Researching pilot experiences
For the pilots both learner and teacher questionnaires were developed and distributed
digitally. The questionnaires contained mostly closed items. A 5 point Likert scale was
used with low values indicating negative experiences and high values positive ones.Prior
to the telecollaboration sessions learners were asked to complete a background survey
which included items
concerning the students’ affinity with languages, technol
ogy use at
school and students’ preferences and attitudes about technology.
A second questionnaire was distributed to learners for evaluating a range of aspects
related to the telecollaboration practices: technical quality, suitability of the environment
used, tasks, communicative performance and motivation. As for teachers, they were
asked to assess the telecollaboration experiences focusing on what went (not) well and
why, their perceptions about the pedagogical value of telecollaboration, their tasks and
roles during the project and their motivation.
Additional questionnaires were also distributed to teachers in an attempt to measure
their intercultural development. For reasons of space we will focus on the results of
learner questionnaires.
Learner questionnaires
77 students from 8 different institutions filled in the
background questionnaires
(see
Fig. 1 for the distribution).
Figure 1. Distribution of responses by country
Many of the pupils participating in the telecollaboration sessions report to learn two,
mostly three and sometimes four languages at school. All of them learn English and a
majority learns Spanish (82%). 92% of the pupils says to like to learn languages. When
asked which elements of language learning they like the most the results show that they
all like
Speaking
(M=3.98, SD=0.93), followed by
Learning about other people
(M=3.85,
SD=1.02) and
Pronunciation
(M=3.85, SD=0.96). The least favourite is
Grammar
(M=2.99, SD=1.11).
Questions about the students’ technological use show
that all pupils have a computer at
home and 76 from the 77 have internet connection. Additionally, 90.9% possesses a
Smartphone, while 74% owns a tablet, IPad and/or IPod. As to the social media
applications pupils use to communicate with friends and family, Whatsapp is the most
popular one, followed by Facebook and Skype. Some Spanish pupils reported to use
Tuenti, a social networking application similar to Facebook. The overall high frequencies
of social media applications used indicate that pupils at secondary school are very
familiar with a variety of digital communication tools.
Learners were also asked about the digital tools used at school. Moodle is the
environment most frequently used at schools, particularly in Spain.
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