Recognizing language accommodation skills: dealing with language proficiency differences during Virtual Exchange
Résumé
During Virtual Exchange (VE), communication unfolds in a particular context which embraces the virtual space where interactions between international partners take place, the technological medium chosen for communication, the different participants with their communicative abilities and cultural background. Learning, defined as change or shifts in a specific competence, can therefore occur in different domains: studies with different scope in the field (Çiftçi & Savaş, 2018; The EVALUATE Group, 2019; O'Dowd, Sauro & Spector-Cohen, 2020) have shown the learning potential of VE for enhancing intercultural competence, developing a range of language skills, increasing (critical) digital literacy or acquiring disciplinary knowledge. The EU-funded EVOLVE project confirms these results regarding students learning on a large scale and supports the positive impact of Virtual Exchange on the development of the above mentioned range of skills and competences (EVOLVE Project Team, 2020).
However, with respect to language learning, studies focus in particular on VEs that are embedded in courses where language learning is a targeted goal (Çiftçi & Savaş, 2018) but as EVOLVE and other large-scale projects have explored, VE is a useful learning practice across disciplines, not only in language courses. As a result, we see an increasing number of VE participants who do not identify as language learners interacting with others for whom language learning is a part of the VE expectations. At the same time, we also see differences in language proficiency, even among groups of students who all identify as language learners. What remains to be investigated is whether language development might also occur among non-self-identified language learners as a result of VE. Similarly, what types of language development might high proficiency language users/learners report when engaged in VE, particularly when partnered with lower proficiency speakers?
Accordingly, this study employed qualitative content analysis (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009) on (n=248) students' self-reports of language learning in open-ended questions and (n=19) follow-up interviews across 16 different VEs within the EVOLVE Project. It appeared that high proficient speakers also reported changes related to language. On the one hand, their comments reflect awareness of the constraints that affect communication during collaborative work with their international peers; while on the other hand, they describe ways to cope with such constraints by adapting their language (their output or their receptive skills) in order to meet the requirements they perceived for successful communication. We assume that gains in linguistic flexibility or in adaptive language use should therefore be considered as part of the speakers’ communicative competence and as a crucial component for effective online collaboration with international partners.
In this paper, we look at adaptive choices and moves during the VE by high proficiency speakers, and draw upon Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT; Gallois, Ogay & Giles, 2005) to provide explanations for the reported linguistic shifts and to help us recognize that language learning occurs - irrespective of the proficiency of the speakers - as situated, in a specific social context embedded practice which is strongly linked to the intercultural experience and the interpersonal relationships build during VE.