Intercultural Professional Development Through Telecollaboration: Unfolding Language Teacher Learning
Open Access
- Author:
- Han, Soyoung
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 14, 2023
- Committee Members:
- Rachel Wolkenhauer, Major Field Member
Sharon Childs, Outside Unit & Field Member
Amy Crosson, Major Field Member
Elizabeth Smolcic, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Kimberly Anne Powell, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies - Keywords:
- Intercultural
language teacher learning
telecollaboration
teacher professional development
activity theory
vygotskian sociocultural theory - Abstract:
- This research examines and documents the learning trajectory of four in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in South Korea and Taiwan as they develop understanding about the concept of interculturality. With the purpose of helping teachers develop interculturality and incorporate it into their instructional practices, an intercultural professional development program (PD) is created as an intervention. Telecollaboration is utilized as a vehicle for the PD as it allows for intercultural communication between teachers from two distant locations through web-based technological tools. Drawing on the postmodernist view of culture and interculturality and the principles of learning and development from Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (VSCT), teacher learning is understood to be situated in activity and in context through mediation. In particular, the third generation of activity theory (CHAT-3rd) is employed as an analytical framework to uncover the complex web of teachers’ activity systems that mediate their learning as they participate in the PD. Findings reveal how teacher learning about interculturality unfolds as they respond to the contradictions that arise out of their telecollaboration. This study fills the gap in the existing literature to advance understanding of mechanisms that promote or hinder teacher learning about interculturality and how telecollaboration can be used as an effective tool to facilitate such learning.