shafirova (Pompeu Fabra University), Three Ways to Bridge Informal L2 Digital Literacies and Telecollaboration |
11-11:30 am | Natalie Amgott (University of Arizona), L2 Multimodal Composing Abroad: Remixing Languages, Cultures, and Identities |
12 – 12:30 pm | Juliana Araújo Ribeiro (Fulbright Program/Emory University), Larissa Xavier de Oliveira (Fulbright Program/Emory University), and Ana Catarina Teixeira (Emory University), Transitioning Portuguese Classes to Virtual Contexts: Challenges and Possibilities |
12:30 – 1 pm | Deniz Gokcora (Borough of Manhattan Community College – CUNY) and Sally Everson (University of the Bahamas), Making Connections: Social Justice Issues Across the Globe through COIL |
Thursday, October 22:
9-9:30 am | Judit Hahn (University of Jyväskylä) and Katarzyna Radke (Adam Mickiewicz University), Emotions in Virtual Exchange: A Study of Students’ E-portfolios |
9:30-10 am | Sherilyn Analla and Jill Castek (University of Arizona), Create to Learn: Virtual Field Trips, Innovative Pedagogy and Practice |
10 – 10:30 am | Chelsea Timlin (Brown University), Moving beyond Experiencing through L2 Digital Interaction |
10:30 – 11 am | Nicole Schmidt and Betul C. Czerkawski (University of Arizona), Mixed Reality Multiliteracies: An Instructor’s Manual for Turkish Language Competence |
Virtual Presentation Details
Click on the presentation titles to view the summaries.
* Amgott, Natalie (University of Arizona). Live Discussion October 21, 11 am MST
L2 Multimodal Composing Abroad: Remixing Languages, Cultures, and Identities
This presentation explores the L2 digital multimodal composing practices of American undergraduates studying French abroad. Drawing on multiliteracies, multimodality, and translanguaging, I analyze how students leveraged languages and modes across multimodal reflections and vlogs. Findings illustrate how digital multimodal composing enhances learners’ linguistic and intercultural competencies and cultivates multilingual identities.
* Analla, Sherilyn (University of Arizona) and Jill Castek (University of Arizona). Live discussion October 22, 9:30 am MST
Create to Learn: Virtual Field Trips, Innovative Pedagogy and Practice
This session will examine illustrative examples and implementation principles for designing, developing and using virtual field trips in L2 contexts using a create-to-learn framework. The field trip pedagogy and practice will advance cultural perspectives and self-expression in the target language and reinforces collaboration, problem solving, visual literacy, and digital literacies.
* Aranha, Solange (UNESP – Sao Paolo State University). Live discussion October 20, 9:30 am MST
Research using MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus): Sharing Possibilities
The purpose of this presentation is to share how MULTEC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus) is organized, what kind of content each document has and how the corpus is accessible to researchers interested in the various facets of telecollaborative practice.
* Dietrich, Sarah (Southeast Missouri State University). Line discussion October 20, 10 am MST
“Me, teach?”: Voices from an Intercultural Online Teacher Education Project
Through the reflections of future teachers of English as an Additional Language (EAL) who tutored adult learners of English in Afghanistan online, this presentation explores shifts in participants’ framing of their linguistic proficiency in English, teaching experience, readiness to teach online, and the role(s) culture in their interactions with tutees.
* Giralt, Marta (University of Limerick); Liam Murray (University of Limerick) and Silvia Benini (University of Limerick/University College Cork)
Developing Critical Digital Literacies within Erasmus+VE: From Obligation to Realisation
This paper will discuss VE practices presenting data from two student cohorts who participated in the E+VE programme Cultural Encounters. The resulting analysis and discussion will cover themes on student gains, obligation, resistance, and self-realisation about the value of VEs, critical agentive digital literacies and transnational dialogues.
* Gokcora, Deniz (Borough of Manhattan Community College – CUNY), and Sally Everson (University of the Bahamas). Live discussion October 21, 12:30 pm MST
Making Connections: Social Justice Issues Across the Globe through COIL
This presentation reports on a COIL program between a community college developmental course and a first-year composition course. Using CUNY’s CBOX platform, students worked on two major projects, comparing their college education experiences by reflecting on a common essay reading and making an oral presentation on social injustice topics.
Gomes de Souza, Micheli (State University of Northern Paraná); Neri de Souza Santana (State University of Northern Paraná), Hugo Romero Jiménez (UGMEX), Eliane Segati Rios Registro (State University of Northern Paraná)
Virtual Exchange: A Brazilian and a Mexican University Case Study
This presentation aims at describing an experience of virtual exchange between English as a foreign language learners from both a Brazilian and a Mexican university. The partnership focused on providing learners the opportunity to interact collaboratively to develop their communicative skills and to raise their intercultural awareness through transnational interactions.
Gonzalez-Vidal, Tiare (The University of Queensland)
Merging Language, Culture and Technology in an EFL Context
This ongoing study explores teachers’ views on the importance of teaching EFL from a transnational perspective in Chile and the way such views intersect with their use of ICT in the classroom. Findings seek to describe the success of conditions for ICT use in technology-disadvantaged EFL teaching contexts.
Gorham, Julia (Sequoia Pathway Academy)
Evaluating Critical Literacies and Symbolic Competence in L2 Multimodal Compositions
This presentation establishes important theoretical connections between critical literacies and symbolic competence, proposing the concept of ‘critical symbolic literacies’ and introduces the results of a study evaluating L2 French students’ demonstration of ‘critical symbolic literacies’ in original multimodal compositions. This presentation provides results and an overview of the curriculum intervention used.
Gunn, Yuliana (University of Colorado at Boulder), and Irina Kogel (Davidson College)
Virtual Exchange in the Russian Classroom: Curriculum and Learning Outcomes
This presentation outlines the benefits of implementing an interactive virtual exchange component in curriculum design. We address gains in language proficiency, cultural competency, and student engagement, drawing on our incorporation of an interactive exchange between high school students of Russian and Kyrgyz “host families” into an intensive three-week immersion program.
* Hahn, Judit (University of Jyväskylä), and Katarzyna Radke (Adam Mickiewicz University). Live discussion October 22, 9 am MST
Emotions in Virtual Exchange: A Study of Students' E-portfolios
This paper explores the multimodal discursive practices of emotional talk through the students’ learning diaries in the context of Virtual Exchange. Data was collected in the form of e-portfolios from two projects. Both virtual exchanges focused on tourism as the main theme and involved students from different disciplines.
Horton, Analeigh E. (University of Arizona)
Literacy, UX, and Digication: L2 Writers in an L1 World
This presentation examines digital composing practices of three multilingual, international students in a “mainstream” foundational writing course, focusing on sociocultural literacy development and user experiences (UX) while using the collaborative eportfolio tool, Digication. It argues for an expanded view of literacy and more inclusive digital and pedagogical practices.
Ibrahim, Karim (Gulf University for Science and Technology)
Promoting Digital Literacies’ through Digital Gaming in the Face of COVID-19
This study proposes the use of digital gaming to promote digital literacies and enhance learners’ readiness for online instruction in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study conceptualizes digital games as texts, communities of practice, and semiotic systems to shed light on their learning potentials and discusses their pedagogical applications.
Izmaylova, Anastasia (Drake University)
Individual Learners’ Experiences in an Online Intercultural Exchange
This presentation discusses individual learners’ experiences in an online intercultural exchange. The presenter will describe how three telecollaboration participants’ identities affected their engagement with the exchange, their attitudes towards it, and their intercultural competence development as a result of the project. Pedagogical and assessment implications of the findings will be discussed.
Kalman, Judy (CINVESTAV); María del Carmen Lorenzatti (Unviersidad Nacional de Chilecito)
Innovating Pedagogy and Practice in Adult Education: Responding to Covid19
In the context of the Covid19 quarantine, a successful adult education program in Argentina has been forced to go online. A team of educators is creating and implementing a digitally mediated program. The central goal is to maintain the dialogic nature of the curriculum in a distance modality.
* Lomicka Anderson, Lara (University of South Carolina), and Stacey Benoit (Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées). Live discussion October 20, 10:30 am MST
Critical Virtual Exchange through Digital Collaborations and Image Sharing
This session reports on a virtual exchange project that uses digital collaboration to link technology, theoretical and pedagogical design, and practical experience. We highlight two platforms (Siftr and Slack) that helped to guide students through the critical exchange and image sharing and that engaged with their learning in virtual spaces.
* Ribeiro, Juliana Araújo (Fulbright Program/Emory University); Larissa Xavier de Oliveira (Fulbright Program/Emory University); and Ana Catarina Teixeira (Emory University). Live discussion October 21, 12 pm MST
Transitioning Portuguese Classes to Virtual Contexts: Challenges and Possibilities
Two Brazilian teaching assistants in the US describe their teaching practices in the face of the unexpected reality of video conferencing, online, synchronous and asynchronous classes. Alongside their coordinator, they reevaluated course contents, goals and curriculum considering the promotion of intercultural dialogue in this new scenario.
* Satar, Müge (Newcastle University), and Mirjam Hauck (The Open University). Live discussion October 20, 9 am MST
Differential Learner Skills in Virtual Exchange: Digital Equity Revisited!
Virtual Exchange (VE) offers international and intercultural experiences for all students at higher education. However, not all learners have equal digital and semiotic skills. We will depict the differential lived experiences of two VE participants and illustrate the impact of the digital and semiotic skills gap on VE outcomes.
* Schmidt, Nicole, and Betul C. Czerkawski (University of Arizona). Live discussion October 22, 10:30 am MST
Mixed Reality Multiliteracies: An Instructor’s Manual for Turkish Language Competence
Mixed reality (MR) technologies have great potential to provide immersive and authentic experiences to language learners while deeply engaging them in the target language. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the design and development process of a MR-based Multiliteracies Manual for teaching Turkish language competence online.
Solomon, Hanne Juel (David Yellin College), and Bart Wagemakers (The University of Applied Sciences Utrecht)
Virtual Exchange: Building Teacher Identity in the Shadow of Covid-19
With the philosophy that virtual exchange should be a part of teacher training, we implemented a project in our regular F2F courses based on experience as participants in the EVALUATE project. Due to Covid-19, these courses became online learning. We will share what we have learnt from the project.
Stumpf, Elisa Marchioro (Federal University of Pelotas), and Bruna Sommer-Farias (Michigan State University)
How to Engage L2 Learners in Transnational Dialogue through Podcasts
This presentation will discuss the use of podcasts in pedagogical materials for two different L2 settings to promote transnational dialogue and intercultural competence. The materials enable teachers and students to expand access to digital discourses available beyond the L2 classroom and to take part in them as legitimate participants.
* Timlin, Chelsea (Brown University). Live discussion October 22, 10 am MST
Moving beyond Experiencing through L2 Digital Interaction
Multiliteracies pedagogy has been shown to overemphasize experiencing activities; however, analyses have focused primarily on materials and less on language use during implementation. This presentation discusses data collected from L2 multiliteracies digital interaction. It identifies language that both characterizes the process of experiencing and indicates movement into other knowledge processes.
* Vazquez-Calvo, Boris (University of Burgos); Leticia Tian Zhang (Beijing Foreign Studies University), and Liudmila Shafirova (Pompeu Fabra University). Live discussion October 21, 10:30 am MST
Three Ways to Bridge Informal L2 Digital Literacies and Telecollaboration
Based on prior studies in informal language learning online in interlinguistic, intersemiotic and identity work, this presentation seeks to explore the potential of mirroring pedagogical approaches —pedagogical translation, transemiotization, and transculturality— for potential telecollaboration and virtual exchange projects.
This event is funded by a grant from the US Department of Education that supports the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) and organized with the Technology-Enhanced Language Learning Initiative. It is sponsored by the College of Humanities, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Program, and other units at the University of Arizona.