This case study investigates EFL learners' appropriation of written genres (e.g., academic statement of purpose and business letter) as well as student teachers' appropriation of their roles of task designers in a US-China virtual exchange. In this exchange, the US-based participants designed technology-based writing tasks to be implemented with EFL learners in China.
This process involved challenges for both sets of participants. For the EFL learners, completing the assigned tasks required them to take on unfamiliar roles as potential exchange students and as customers and travel agents in the texts they produced. The student teachers as well had to assume the professional role of task designers in order to fulfill the requirements of their course instructor and also provide course materials for the students in China.
The term 'appropriation' can be defined as the adoption of the language of a specialized discourse, and "finding some compromise between idiosyncrasy, a personal history, and the requirements of convention" (Bartholomae, 1986, p. 22) in producing a product. In this presentation, we explore how the participants on both sides of this exchange negotiated the processes of appropriation required of them successfully through the mediation of the student teachers' instructor and the EFL teacher in China.
Prior research has demonstrated the potential of connecting language learners with language student teachers through virtual exchange to support their linguistic interactions with expert speakers receiving pedagogical training (Belz & Müller-Hartmann, 2003). For instance, the benefits for student teachers can range from mediated practices (Fuchs et al., 2017) to reflective activity through video analysis of interactions with the learners (Lenkaitis, 2020). At the same time, Dooly (2011) calls for further investigation of how learners and teachers interpret and engage with tasks (as plans and as outcomes) especially in telecollaboration. However, work in this area is still limited, and the use of student teachers as pedagogical support interacting indirectly with learners in virtual exchanges has not been explored extensively. Against the backdrop of task appropriation, our presentation focuses on learner outcomes in this virtual exchange, especially as they relate to written genres. We also explore what such virtual exchanges may provide to student teachers in terms of professional development in the area of task design.
Findings suggest that the pedagogical support provided helped the EFL learners in mastering some aspects of the genres. However, factors that impacted task outcomes included participants' lack of experience, technology limitations, and possible differences in cultures-of-use. The US-based student teachers judged most of the EFL students' products as successful. Closer analysis showed that while some of the EFL students' work reflected mimicry (blind copying) of provided models, there were also signs of creativity that indicated learning of genre requirements and efforts to fulfill them.
Just as the EFL learners had to appropriate the genres, the student teachers as novices had to appropriate the process of task design to complete their assignment. Like the EFL students, the student teachers were successful. They did design tasks that were carried out by the EFL students successfully. While both tasks the student teachers designed reflected novice reliance on familiar task types (letters), the academic statement of purpose task suggested some openness to novel content. The student teachers designed appropriate initial task inputs and rubrics, and established general task outcomes for the EFL learners. However, successful implementation of the tasks required the mediation of the teacher in China regarding available technology and cultures-of-use; timing; classroom conditions; and student interests.
The success of this exchange for the EFL learners points to the potential of virtual exchange providing learners with access to intercultural instruction that they might not otherwise have access to. Factors that impacted task outcomes included the length and structure of the exchange, overreliance on models, participants' lack of experience with the written genres and learning contexts, technological limitations, and possible differences in cultures-of-use.
For student teachers, virtual exchanges of this type can provide an opportunity to work with practicing teachers and through their mediation become conscious of local conditions and implementation issues in task use, and develop their task design repertoire. To this end, Samuda (2005) has suggested that the development of task design expertise, especially in terms of design for effective implementation of tasks, may benefit from opportunities to practice in real contexts. Such practice in virtual exchanges may help student teachers become more aware of local, contextual factors that can have an influence on learning in tasks (Bygate, 1999). Such experience may help teachers develop something like the implementation orientation that marks the work of expert task designers (Johnson, 2003).
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