Marja Zibelius Cooperative Learning in Virtual Space A Critical Look at New Ways of Foreign Language Teacher Education Giessener Beiträge zur Fremdsprachendidaktik Cooperative Learning in Virtual Space GIESSENER BEITRÄGE ZUR FREMDSPRACHENDIDAKTIK Herausgegeben von Eva Burwitz-Melzer, Wolfgang Hallet, Jürgen Kurtz, Michael Legutke, Hélène Martinez, Franz-Joseph Meißner und Dietmar Rösler Begründet von Lothar Bredella, Herbert Christ und Hans-Eberhard Piepho Marja Zibelius Cooperative Learning in Virtual Space A Critical Look at New Ways of Foreign Language Teacher Education Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbiblio grafie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. © 2015 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem und alterungsbeständigem Werkdruckpapier. Internet: http: / / www.narr.de E-Mail: info@narr.de Printed in Germany ISSN 0175-7776 ISBN 978-3-8233-6880-9 Für Mum, Dad und Jan - Eure wundervolle Unterstützung hat dies möglich gemacht! 7 Acknowledgements Countless people have inspired and supported this piece of work and I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who has assisted me in any way with this research project. First and foremost, I want to give my sincere thanks to my supervisor, Michael Legutke, whose continuous enthusiasm, expert guidance and wholehearted support for my project has always left me smiling. His passion for teaching and research is contagious and without him, I would not have considered pursuing this career! Thank you so much. I am also very grateful to Martina Möllering, without whom I would not have been able to enjoy two amazing research periods at Macquarie University, Sydney. I deeply appreciate all her contributions of time, encouragement and mentoring, her constant positive outlook and her unfailing provision of pragmatic solutions to administrative and research issues. A further sincere and very special thanks goes to Dietmar Rösler, who has from the start of my career always been a precious and invaluable source of expertise, great encouragement and excellent advice in any area of my research and work at Gießen and beyond. I deeply appreciate this. I would also like to give a very heartfelt thanks to Marita Schocker, whose kind and cheerful nature and professional commitment make working with her such a pleasure! Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule and for travelling many miles to serve on my committee. Thank you also to Ingrid Miethe for letting me benefit from her remarkable talent for explaining complicated theories so plausibly and for her time with all my questions. Thank you to my colleagues and friends from our wonderful research section, Tech-AG, for discussing my project with me at various stages and for your companionship, your many stimulating ideas and for allowing me the opportunity to participate in so many enlightening joint research endeavours. My thesis would not have achieved its present quality without the priceless linguistic, subject matter and editorial expertise from Vivienne Mellor- Schwartze. Thank you so much! ! Further, it would not have travelled between the borders of two universities so smoothly without the extremely reliable work of Jennifer Heward, whose managerial support in this cross-country project has been greatly appreciated. Of course, this PhD work would not have been possible without the participation of the E-LINGO students and the support of the E-LINGO team. In particular, a very special thanks to the cohort that welcomed me so warmly, Valerie, Kim, Gerrit, Cathy and Jean from the tandem and tridem under 8 study, and Heike Bäcker, Vivienne Mellor-Schwartze, Daniela Stein, Heike Bechtold, Andreas Müller-Hartmann and the complete E-LINGO team. I wish to really thank all of you! This dissertation was supported through financial assistance of the Baden- Württemberg Stiftung and a Macquarie Research Excellence Scholarship (iMQRES) and I gratefully acknowledge and thank these agencies for their support. I finally owe a lot of gratitude to all the people who made my time in Sydney and beyond such a personally and professionally enriching time, among them Julie, Brigitte, Heather and Chris, Sandra, Ursula, all the wonderfully inspiring people from Concord Baptist Church and many many more. I owe so much to you! My deepest thanks go to my family, Mum & Dad, Meike, Mine and Jan. Without the constant knowledge that I could always count on you, I would not have been able to achieve anything! I praise God for providing me with such a wonderful family and a life full of amazing opportunities and awesome experiences. Table of Contents 79 13 List of Abbreviations and Acronyms AERA American Educational Research Association CARP Classroom Action Research Project CL Cooperative Learning CMC Computer-Mediated Communication CSCL Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning ECTS European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System EFL English as a Foreign Language EU European Union GT Grounded Theory IT Information Technology JLU Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, Germany List of Tables Table 1: Paradigm for the Analysis of Productivity ...................................... 32 Table 2: E-LINGO course structure and content overview ......................... 9 Table 3: Composition of document codes to identify data excerpts ........ 117 Table 4: Academic calendar and relevant dates of the cohort under investigation........................................................................... 123 Table 5: Summary of focus group member characteristics (tridem)........ 126 Table 6: Summary of focus group member characteristics (tandem) ...... 129 Table 7: Summary of similarities and differences between focus groups 130 List of Figures Figure 1: ‘Welcome’ screen of the online learning environment ................. 98 Figure 2: Electronic diary excerpt, participant view..................................... 101 Figure 3: Electronic team-forum excerpt, participant view......................... 102 Figure 4: Drop-down menu for tasks and steps in ‚My Course and example task............................................................................... 105 0 15 1 Introduction There are few things more important to teach our children, adolescents, and young adults than a basic understanding of how cooperative systems function [...]. (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 193) [M]any teachers are still reluctant to have students work in groups, partly because most teachers have not themselves experienced successful group work as students. We tend to teach as we were taught, just as we tend to parent as we were parented. (Coelho 1992: 130) The above quotations describe two key motivations for the present study. They illustrate that whilst there are great gains to be expected from asking learners to engage in cooperative endeavours, there is a need for more concise, experiential and inquiry-based teacher training regarding the implementation of cooperative group work in their classrooms. The third key dimension of this study is the use of computers to facilitate cooperation. Previous research attests that “computer-mediated collaborative learning [...] can be as effective [...] or more effective [...] than face-to-face collaboration” (Brewer & Klein 2004: 140) and that the “effectiveness of web-based instruction may be enhanced” through the use of Cooperative Learning (Jensen et al. 2002: 165). “E-LINGO - Teaching Languages to Young Learners” is a part-time vocational distance course that combines the Cooperative Learning approach to teaching and learning (CL) and its application in online learning contexts with the strong need for teacher education in CL. The programme, which puts a strong focus on experiential learning, facilitates extensive collaborative experiences among the participants by asking them to jointly plan, conduct and evaluate classroom-based action research projects in their own teaching contexts. Johnston (2009: 246) advocates this approach by stating: “Collaborative teacher development is not an add-on luxury for rare cases, but a vital component of any healthy, forward-looking educational setting.” Additionally, Kern (2006: 200) states that “[t]echnology-based language teaching is not a method but is integrated into various pedagogical approaches”. This study investigates the experiences of participants in a foreign language teacher education programme using virtual teamwork. It seeks to understand how members of one E-LINGO cohort collaborated and interacted in the virtual space of blended learning, which techniques they applied to facilitate the collaboration process, and which dimensions of the CL approach were important to their cooperative dealings. To achieve this, an in-depth analysis of the CL approach in language education was performed. Chapter 2 will present the research foundation of CL, 16 discuss research studies carried out in the context of CL and present several elements that have a bearing on the productivity of cooperative groups. Among these characteristics, one assumes a central position: positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1). “Of all the variables that may mediate the effectiveness of cooperation, positive interdependence may be the most important, because its presence largely defines the presence of cooperation” (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 195). Positive interdependence is thus viewed as the basis for cooperation of any kind to occur and yet, “research on positive interdependence is in its infancy” (ibid.: 193). Chapter 3 will present findings from studies on computer-mediated cooperation, also termed telecollaboration, in language (teacher) education, focussing on dimensions relevant to an analysis of virtual teamwork. This includes a discussion of the transferability of key CL elements to electronic cooperation, the role of computer-mediated communication (CMC) channels in facilitating cooperation, and the benefits and challenges identified by previous research into conducting cooperation in a virtual environment in the context of foreign language teacher education. The research context and the research methodology will be presented in chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 4 will introduce the E-LINGO programme, making particular reference to its role in the context of foreign language teacher education reform in Europe, its contents and key components, as well as the role of (electronic) cooperation within the programme. The overall methodological approach to the study will be outlined in chapter 5. The research questions driving the study, the choice of the research framework, methods of data collection and analysis, ethical concerns and limitations of the study will be discussed. The chapter will also portray the focus groups and the cohort with which the study was carried out and explain the choice of focus groups. Chapters 6 to 8 will present analyses of the data. These chapters portray the voice of the teachers. Their perceptions of the virtual teamwork will be outlined together with the techniques they applied to facilitate and manage the collaboration process. It will be argued that the sharing of information about oneself functioned as one means for the participants to support the online group work and to smooth its progress (Chapter 6). Data excerpts in which participants engaged in such processes of ‘self-disclosure’ will be presented, and the potential consequences of these actions will be outlined. Discussion of the findings will also address methods applied by the participants to overcome a perceived lack of ‘presence’ in the virtual teamwork (Chapter 7). Participants’ active engagement in making their ‘invisible’ contexts explicit to their team partners, identifying interdependences between them and making possible influences on the group work evident to the partners will be reviewed. In the same way, the communication of positive feelings towards the 17 group and the partners that might otherwise not have surfaced will be discussed. Finally, analysis of the data provided insight into the inception of computer-mediated cooperation within the larger framework of the CL approach. This will be discussed in chapter 8. Key elements of CL, as identified in section 2.3, will be revisited and tested for their applicability in the context of the virtual group work analysed in the present study. Chapter 9 will conclude this study by summarising the interconnections among major data sources and detailing the prospects for future research investigating the practical implications of cooperation in a virtual environment both in and outside of the context of foreign language teacher education. In this way, the current study contributes to the research investigating CL. By identifying factors that contribute to positive interdependence and other constituents of CL in virtual groups, it suggests improvements to the CL approach in order to benefit learning outcomes in distance courses for language teacher education. 19 2 Cooperative Learning The following chapter will present a general introduction to the Cooperative Learning 1 approach to teaching and learning (in the following abbreviated as CL). Since this theory forms the central conceptual framework on which the present study is based, the topic of CL will be treated in some detail here. In a first step, the theory and research background that led to the development of the CL methodology will be dealt with (2.1). Next, the ensuing CL approach itself will be considered. To allow a transfer of the concepts presented in this chapter to the particular context of my research study, an emphasis will be laid on a discussion of the specific types of research carried out under the heading of CL (2.2). Further, positive interdependence and other defining characteristics of CL as well as inherent advantages and challenges will be discussed (2.3). This chapter does not presume to review all the studies available, but summarises central findings and relevant insights. These will be related to the field of foreign language learning and language teacher education. It would seem that in the early literature on cooperation 2 in particular, a major part of the research focussed on general education, and studies that predominantly involve the specific contexts treated in the present research are the exception. This will be discussed at length in a later section. Nevertheless, in order to allow a discussion of the effects of CL on the areas of language learning and language teacher education, a basic framework of ‘general’ CL needs to be presented first. This is the topic of the following section. 1 The term ‘Cooperative Learning’ (with capital letters) will be used here interchangeably with the abbreviation ‘CL’ to denote the specific classroom approach that has been referred to in the literature as ‘Cooperative Learning’. The term ‘cooperative learning’ (without capital letters) will be used in all other contexts. Such a clear distinction, however, is not common practice in the literature. Interestingly, many works (e.g. Johnson et al. 2006) use the term ‘cooperative learning’ to refer to practices that took place long before the CL approach was developed (e.g. ibid.: A13) and to denote the actual CL methodology. To avoid confusion, the above distinction will be made throughout this paper. 2 The concept of ‘cooperation’ is sometimes distinguished from ‘collaboration’ (e.g. by Oxford 1997). A clear and uniform distinction is, however, not consistently made (Beatty & Nunan 2004: 166). In accordance with, for example, Kreijns et al. (2003) and Kessler (1992a), both terms will be used interchangeably in this paper to denote the practices of groups that work according to the principles of CL (cf. 2.3). 20 2.1 Small group research: review of the history and synthesis of relevant research The CL approach to teaching and learning originates from so-called ‘small group research’ conducted systematically from the beginning of the twentieth century on in the disciplines of psychology and sociology (Hörmann 1993: 88). CL is thus “an outgrowth of the work of social scientists’ research on group dynamics, social relationships, teaching, and learning” (DelliCarpini 2009: 42). The establishment of small group research as an interdisciplinary branch of research was facilitated by shifts in the focus of attention in sociology and psychology, which caused both fields to move away from their dominant research concerns in the nineteenth century: in psychological research, the trend moved away from the experiences and the consciousness of the individual to a view that regarded the person in its social context, rather than as an ‘a-social’ object of investigation. At about the same time, research in sociology moved away from the study of the larger historical entities and structures, such as ‘society’, towards the more clearly arranged and more easy to manipulate and accessible social entity of the ‘group’ (Hörmann 1993: 88ff.). In this way, both fields moved closer to each other and consequently came to share some common interest in research themes. It is also in this context that the development of the research branch of ‘social psychology’ must be viewed (ibid.; cf. 2.1.2.1). In order to view the developments that have recently taken place in CL in their historical context, a synthesis of relevant research in the time prior to the development of the CL approach will be given here. In this context, various researchers who have already directly or indirectly made reference to the importance of cooperation in their works will be cited. It is important to note that, even though many of the studies in these early stages were carried out in the laboratory, they are, as we will see, nevertheless of value for an application to classroom settings in the form of CL (cf. also Slavin 1995b: 147). Looking at the development of CL from this angle will make us aware of “major findings relevant to building the theoretical base from which research on practical cooperative learning methods derives its conceptual framework” (Slavin 1995b: 147). It will enable us to consider the significance of the development of a coherent CL methodology for use in classrooms and teacher training contexts. Through a well-informed examination of past and present research trends, we can interpret their findings appropriately. Such a view on the history of a phenomenon further has the potential to shed light on less well-researched areas of study as well as on frequently addressed issues, as will become obvious below. 21 Evidence of the very first approaches to the practical use of cooperation in instructional contexts can be found thousands of years ago, before the birth of Christ, in the Talmud, the most important book in Judaism besides the Hebrew Bible, which asserts that “in order to understand the Talmud, one must have a learning partner” (Johnson et al. 2006: A13; cf. also Olsen & Kagan 1992: 3). A similar historical example is given by Karsten (1977: 84): with reference to the study of small groups, she notes that the first approaches to explaining the term ‘group’ and the function of a group can be found in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Defining humans as essentially social animals, Aristotle stated that in order to be able to develop as a human being, an individual needs to live together with other human beings (ibid.). However, as Karsten (ibid.) also notes, systematic analysis of the phenomenon did not emerge until the beginning of the twentieth century. It is these first theoretical and research underpinnings of what came to be known as CL that will be the topic of the present chapter. For a timeline and a discussion of further early historical positions on cooperation in learning, see Johnson et al. 2006: A2ff. In terms of categorising relevant theories that led to the establishment of the CL approach, various types of classification have been proposed. Johnson et al. (2006: A5ff.), for example, specify three theoretical roots “that have guided research on and practice of cooperative learning” (ibid.: A5). They are social interdependence theory, cognitive-developmental theory and behavioural-learning theory. The most influential among these, according to Johnson et al., was the social interdependence root, with publications by Kurt Lewin and Morton Deutsch, among others (cf. 2.1.2.1 below). Important theories that derived from the cognitive developmental perspective are largely based on the works of Piaget, Vygotsky and others (cf. 2.1.2.2). The third, behavioural-learning theory, assumes that the effort students put into a task depends on the type of reward available. This viewpoint derives partly from the theoretical works and research of Skinner (1968; cf. Johnson et al. 2006). Another useful classification can be developed on the basis of the extensive literature review of the history of small group research by Alexander Paul Hare (1976). Hare’s publication will play a major role in the following, since it gives an exceptionally comprehensive overview of all the main studies pertaining to the field of small group research. It was written from a sociologist’s point of view at a time when the CL approach was only just beginning to develop, and thus it contains no bias against or in favour of CL. Where appropriate, Hare’s account will of course be complemented by comments and findings from other researchers, in particular from more recent publications. The following sections will allow us to pinpoint when research interest in cooperation and cooperative modes of interaction commenced. It will also set 22 out the reasons for this and discuss the issues it has presented for contemporary research. Hare (1976: 384ff.) identifies three distinct phases in the history of small group research from the first studies at the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1970s, when the second edition of Hare’s work was published: the earliest period embraces the years 1898 to 1930, when the first individual studies were conducted. This was a time when the expressions ‘small group’ and ‘group dynamics’ had not yet been coined. Much of this early work was carried out by social psychologists, who at this time most probably were not aware of the fact that “one day they would be seen as the founding fathers of an exciting area in the study of interpersonal behaviour” (Hare 1976: 384). This first period was followed by a second period from 1931 to 1940 and by another, “the heyday of small group research” (ibid.: 385), which Hare mostly attributes to the 1950s, but which already had its beginnings in events that took place in the 1930s (ibid.; cf. below). 2.1.1 Effects of the presence of others: ‘together’ versus ‘apart’ A cornerstone that has shaped the development of small group research was the observation that the performance of an individual can be influenced by the mere presence of another person (Karsten 1977: 84). This observation is closely linked to the commencement of small group research. The beginning of the first period of investigation into small groups (1898 to 1930; cf. above) is marked by the existence of the first ‘together’ and ‘apart’ experiments, which compared the performance of individuals when they were working individually and when they were in the company of others performing the same task (Hare 1976: 385f.). Various observations and experiments on the performance of children in different situations had been carried out in the period before we can begin to speak of a systematic body of research (Karsten 1977: 87). Although it would be theoretically possible to give an item-by-item account due to the small number of total publications in the field at this time, a representative piece of research has been selected here for illustration purposes. One study that is frequently referred to as one of the first (cf. Karsten 1977: 87; Johnson et al. 2006: A8) or classic (Hare 1976: 385) studies was conducted by Norman Triplett 3 (1898, in Hare 1976). Triplett was allegedly the first to compare the individual performance of school children with their 3 Inconsistently spelled ‘Tripplett’ and ‘Triplett’ on various occasions in Hare 1976 (e.g. 308, 385, 394 vs. 308, 329, 387). In accordance with Karsten (1977), Johnson et al. (2006), and others, the spelling in Hare’s bibliography will be used here. 23 performance when they were in the company of another child. For his research, he analysed young children who were winding lines with fishing reels. His results revealed that half of the children worked faster when they were in a group of peers doing the same activity, one fourth fell behind their individual performance and another 25 % were unaffected by the presence of the other children (cf. Karsten 1977: 87). Much of this early research was carried out by educators who wanted to find out if a child could do homework and schoolwork tasks best when working alone or when sharing a room with others working on the same task (Hare 1976: 307). An important early German study in this context was carried out by Mayer, who compared the performance of school children in tasks such as memorising and calculating in situations when they were working alone and when they were in groups (Karsten 1977). Regarding the results of this and other studies subsequent to Triplett, Hare (1976: 307ff.) summarises that later experiments commonly corroborated the generalization that the presence of others influenced some individuals positively, affected others negatively and did not affect the performance of others at all. Hare accounts for these findings as follows: “The explanation may lie in the fact that the presence of others has a facilitating effect on the dominant (most likely) response, hindering performance when the dominant response is incorrect and helping performance when the dominant response is correct” (1976: 329). This explanation is confirmed by the later works of Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995a: 260), who add a further dimension: “The results of research on how the presence of others affects individual performance is [sic! ] seemingly contradictory”. They ascertain that much research has been carried out to explain this ambiguity. In doing so, they draw our attention to the work by Zajonc (1965), who reconciles the seemingly incongruous findings and observations by outlining that the impact of presence effects on task performance depends on how well practised an individual is in carrying out a particular task (Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. 1995a: 261). It is important to note, however, that Triplett’s early ‘together’ and ‘apart’ experiment and subsequent ones were primarily concerned with the effects of individual productivity in the presence of others, and not yet with individuals cooperating with each other (cf. 2.3). In spite of this, Slavin (1995b: 146) notes that the question of the superiority of cooperation as opposed to competition, which developed out of these early studies, is nevertheless “one of the oldest themes in social psychology”. Furthermore, it is worth noting that research on the effects of the presence of others neither automatically nor exclusively produces results favouring the use of cooperative formats of interaction. Rather, it has been reported that, from a CL viewpoint, “[p]resence effects have implications for individual 24 performance under all types of classroom learning - cooperative, competitive, and individualistic” (Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. 1995a: 261). In addition, Hertz- Lazarowitz et al. caution against overemphasising the explanative potential of the influence of the presence of others: “It is reasonable to assume further that presence effects are moderated by individual differences in social anxiety and ability. That is, although the presence of another might decrease the performance of one student [...], it may enhance that of another” (e.g. the first student’s rival) (ibid.: 261f.). In sum, the research cited so far was carried out mostly at the beginning of the first period of Hare’s classification. It was precisely in the early years, from 1898 to 1905, that many of the key methods and ideas in small group research were formed (Hare 1976: 385). As will become evident in the following sections, central themes in small group research that emerged for the first time during this period would continue to be of major importance to the field for decades to come (ibid.: 394; cf. also 2.2; 2.3; 3.2). It was also in this period that influential works by Piaget (e.g. 1926) in the area of child study and by Freud (e.g. 1926) in psychology were carried out. While only a relatively small number of publications appeared between 1905 and 1920, Hare (1976: 386) discerns a distinct increase in activities in the area of small group research after World War I (1914-1918). This second phase of the early history of small group research was marked by research activities which had been inspired by events during the war. The main research focus in this phase was on problem-solving behaviour, and the number of ‘together and apart’ studies published continued to increase (ibid.). The events of World War I also gave rise to research in social psychology, which subsequently flourished (cf. 2.1.2.1). The war provided a particular incentive to study questions of leadership, public opinion and prejudice (ibid.: 385). 2.1.2 Major theorising on cooperation It was not until the second period of the history of small group research (1931 to 1940) that the discipline began to take shape, with the number of publications increasing at an accelerated pace and research efforts becoming more systematic. It was also during this period that most of the studies which are now considered to be ‘classics’ were carried out (Hare 1976: 384). The influential research on leadership and group dynamics by the German psychologist Kurt Lewin (e.g. Lewin & Lippitt 1938) and the sociometric studies by the Austrian psychologist Jakob Moreno (e.g. 1934), who both later emigrated to the United States (cf. below), are examples of this. While research efforts from 1898 to 1930 concentrated primarily on ‘together’ versus ‘apart’ scenarios, and while these still continued to be made in 25 this second period, an increasing emphasis lay on different aspects of group problem-solving, such as group versus individual judgement and leadership (Hare 1976: 388). It is important to note that it was only in this period that the social group as such was regarded as a genuine and ‘real’ entity, with qualities and traits (such as a group atmosphere and group goals) peculiar to itself (Karsten 1977: 89; Hare 1976: 393). It was before that, “at a time when psychologists commonly denied the existence or reality of ‘groups’” (Hare 1976: 393) and when only individuals were considered ‘real’, that Lewin first wrote about group dynamics. It is thanks to Lewin that the concept of ‘group’ is now an acceptable and accessible unit of research for psychologists (ibid.). For the first time, systematic studies on the group in the context of social interactions were being carried out and the term ‘group dynamics’ was coined by Lewin to refer to these processes (Karsten 1977: 90). However, it should be noted that despite these early advances, Hörmann (1993: 91), writing in the 1990s, notes that the term ‘group’ has still not been uniformly defined among researchers. As will be discussed below, concern regarding the use of imprecise definitions has also been noted by some researchers with respect to the term ‘CL’ (cf. e.g. Würffel 2007; see 2.2.3.3) 2.1.2.1 The influence of Morton Deutsch As we have seen above, the social psychologist Kurt Lewin was responsible for particularly influential theoretical and research work in the 1920s and 1930s. Lewin’s work was continued and expanded upon by his graduate student Morton Deutsch in the late 1940s. Interestingly, David Johnson, one of the founding fathers of the CL approach, was himself a graduate student of Deutsch’s (cf. Johnson et al. 2006: A5). To gain an insight into the research and theorising conducted by Lewin and Deutsch, selected works by Deutsch will be presented in the following. In his experimental study, Deutsch (1949a; cf. also Hare 1976: 239ff.) described the effects of cooperation and competition upon the group work of students participating in an introductory psychology class. He divided his subjects into ten experimental groups, each consisting of five students. Each group received either a cooperative or a competitive set of instructions. The ‘cooperative’ groups were told that they would receive a group grade based on how well the group performed in contrast to the other groups, 4 while the ‘competitive’ groups were instructed that each member would be graded in comparison to the contributions and efforts of the other members in his/ her 4 It should be noted that this setting is in itself a competitive one. Generally, intergroup competition is not always excluded in CL (see e.g. Slavin 1995a: 12f.; Jacobs 2006: 42). 26 team. Apart from these differences, each group performed the same tasks: they met once per week for a period of five consecutive weeks and each week they had to solve a puzzle and discuss a human-relations problem. Using student questionnaires and various observer rating scales, the data that Deutsch gathered enabled him to test various hypotheses which he had set out in a paper earlier in the same year (Deutsch 1949b). As described in Hare (1976: 241ff.), four of the major hypotheses and the conclusions that Deutsch drew will be exemplified: Regarding the perception of interdependence, the data gathered from the students and from the observers by and large supported Deutsch’s hypothesis that the ‘cooperative’ group members would rate themselves higher in terms of their cooperation than the competing members. In turn, perceived competition was higher among the students in the competitive situation. A further prediction of Deutsch asserted that both types of teams would differ in the coordination of their efforts, with the degree of coordination being greater and coordination occurring more frequently in the cooperative teams. This hypothesis, too, was supported by the data. Thirdly, with regard to the communication between team members, the observers reported considerably less communication difficulties among the ‘cooperative’ groups. These members, in turn, reported notably less difficulty in communicating their ideas to the others than did the members in the competitive situation. Finally, the data indicated that group productivity was higher in the cooperatively organised teams: in terms of quantity, the cooperative groups solved the puzzle faster and produced longer written recommendations on the human-relations problems. In terms of qualitative productivity, the observers noted that the cooperative groups showed a greater insight into the nature of the problems and that they produced more fruitful ideas for dealing with them. However, in terms of the average individual productivity, the data showed no significant difference between both types of group; nor did the ‘cooperative’ team members rate their own level of learning from the discussions significantly higher than did their peers in the competitive situation. Referring to the work of Deutsch (1949a) and others, Slavin (1995b: 148) highlights the fact that Deutsch’s study is one of the few that actually measured and verified (instead of simply assuming) that individuals help each other more when working under cooperative conditions than under competitive or individualistic ones. In addition, Slavin emphasises the importance of Deutsch’s findings on group norms: by documenting the occurrence of group norms favouring performance, which are central to Deutsch’s (1949b) theory, it is reasonable to assume that these can be considered as one mediating variable to explain increased performance in cooperative reward structures (Slavin 1995b: 153; cf. also 2.3.5; 2.3.8). However, after his subsequent review of 27 more recent studies on the subject, Slavin (ibid.) comes to a slightly more tentative conclusion: having stated that Deutsch’s findings “indicate that peer norms do come to favor achievement as a consequence of cooperative incentive structures”, later on the same page he postulates that “group member helping on a group task and group member norms supporting performance […] under certain circumstances, may increase performance, including learning” (1995b: 153). Leading on from his theory of cooperation and competition (1949b), in later publications Deutsch dedicated his work to the study of internal characteristics of cooperatively working groups and factors that might enhance outcomes (Johnson et al. 2006). In particular, he focussed on the aspects of trust and conflict. Several of his findings in these areas indicated that the more group members trusted each other, the more successful their cooperative endeavours tended to be (Johnson et al. 2006: A31). This will be a key issue discussed with respect to the cooperative dealings of the participants in my study (cf. chapters 6 and 7). 2.1.2.2 The influence of Lev Vygotsky With respect to sociological theories that paved the way for and which still influence the CL approach, the works of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky are frequently cited in the literature (e.g. Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997; Hertz- Lazarowitz et al. 1995a; Slavin 1995b; Johnson et al. 2006; DelliCarpini 2009). One of Vygotsky’s key publications embraces the book Mind in Society (1978), which, though published in the 1930s, only became available in English in 1978. The origins of what is now termed as ‘social constructivism’ 5 are chiefly attributed to the works of Vygotsky (e.g. 1978; cf. Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997: 506). As will become obvious later, the E-LINGO teacher education programme, which builds the context in which the present research study is set, draws a strong constructivist approach to education (cf. chapter 4). Vygotsky’s view on cooperation and learning is essentially a cognitivedevelopmental one (cf. Johnson et al. 2006 above). While cognitive perspectives on CL generally argue that “interactions among students will in themselves increase student achievement” (Slavin 1995b: 161) and attribute this to factors connected with mental processing, the cognitive-developmental perspective is specifically characterised by its assumption that it is the interaction among children while they are carrying out an activity that “facilitates learning of critical concepts” (ibid.). 5 For a well-defined distinction between cognitive constructivism, as for example represented by Jean Piaget, and social constructivism, see Nyikos & Hashimoto (1997: 506f.). 28 In this vein, Vygotsky and scholars working in the area (cf. Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997) assert that the origins of the mental functions and accomplishments that are uniquely associated with human beings lie in their social relationships (cf. Johnson et al. 2006: A6). A central construct in Vygotsky’s theory is the concept of the ‘zone of proximal development’ (ZPD), the zone between the capability of a student when working individually and when working together with adults or more able peers, which Vygotsky (1978: 86) describes as the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. The implications of Vygotsky’s theory for learning and cooperation are summarised by Nyikos & Hashimoto (1997: 507): “isolated learning cannot lead to cognitive development”. In Vygotsky’s thinking, the reason for this lies in the constructive nature of human development, i.e. the fact that “social interaction is a prerequisite to learning and cognitive development. That is, knowledge is co-constructed and learning always involves more than one person” (Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997: 507). In other words, the pre-eminence of social interaction is “the driving force and prerequisite to individuals’ cognitive development” (ibid). With respect to language teaching and learning, Vygotsky’s works and those of other social constructivists have been the basis for a variety of approaches, for example in the field of computer-supported cooperative learning, as discussed in detail in section 2.1.4, and, with respect to E-LINGO, in chapter 4. Theories and classroom strategies regarding scaffolding (e.g. Donato 1994) are also closely linked to the concept of the ZPD. Of particular value to the area of language instruction is Vygotsky’s central tenet that interaction with other people and with the cultural environment has a positive influence on the cognitive development of an individual, provided that these interactions take place within this person’s range of potential growth, the ZPD (Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997: 507). This view has been embraced by current researchers, who put forward the idea that active communication with more skilled persons opens opportunities for students and future teachers of languages to enhance their cognitive skills (ibid.). Yet, it has also been noted that this expansion of one’s individual range of potential learning is by no means restricted to the benefit of the less advanced partners in interaction, but is rather a mutual ‘give and take’ (cf. also 4.3.2 for an outline of group composition in the groups in the present studies). This is set out, for example, by Nyikos & Hashimoto (1997: 507): 29 Thus, within the ZPD [...] more capable students can provide peers with new information and ways of thinking so that all parties can create new means of understanding. This mutually beneficial social process can also lead more experienced students to discover missing information, gain new insights through interaction, and develop a qualitatively different way of understanding. However, Vygotsky’s work also poses challenges to current research on cooperation and instruction, in particular with respect to its practical applications. Slavin (1995b: 163) points to the fact that a large proportion of research in the field of cognitive development was carried out in the form of laboratory studies. Therefore, he argues, the classroom techniques that derived from these theories have yet to prove their practical applicability in ‘real-world classrooms’ (ibid.). Despite these challenges, he proposes that “it is likely that the cognitive processes described by developmental theorists are important as mediating variables to explain the effects of group goals and group tasks on student achievement” (ibid.; cf. also 2.2.2). This issue will be expanded upon with respect to the research findings in chapters 6 to 9 below. Nyikos & Hashimoto (1997: 506f.) focus on another problematic area which concerns the application of research findings. They draw our attention to the fact that most applications of social constructivist theory are concerned with how children learn through social interaction and with the mediating role of language in these processes. They go on to state that ways of transferring theory to the situation of adult or adolescent learners “tend to be speculative” (ibid.: 506). Nevertheless, the influences of Vygotsky’s theorising on the fields of cooperation, (language) learning and teacher education have been great and have proved to be fruitful in many areas. Fundamentally, the CL approach requires students to work together cooperatively (cf. 2.2.2) and thus requires them to operate within their ZPD (cf. DelliCarpini 2009). More specifically, Hertz- Lazarowitz et al. (1995a: 271) focus on the help-seeking behaviour of children. In a review of selected research on children’s social development that is particularly relevant for the implementation of cooperation in early instruction, they show that young children have a negative perception of receiving help: five-year-olds often view others who are given help (for example by a teacher) as less proficient than those who did not receive help (ibid.). The authors argue that the introduction of cooperative forms of classroom organisation may result in a shift of this perception of seeking and accepting help, seeing it, in accordance with Vygotsky, as a valid and beneficial instrument in the acquisition of new skills and knowledge (ibid.). A further noteworthy piece of research in this context is Nyikos & Hashimoto (1997). In their conclusive research paper, in which they apply constructivist theory to the study of group 30 work in a teacher education context, they recommend the application of social constructivist theory to collaborative group work and discuss the possible existence of a ‘group ZPD’. They conclude their research on the various facets of such a ‘group ZPD’ by relating their work to Vygotsky and underlining the key importance of social support for the co-construction of knowledge and, in this way, for each individual’s and the group’s “potential for learning” (1997: 516), i.e. their ZPD. 2.1.3 Small group research into cooperation reaches its peak The works of Moreno, Lewin and others remained influential into the third phase in the history of small group research, which Hare (1976: 385ff.) refers to as the peak of small group research (cf. 2.1.2). This period was marked by the migration of numerous scholars and social scientists to the United States as a result of the dominance of authoritarian regimes, and in particular Hitler’s coming to power in Germany. Consequently, the most common research themes were concerned with the endorsement of democratic forms of group processes and the fight against totalitarianism (ibid: 391). Two of the most influential immigrant researchers were Kurt Lewin from Germany and Jakob Moreno from Austria, as noted in section 2.1.2 (ibid.; Slavin 1995b: 148ff.). There were three major schools of small group research in the period from the late 1930s to the early 1960s: the school of sociometry (as for example represented by Moreno), the school of group dynamics (as for example represented by Lewin) and the school of small groups, which focussed rather on the sociological aspects (as represented by the sociologist Bales). An area of research that has since become increasingly popular is that which studies the effects of processes of group dynamics on group results, with the number of studies having increased rapidly since 1960 (Meyer 1977a: 101). In Germany during this period, influential work was carried out in the context of school learning and the efficiency of learning in small groups. First comparisons that distanced themselves from the laboratory studies and that were carried out in the real schools were undertaken by the influential researcher Ernst Meyer (cf. Meyer 1977a: 102) and, later, with a particular view to foreign language teaching, by Inge Schwerdtfeger (1977; cf. 2.2.2). In one of his early studies, Meyer compared the performance of eighth graders in teacher-fronted instruction versus project groups in the areas of memorising and spelling. His findings revealed that the performance of the students in classes with project group work was about 25% higher than that of the students in the classes with frontal teaching (Meyer 1977a: 102). Similar studies on the same topic were later carried out by other researchers. Referring to a large-scale empirical-statistical study by Dietrich (1969), Meyer summarises 31 the importance of such early investigation into small groups by linking its results to the advantages of using what came to be known as CL in school classrooms. The quote summarises the issue extremely well and vividly captures some of the enthusiasm with which the developers of CL built their approach (1977a: 103): Die Ergebnisse […] geben eine evidente Antwort nach dem “Warum” der Gruppenarbeit in der Schule: 1. Der Unterricht mit Kleingruppenarbeit ist einem Unterricht ohne Kleingruppenarbeit sowohl in der Reproduktion von Wissen als auch in der Beherrschung geistiger Arbeitstechniken weit überlegen. Das erworbene Wissen haftet nachhaltiger. 2. Die Überlegenheit zeigt sich ebenfalls hinsichtlich der Ausprägung sozialer Verhaltensweisen der Schüler. Neben einer engen und beständigen Kontaktstruktur ist auch ein kooperativeres, kohäsiveres und disziplinierteres Verhalten nachweisbar. 3. Weiterhin zeigt sich eine Überlegenheit hinsichtlich persönlichkeitsformender Faktoren. 6 2.1.4 Summary & outlook This chapter has presented a review of the major research and theoretical works that paved the way for and contributed to the subsequent development of the CL approach. I began this review by looking at research carried out by Triplett on the effects of the presence of others on performance at a time when there was no or hardly any systematic research on small groups (Karsten 1977: 87). It has become evident that from the beginning, the field of small group research has been shaped predominantly by the works of psychologists. This dominance persisted until the early 1970s. However, psychology was by far not the only discipline that had an impact on the early development of research in the field and that produced relevant findings. “Sociologists are next in impact, followed by the applied fields of psychotherapy, education, social work, and business.” (Hare 1976: 394) It has also been noted that the discipline was already well established in the 1920s and 1930s. However, until recently, as far as the major methods were 6 My translation: The results […] give a clear answer as to why cooperative group work should be implemented at school: 1. Lessons that integrate small group work are vastly superior to those that do not in terms of the students’ knowledge retention and their use of cognitive working techniques. The gained knowledge will stick in the memory longer. 2. The superiority also shows in terms of the manifestation of social forms of behaviour. In addition to close and regular contact between the students, more cooperative, more cohesive and more disciplined forms of behaviour have been demonstrated. 3. Furthermore, a superiority in terms of the development of personality characteristics can be observed. 32 concerned, almost all research was carried out in brief laboratory studies or in more or less artificial field settings resembling the laboratory situation (Slavin 1995b: 147). Although the comparative brevity of most of these laboratory studies makes them biased against certain forms of cooperative behaviour (for example, it takes time for group members to develop strategies for helping and supporting each other - as will be discussed in chapters 6 and 7), they have nevertheless proved to have the power to “support an understanding of the conditions under which positive or negative results are likely to be seen” (Slavin 1995b: 157). Even though, at first sight, it may appear to be a drawback and such a research base may seem to be of limited value, studies like the above have nevertheless “provided much of the theoretical basis on which the practical cooperative learning programs and research on these programs are based” (ibid.: 147). Reviewing the research in terms of task performance, we saw that the early studies on ‘the individual’ versus ‘the group’ centred around a comparison of the performance of individuals when they were alone and when they were in a group, but always working on an individual task (Hare 1976: 317; cf. cells C and D below). Table 1 illustrates this. The Relationship of the Individuals: Group Tasks Individual Tasks Together A C Apart B D Table 1: Paradigm for the Analysis of Productivity (adapted from Hare 1976: 317) While later studies also concentrated on areas like cooperation versus competition (cells A and C) and on groups working as groups and individuals working as individuals (cells A and D), and compared the efficiency of the group working under cooperative and competitive conditions (cf. Deutsch in 2.1.2.1) or the influences of teacher-fronted instruction and project group work on student learning (cf. Meyer in 2.1.3), it becomes obvious that, apart from a strong recent research interest, studies have failed to investigate groups performing a group task without being physically ‘together’ (cell B). The present study seeks to investigate one area in this context, the cooperation of prospective foreign language teachers in the virtual space of blended learning. 33 That research in this area is not necessarily dependent on the existence of the internet or other contemporary means of online communication and thus could conceivably have been a focus of earlier studies is demonstrated by Hare. In the 1970s, when his book was published, he notes that, even though it was possible for groups to solve group tasks or joint problems together without face-to-face contact via post or telephone, “there are few studies which explicitly deal with cell B” (Hare 1976: 318). This has changed in recent years with the increasing popularity of computer-mediated forms of communication that do not require the existence of physical face-to-face contact. In the context of research on cooperation and learning, one of the areas in which the present study is situated, i.e. telecollaboration (cooperation across a distance), is currently becoming more and more the focus of attention of research endeavours, in particular in the field of language teaching and language teacher education (cf. chapter 3). If we return to our initial considerations at the beginning of this chapter, we can see that many issues that were examined in early research on small groups (for example, interaction processes among cooperative group members) are still of importance to the contemporary CL debate (cf. chapters 2.2 and 2.3 below). Furthermore, our observation of the historical development of CL has allowed us not only to review major works and their impact on current methodology, but has also uncovered less well researched areas of investigation. Thus, we have been able to draw on this early research and supplement it with more recent findings, which will be a useful tool in making more informed choices. It is on findings like the ones listed above that CL is grounded. With this theoretical background and extensive body of literature, it seemed almost inevitable that the development of a ‘Cooperative Learning’ approach for use in instructional contexts should be the next step. In the following sections I will be looking at this development. 2.2 The Cooperative Learning (CL) approach: issues and research Johnson et al. (2006: A8) refer to the roots of CL research saying: “We know a lot about cooperation and we have known it for a long time.” But how did the distinct methodology of ‘Cooperative Learning’ develop from those first studies by Triplett in the United States to the work of, for example, Meyer in Germany? And which factors have paved the way for the contemporary success of CL? This will be the topic of the following section. 34 2.2.1 From small group research to CL It is reasonable to assume that the research carried out in the above mentioned fields and periods of time has contributed and added to a growing understanding of the nature and processes of cooperation. As an initial step in the development of CL, these insights were summarised in the first research reviews dealing with the issues of cooperation and competition (cf. Johnson et al. 2006). The next milestone was reached about a decade later, with Deutsch’s publication of a research paper and a theory on this theme in 1949 (Deutsch 1949a; 1949b). Guided by this, one of the key figures in the future development of CL, Spencer Kagan, undertook research on the issues of cooperation and competition among children in the 1960s (Johnson et al. 2006: A3). Concurrently, another leading figure of what came to be known as CL, David Johnson, began instructing teachers in cooperative forms of classroom management at the University of Minnesota (cf. also 2.1.2.1). He was joined by his brother, Roger, three years later (Johnson et al. 2006: A4). The 1970s saw further important researchers entering the field (cf. Johnson et al. 2006: A2ff.): the American educational psychologist Robert Slavin began developing cooperative curricula and Shlomo and Yael Sharan from Israel published their work on Small Group Teaching, a group investigation procedure for cooperative learning groups (Sharan & Sharan 1976). Also in this decade, an issue of the Journal of Research & Development in Education with the title “Cooperation” appeared. Another milestone for the dissemination and development of CL ideas was the subsequent foundation of the respective special interest groups in the “American Educational Research Association” (AERA) and in the “Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development” in 1985 (Johnson et al. 2006: A4). As a result of all these endeavours, the early 1990s saw ‘Cooperative Learning’ methodologies gaining popularity among teachers and educators, while, consequently, the first annual Cooperative Learning leadership conference was held in Minneapolis in 1996 (ibid.). In this way, the more than 550 experimental and 100 correlational studies that have been carried out since 1898 on the theme of cooperative, competitive and individualistic work (Johnson et al. 2006: A8) have all been important steps in the development of a coherent CL methodology for teaching and learning. We will now turn to the CL approach itself, and look at the different kinds of research conducted under the heading of CL. 35 2.2.2 The initiation of the CL approach The previous observations have shown that the CL approach is based on an extensive research base. As has been noted above, from the beginnings of small group research to the present, there has been much interest in identifying ways to improve the conditions of teaching and learning (cf. 2.1.1). The researchers who were developing methods of applying promising insights from small group research to support instruction found themselves in a position to base their work on findings from a variety of contexts, with subjects from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and age groups, and with research carried out in a variety of (institutional) contexts (Meyer 1977a; Olsen & Kagan 1992: 4f.). These results all pointed to the particular value of utilizing cooperative forms of organising work and learning, favouring them over competitive and individualised structures of classroom management. Thus, seen from this historical angle, “[c]ooperative learning is not a new phenomenon” (Coelho 1992: 129; cf. also Olsen & Kagan 1992: 3; Kessler 1992a: VI). From the 1970s on, it was chiefly the work of Robert Slavin (e.g. Slavin et al. 1985; Slavin 1995a), David and Roger Johnson (e.g. Johnson et al. 1981; Johnson & Johnson 1990), Olsen & Kagan (1992) in the United States and Yael and Shlomo Sharan (e.g. Sharan & Sharan 1976; Sharan 1990b) in Israel, who synthesised the findings from small group research and created what is now known as the CL approach. In Germany, important early work in this context was conducted by Ernst Meyer (1977b) in the context of school learning, while Inge Schwerdtfeger (1977) was one of the first German researchers to specifically address the field of CL and foreign language education (cf. also 2.1.3). The advantages that are often attributed to CL pertain to the areas of academic (e.g. Knight & Bohlmeyer 1990), social (e.g. Sharan et al. 1985) and, for foreign language learning, linguistic gains (e.g. Olsen & Kagan 1992; cf. also 3.4). Research that alludes to a positive correlation between the use of CL and student achievement and that indicates variables mediating this relationship has for example been published by Slavin (1983; 1995b) and Johnson & Johnson (1990), while Sharan investigated the effects of various CL methods on “Achievement, Attitudes and Ethnic Relations” (1980). Yet, these research results are not unanimous. At a time when many of these studies were published, Brown & Palincsar (1989: 397ff.), among others, noted that one needs to be cautious in interpreting the findings of research on CL and learning outcomes. In a more recent publication, Li & Lam (2013: 7) summarise the issue aptly: While there is a general consensus among researchers about the positive effects of cooperative learning on students’ achievement, there is a controversy 36 about why and how they affect achievement and under what conditions they have these effects. Finally, it is important to note that, as has been strongly emphasised by CL researchers as well as researchers from other fields, working together or assigning students to groups does not automatically classify as cooperation, nor does it necessarily lead to cooperative forms of learning. By contrast, only certain ways of working together are commonly defined as CL, and a range of conditions have been identified that need to be in place for successful CL to take place (cf. 2.3). These and other issues will be dealt with below. The particular renewed interest in CL among educators, researchers and teacher trainers with respect to computer-mediated instances of cooperation that may or may not entail face-to-face contact among team members will also be discussed in detail (cf. chapter 3). 2.2.3 A critical view on CL research In order to facilitate an understanding of the type of research that has been carried out specifically with regard to the CL approach, recent research trends in this area as well as the general conditions under which the studies were conducted and any notable shortcomings they might display will be discussed in the following. The present study will be situated in each of these areas and its status and value will be discussed accordingly. 2.2.3.1 CL research: past - present - future As we have seen above, the CL approach enjoyed a productive period of research in the 1970s. This era and the research prior to the 1990s is characterised by Gudjons (1993a: 125) as a period that produced a flood of scarcely manageable individual pieces of research. We have also seen that the main purpose of this initial CL research was the application of findings from small group research to educational settings. With another peak of research activity in the 1990s, however, came a shift in focus. Research carried out at this time was predominantly concerned with shedding light on the conditions necessary to achieve the frequently cited positive effects of CL (Legutke 2003: 218; Gudjons 1993a: 125). Many publications from this period illustrate this. To give one example, Slavin (1995b: 146) attests in 1995 that there is “still a great deal of confusion and disagreement about why cooperative learning methods affect achievement and, even more important, under what conditions cooperative learning has these effects” (italics in original). In the same vein, Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995a: 253) assert that “scientists are moving away from framing research questions dichoto- 37 mously”. The questions that were then being asked were no longer concerned with which form of learning (cooperative, competitive or individualised) produced superior results, but with linking specific determining factors to distinct academic and social outcomes (ibid.). The literature which appeared in the 1990s reflected not only a change in the focus of the research itself, but indeed also a renewed interest in CL as such. Slavin (1995b: 146) confirms that there is “a rapidly growing number of educators using cooperative learning at all levels of schooling and in many subject areas”. A lively interest in the application of CL can also be discerned with respect to the specific field of language teaching in this period. Olsen & Kagan (1992: 4) illustrate this: “Language teachers, who have long recognized the value of group work for language learning, have recently examined and adopted CL procedures to aid in the instruction and management of group activities”. Apart from this strong interest in CL research, however, it became apparent that there was also a necessity for further research, as Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995a: 253), referring to research in the 1990s, point out: “The identification of underlying cognitive and social processes, as well as person characteristics, that act as mediating and moderating variables in cooperation is far from complete.” They further note that “investigation of such interaction effects is conspicuously absent” (ibid.: 253f.). The present study tries to meet this need by presenting a detailed case study of the processes and individual characteristics underlying the cooperative dealings of two groups of student teachers in a blended learning M.A. programme. As inquiry into CL enters the twenty-first century, it also seems to be on the verge of entering yet another dimension. With electronic communication media having become easily accessible at nearly every location in the industrialised world, new forms of cooperation have evolved that do not require team partners to be in the same location, let alone to have face-to-face contact (cf. also 2.1.4 and 2.2.2 above). The current study is situated in this new field of research on CL in that it investigates the interactions of student teachers who are cooperating in a virtual environment (cf. chapter 5). Research questions that are being asked in this respect concern the transferability of determinants from ‘traditional’ CL to this new domain. This has already been hinted at above with respect to the ‘B’ cell in the research paradigm of productivity outlined in section 2.1.4 and will be detailed in chapters 2.3 and 3.2 below. 2.2.3.2 A classification model for research on CL Johnson et al. (2006: A9f.) present a classification for systematising the various types of research undertaken under the heading of CL. They state that 38 there are two types of literature on CL, ‘scientific’ and ‘professional’ literature (ibid.: A9). From a research methodological point of view, these two types of literature can be closely linked to the quantitative and the qualitative camps of empirical (classroom) research, as the following description will make evident (cf. also 5.2). With scientific literature, Johnson et al. refer to the more theoretical research that embraces “carefully controlled research studies to validate or disconfirm theory” (ibid.). These studies are mostly laboratory or field experimental studies, and typically have college students as subjects (ibid.). While, in the words of Johnson et al., these are “studies producing validated theory”, they frequently “lack credibility with many practitioners” (ibid.). This major caveat is based on the fact that research endeavours in this field frequently fail to demonstrate the functioning of CL in ‘real-world’ classrooms (ibid.). The works belonging to the second type of research on CL, professional literature, are classified by Johnson et al. as mostly demonstration studies, “field quasi-experimental or correlational studies demonstrating that cooperative learning works in real classrooms for a prolonged period of time” (2006: A9). They subdivide these studies into four groups (ibid.: A9f.): a) summative evaluations, the largest of the four categories, in which research is concerned with finding out if a particular CL programme or method produces favourable results; b) comparative summative evaluations, which are less frequent and which focus on a comparison of the effects of different CL methods; c) formative evaluations, which have received very little attention from researchers and the research focus of which is on areas where a CL programme was not successful and on possibilities for improvement; and d) large-scale survey studies, of which only a few exist and which are concerned with investigating the (long-term) effects of cooperation on students. As with the scientific literature, there are also limitations associated with the professional literature on CL. Two main limitations that Johnson et al. (2006: 10) put forward are the lack of transferability of the results to other (instructional) contexts and the fact that the researcher is typically the person who has developed the method under scrutiny, and thus it is frequently the researcher who evaluates his/ her own programme. The research carried out for the present paper occupies a certain place within this categorisation. As an analysis of a particular course of studies which incorporates aspects of CL on various levels, it takes the form of a multiple case study and thus predominantly belongs to the field of demonstration studies. In its attempt to determine factors that led the teams to attaining the complex cooperative end goals, a consideration of incidents where the programme supported and hindered the cooperative efforts of the team members will also play a part in the research. By further listening to the voices of the 39 students and following their cooperative efforts throughout the full period of their studies with E-LINGO, the research will also provide a long-term perspective for the CL course under study. In this way, the present study belongs to the subgroup of formative evaluations (category c) above), for which Johnson et al. (2006: A10) attest a clear need for further research. What is more, they even recommend a combination of profitable research methods for this subgroup that resembles those applied in the present study: “The critical incident method seems well suited to the diagnosis of training deficiencies or unintended consequences, as does a combination of surveys with follow-up interviews of a representative subsample of respondents” (ibid). 2.2.3.3 Research conditions and findings - issues As we will see below, investigation into CL has produced extensive instances of research asserting that CL methods and cooperative group work is vastly superior to other forms of instruction and learning. The reported beneficial outcomes of the use of CL in classrooms range from improved academic achievement and better pro-social behaviour to better mental health (cf. 2.2.2). However, a critical look needs to be taken at these findings and at the conditions under which most of the research was carried out. I will also look at the ways in which the research methods used are sometimes evident in the results, at times leading to contradictions when, for example, the same set of data was analysed by different researchers. Johnson et al. (2006) draw our attention to the apparent existence of methodological shortcomings in certain CL studies. In their research review section on the effects of social interdependence on achievement, they state (ibid.: A17): “Not all the research, however, has been carefully conducted.” A similar stance is taken by Slavin (1995b). He refers to the influences of cooperative reward structures on performance, stating that numerous studies have been conducted, but that the effects are “still rather poorly understood” (ibid.: 147). To illustrate this, Slavin cites different research reviews that summarised much of the same data, but that came to almost contradictory conclusions (ibid.). These conclusions ranged from cooperative instructional structures being superior to competitive and individualistic ones for nearly all tasks to competitive structures usually being more effective than cooperative ones for most tasks (ibid.; italics added). Considering the research methods used, an observation that has been made in the context of small group research also holds true here. In chapter 2.1 above, it has been stated with reference to Slavin (1995b: 147) that research on cooperation versus competition had not always been carried out outside the laboratory. This is also true for CL research, and in particular for most of the research conducted before the 1990s (ibid.). Thus, the drawbacks 40 associated with this kind of research, outlined above, also apply to such instances of CL research. However, seen from a different point of view, as has also been noted above, it was precisely this type of (laboratory) research that has provided the necessary theoretical framework for any subsequent inquiry into and development of CL. Gudjons (1993a: 125f.) cautions against nursing too high expectations regarding the practical relevance of the research undertaken on CL. He gives various reasons why he believes the favourable results that research studies have produced are not easily transferable to didactic contexts or even instruction manuals (ibid.). This has been confirmed by more recent research and with respect to foreign language teaching: besides the use of imprecise terminology, Würffel (2007: 12) regards the simplified transfer of theoretical concepts into clear-cut guidelines for foreign language teaching as a major problem area of CL. However, she also stresses that both these problem areas (terminology, transfer into teaching guidelines) are also apparent in other fields of foreign language teaching research (ibid.). Leading on from this, a central issue is the need for further research that looks at CL from a genuinely institutional perspective. The contributions in Rabenstein & Reh (2007), for example, show approaches that assume a critical stance towards CL by examining cooperation and individual work from an educational point of view. Rabenstein (2007), for example, points out how through supposedly student-centred approaches like portfolio work or observation tasks for (group work) presentations, students can be forced to exercise control upon themselves and to retrospectively construct meaning for their actions and attribute rationality to all of their decisions, which may in essence not equal an increase in self-directed learning. Kohonen (1992: 37) assumes a similar stance. With reference to CL in language education, he notes: If the teacher sets the task for the teams, defines the contents of the work to be done, determines how and when it is to be done and reported and how it is evaluated, it can be argued that much of such cooperative work is still, in fact, teacher-centered. On a general note, it has to be taken into account that the practical application of CL (e.g. at school or in teacher training) will almost always take place within the framework of institutional learning. Hence, CL will be constrained by the boundaries of these institutional settings and does not exist outside and free of existing power relations and issues of competition among individuals. As a result, any discussion of a transfer of the concepts of CL to school and teacher training contexts will, of necessity, remain tentative and partial. Before I conclude this section, there is one interesting detail regarding research into CL which astonishes the unbiased reader. An examination of the 41 publications of two key authorities in the field of CL, Slavin (1995b) and Johnson et al. (2006), reveals that there are apparent disparities between both camps in their assessment of what counts as ‘good’ and thus as valid research. With reference to the classification model of research on CL (cf. 2.2.3.2), we must see these disparities as two camps which each represent more or less contradictory research designs. It is this issue which has resulted in a contemptuous ongoing debate, which, ironically, is raging between two camps of researchers promoting the use of ‘cooperation’. To give an example, Slavin (1995b) repeatedly criticises the Johnsons and colleagues (Johnson et al. 1981) for concluding their meta-analysis of 122 studies by stating that the evidence they have reviewed unequivocally suggests the superiority of cooperative reward structures, for example in promoting higher student achievement (Slavin 1995b: 147, 151). He further criticises their conclusion that their evidence “is so strong that further research on this comparison is unnecessary”, since this would render other work on the conditions necessary to achieve the positive effects of CL irrelevant (ibid.: 147). One of Slavin’s major concerns is the fact that, contrary to the title of Johnson et al. (1981), “Effects of Cooperative, Competitive, and Individualistic Goal Structures on Achievement”, only about one third of the studies they reviewed used individual achievement as a dependent variable (Slavin 1995b: 150). In the same vein, Johnson et al. (2006) challenge Slavin’s research on various grounds. One central issue concerns the CL methods developed and researched by Slavin. Johnson et al. (2006: A10f., A17) mainly criticise the fact that these methods are not truly cooperative in their design, since they mix cooperative and individualistic learning or in-group cooperation and intergroup competition: “A number of studies conducted operationally defined cooperation in a way that included elements of competition and individualistic work” (ibid.: A17; cf. also footnote 4 on the research of Deutsch in section 2.1.2.1). Thus, they argue, in the research into these methods, “cooperative learning was confounded with other variables” (ibid.: A10). The same criticism applies in their eyes to the original Jigsaw Method by Aronson et al. (1978; cf. also Coelho 1992). To conclude this section, Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995a: 273f.) draw our attention to a vital issue to keep in mind when dealing with research on CL: the strong bond between the specific context in which a study is carried out and the results and recommendations it produces. They put forward seemingly conflicting research findings, but resolve this disparity by referring to the fact that CL research is and has been carried out in a variety of vastly distinct educational settings and with distinctly different subjects (cf. also 2.1.1) and that therefore the proclamation of universal suggestions or cause-effect relationships is not feasible (ibid.): 42 Cooperative learning research that measures conceptually distinct dependent variables has created a situation in which the findings and recommendations of one group may seem to be in conflict with those of another. [...] The consideration of situation-specific needs, then, will always be a primary factor in the design, selection, and individualization of classroom interventions. Because educational priorities and needs are not invariant across populations and cultures, the efficacy and desirability of particular cooperative interventions will vary. The present study tries to address this need for a consideration of the contextand situation-specific factors by presenting a case study of the cooperative dealings of the focus groups and a discussion of the peculiar group and member characteristics that shaped the members’ actions. Indeed, as will be argued in section 7.2, it is precisely the demands and the interrelationships between various context-specific commitments of the participants that had a bearing on the productivity of their group and on the conduction of the virtual teamwork. 2.2.4 The importance of cooperation outside the field of education Before turning to the defining characteristics of CL, it must be said that the advantages of cooperation have not only been valued by and inspired researchers in the sector of education, or more specifically in the field of learning and teaching (languages). In the same way as small group research is made up of a variety of interrelated roots, the findings that it has given rise to from very early on have also found their way into practical applications in the fields of social work, nursing, management, business and psychotherapy, to name but a few (Eckstein 1977: 180; Hare 1976: 394). This will be briefly illustrated here with reference to one particular area, the sector of professional life. Some of the key studies that are discussed in chapter 3 also come from a variety of areas, such as organisational communication (Sproull & Kiesler 1986), computer conferencing (Rourke et al. 2001; Gunawardena & Zittle 1997) and engineering (Felder & Brent 2001b). One domain in which the efficient use of cooperation and teamwork skills has become increasingly important is the field of employment. Researchers have frequently pointed out that the most important qualifications a person can have in the workplace are teamwork skills and social skills. As various studies indicate, these skills are even more important than work-related qualifications: with reference to statistical evidence from the United States, Olsen (1992: 235) alerted us at the beginning of the 1990s to the fact that more than half of those who were fired from their first job had not lost their employment because they were insufficiently qualified or because they could not do their 43 job, but because they were lacking social skills and unable to get along with colleagues (cf. also Shaw 1992: 178). Johnson et al. (2006: A1) also draw our attention to various instances of research in this area: For example, referring to work carried out in the 1960s, they point out the fact that individuals who can look back on extraordinary accomplishments in their lives commonly attribute their success to cooperative efforts. They further refer us to research carried out by Alfie Kohn. In his work called No contest (1992), which is subtitled Why we lose in our race to win, Kohn maintains that cooperation is not simply more beneficial in that it is closely linked with success, but that competition is in fact detrimental to vocational success. As early as the 1970s, Eckstein (1977: 172ff.), recognises the need for change within the higher education context so as to prevent the universities from becoming dysfunctional in the face of quickly changing technological innovations and the resulting life-long learning strategies that students need to be equipped with. To attain the goal of educating more autonomous and more responsible students, she proposes a move towards more cooperation among professors and among students and between professors and students. She specifically states that she does not argue for a replacement of conventional forms of university instruction, but rather proposes an integration of more group-centred methods into the traditional forms of instruction. It is not the lecture as such that gives her cause for concern, but its central position in the curriculum (ibid.: 174). Seen from a more geo-economic perspective, a further incentive for cooperation in the world of work becomes obvious (cf. Olsen 1992: 235): the current trends towards globalisation and specialisation make it necessary for professionals in particular to be able to cooperate successfully with colleagues and clients from all over the globe. With distances between people and countries shrinking due to the availability of affordable means of transportation and easy, fast and cheap access to means of online communication, there is an increasing need for companies to be able to work together under the aegis of multinational corporations or under international business agreements. Obviously, this kind of cooperation frequently spans cultures and entails the use of foreign languages or a lingua franca for communication. This adds particular urgency to adequate forms of teacher education in these areas. In this way, the themes that will be discussed in chapters 3 and 4 are also relevant for the sector of professional life. In sum, various areas in the field of professional life and their connections to cooperation and teamwork efforts have been indicated. It can be seen from these examples that the importance of cooperation manifests itself on a whole range of levels, from the individual through his/ her education and training up 44 to the organisation of whole businesses. This leads us back to the significance of CL at school and in other teaching and learning contexts. In order to meet the demands for more cooperation and teamwork skills, one can even argue that cooperative education needs to start as early as possible, allowing children to experience working together cooperatively from a very young age 7 . This, in turn, requires teachers who are not only familiar with this approach, but who have been exposed to it themselves and experienced it in their teacher training programmes (cf. for example DelliCarpini 2009; see also the discussion in 2.3 on the significance of subjective experiences for learning). One specific area of this field, a training programme for future language and culture mediators for children, is the focus of the current study. In the following, I will attempt to give a short definition of CL, briefly discussing the defining characteristics of the approach (chapter 2.3) and then go on to look at the field of computer-mediated cooperation (chapter 3). 2.3 Defining CL in Language Teaching In chapters 2.1 and 2.2 the premises on which the CL approach was based and the conditions under which much of the research was carried out were examined. This chapter will now seek to review the literature with respect to the defining characteristics of CL, with a particular view to language education and (language) teacher training on CL. It will ask, for example, which factors constitute a CL group, which are the vital characteristics that need to be present and which additional elements can influence the cooperation process. In a first step, a definition of CL will be put forward. Next, the literature will be examined, focussing on two major characteristics which are assumed to be common to all CL groups, i.e. positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1) and accountability (cf. 2.3.2). Further conditions which are believed to affect the productivity of CL groups will also be examined. While there is general agreement on the central role of positive interdependence and accountability in any CL theory, there remains some ambiguity about the concrete effects of certain other factors, which leads at times to differing recommendations. These will be listed in sections 2.3.3 to 2.3.8. In chapter 3, the CL characteristics put forward here will be discussed with respect to their value for virtual cooperation, and chapter 8 will discuss these with respect to their relevance for the virtual dealings of the participants of this study. 7 For an excellent, comprehensive review of research on children’s social development (e.g. in terms of the ability to take another’s perspective or of perceiving task difficulty) and the corresponding influence on the efficacy of cooperative classroom interventions, see Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995a). 45 As CL is not a uniform theory, a variety of approaches and forms of usage, and hence, of definitions of CL, exist. Oxford even notes the development of CL into a “complicated set of activities and options” (1997: 444) that she sets out to “demystify” (ibid.). Rather than proposing a definition of CL, many researchers tend to describe basic elements or principles that can positively influence CL (cf. Olsen & Kagan 1992: 8). On a general note, Johnson & Johnson (1995: 174) attest: “Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals”. Olsen & Kagan (1992: 8) propose a more elaborate definition, which makes reference to several of the elements of CL outlined below, and which has been applied in language teacher education research (e.g. DelliCarpini 2009: 43): Cooperative learning is group learning activity organized so that learning is dependent on the socially structured exchange of information between learners in groups and in which each learner is held accountable for his or her own learning and is motivated to increase the learning of others. However, for this study, a definition that addresses CL more specifically in the context of foreign language education will be more useful. A classification of CL that incorporates precise features related to the process of language learning into a basic framework of prerequisites for CL proves most helpful for this purpose. Such a definition has been put forward by Kessler (1992a: Vf.). For language learning contexts, CL is a within-class grouping of students, usually of differing levels of second language proficiency, who learn to work together on specific tasks or projects in such a way that all students in the group benefit from the interactive experience. [...] Learners learn how to take responsibility for their own learning and for that of the other members of the group or team. The positive interdependence resulting from CL activities contributes to creating a community of learners willing to work collaboratively on goals important to the group. Kessler’s definition outlines the central elements that unite all definitions and lists of CL features, i.e. positive interdependence and accountability. These defining characteristics will be the topic of sections 2.3.1 and 2.3.2. Their relevance for the cooperative dealings of the groups in the present study will be discussed in chapters 6 to 8. Further constituents of CL have been reported to mediate its effectiveness. The following sections will discuss in particular the use and functions of group names (2.3.3) and group member roles (2.3.5), issues relating to group size (2.3.4), group composition (2.3.6) and group work reflection (2.3.7), as well as the role of social exchanges within the group (2.3.8). These elements have been selected because of their significance for a theory of cooperation in computer-mediated environments (chapter 3). Their 46 relevance for the virtual cooperation of the focus groups in my study will be discussed in chapter 8. Since, in the context of the following discussions of CL in this chapter and in the research findings (chapters 6 to 8), the notion of participants’ ‘experience’ with cooperation will play a recurring role, this concept will also be addressed here. The seminal text that holds experience as a central concept for any learning process to take place was published by Kolb (1984), who developed a theory of ‘experiential learning’ (ibid.). Linking this to the scholarly thinking of Dewey, Lewin and Piaget (cf. 2.1.2), Kolb stresses that “learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (1984: 38). This presupposes that the result of learning cannot simply be conceived in terms of “an accumulated storehouse of facts or habits” (ibid.: 26), but that learning outcomes are (re-)shaped through experience. Learning thus requires, among other things, that the learner transacts with his or her environment (ibid.: 34ff.). “Immediate personal experience is seen as the focal point for learning” (Kohonen 1992: 14). In the context of language education, Kohonen (1992) draws a clear connection to CL in that he views “[e]xperiential language learning as cooperative learning” (1992: 30). However, it should be noted that he also sees a role for individual and competitive goal structures in classroom work (ibid.: 34; cf. also footnote 4). 2.3.1 Positive interdependence The notion of positive interdependence, generally viewed as one of the most central elements of CL, was already identified as a key characteristic of cooperation in the field of small group research (cf. 2.1). Referring to insights gained from these early studies, Hare (1976: 238) identifies what later became to be known as positive interdependence in CL: “In groups which are motivated to cooperate, the members all work toward a group goal which depends on interdependent activity on the part of the members”. The works of Vygotsky (cf. 2.1.2.2) can also be cited in this context, attesting that “social interaction is a prerequisite to learning and cognitive development” (Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997: 507) 8 . The concept of group members’ mutual dependence on 8 Yet, in contrast to scholars who see a connection between Vygotsky`s social constructivist work and CL (e.g. Slavin 1995b; Nyikos & Hashimoto 1997; Delli 2009), Oxford (1997: 443) argues that CL “refers to a particular set of classroom techniques that foster learner interdependence as a route to cognitive and social development”, whereas collaborative learning, in her view, “has a ‘social constructivist’ philosophical base, which views learning as construction of knowledge within a social context and which therefore encourages acculturation of individuals into a learning community” (ibid.). 47 each other was also central to the works of Lewin and Deutsch (cf. 2.1.2.1), with Lewin (1935) stating that the constituting element of a group is a relationship of dependency of each member’s goals, and Deutsch (e.g. 1949b) expanding Lewin’s work into a theory of two types of mutual dependence, cooperation and competition (cf. also Johnson & Johnson 1995: 174ff.; 2008b: 16). Johnson & Johnson place these findings in a context of social interdependence (cf. also 2.1), which exists “when the outcomes of individuals are affected by the actions of others” (1995: 174). Positive interdependence among the members of a group might thus be seen as ‘the heart of cooperation’ (Johnson & Johnson 2008b: 17). It is “commonly assumed to be the most important factor in structuring situations cooperatively” (ibid. 1995: 179) and occurs “when the gains for one individual are associated with gains for others; that is, when one student achieves, others benefit, too” (Olsen & Kagan 1992: 8; cf. also e.g. Oxford 1997: 445). It can be defined as follows (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 180): Positive interdependence exists when individuals perceive that they are linked with others in such a way that they cannot succeed unless the others do (and vice versa) and/ or that they must coordinate their efforts with the efforts of others to complete a task. The state of positive interdependence defines whether cooperation is taking place: If individuals do not perceive their mutual fate and/ or mutual causation of each other’s success, then the situation is not cooperative. Positive interdependence rests on the partners’ shared knowledge that on the one hand they need to rely on each other, but that on the other hand they can do so safely because of the cooperative situation (cf. e.g. Olsen & Kagan 1992; Slavin 1995a; the contributions in Sharan 1990b). As a result, they “willingly help and seek help from each other” (Olsen 1992: 219). A precondition for such truly cooperative behaviour and for the existence of positive interdependence within any group is the members’ awareness that the accomplishment of one partner will work in favour of the whole group. In other words, the partners know that they can only be successful if they cooperate with each other (Legutke 2003: 219; Dörnyei 1997: 484). As a framework for CL, the aim of positive interdependence is to ensure that all members have equal shares in group work and that every member brings his/ her personal knowledge and expertise into the group (Hammoud & Ratzki 2009: 5). Positive interdependence promotes the development of accountability (cf. 2.3.2) and helps group members to support and encourage each other (Johnson & Johnson 2008b: 18). It allows for weaker partners to contribute to and be actively involved in group work and guards against stronger members dominating the work (Hammoud & Ratzki 2009: 5). This, 48 in turn, can have positive repercussions on the individual learner and the development of his/ her self-concept (Kohonen 1992). In this way, positive interdependence can be understood as one essential variable mediating the effectiveness of CL (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 174). It depends on whether group members realise that they can only achieve their goals if their partners also achieve theirs, and it can thus be distinguished from negative interdependence (members can only achieve their goals if others are not able to do so) and from no interdependence (goals can be achieved independently). While negative interdependence is primarily found in competitive settings, no interdependence leads to neither cooperation nor competition and is chiefly present in individualistic forms of learning (e.g. Johnson & Johnson 2008b: 16; Olsen & Kagan 1992: 8). This demarcation is mirrored in the central assumption of social interdependence theory, which holds that interaction patterns of individuals are determined by the type of dependence among them (Johnson & Johnson 1995; 2008b; cf. also 2.1). To attain positive interdependence, or, in the words of Dörnyei, to ‘motivate’ learners to cooperate (1997: 484), various techniques have been suggested. One central factor purports that “[t]he task must be structured in such a way that it would be better done by the group than by any individual” (Coelho 1992: 130f.). Olsen & Kagan (1992: 9ff.) list five paths to achieve positive interdependence through task structure: by way of structuring the goal of a task (e.g. a single team product) and/ or its rewards (e.g. team scores along with individual scores; cf. also Slavin 1996); by structuring the roles that students take on (assigning each member a specific responsibility in the cooperative process; cf. also 2.3.5); by structuring the learning materials (limited access to resources, which requires students to join forces and to interact); and by establishing rules “that emphasize the shared nature of responsibility for the group product” (Dörnyei 1997: 484). For Olsen & Kagan (1992: 9), goal and reward structure are subsumed under the heading of outcome-structured interdependence, whereas roles, materials and rules are summarised as means-structured techniques to achieve positive interdependence. In a classroom setting, they can be applied both formally (e.g. by establishing rewardstructured interdependence through grading) and informally (e.g. by granting privileges to groups; ibid.: 10f.). Olsen & Kagan’s techniques have been reproduced by various scholars (e.g. Dörnyei 1997: 484; Oxford 1997: 445), but Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995b: 10) remind us that goal interdependence had already been described by Deutsch (1949b; cf. 2.1.2.1). On the relationship between these paths, Johnson & Johnson (1995: 192f.) note that “reward interdependence cannot be structured without including goal interdependence”, as both appear to be additive, while means interdependence “may be constructive only when used 49 in combination with outcome interdependence” (ibid.). Yet Oxford (1997: 445) is somewhat more cautious, suggesting that positive interdependence “can sometimes be improved by structuring the materials”. In accordance with Olsen & Kagan (1992), Johnson & Johnson (1995: 181) identify means and outcome interdependence as two major types of positive interdependence. Yet for them, means interdependence is subdivided into resource, role and task interdependence, whereas for Olsen & Kagan (1992) all five types of interdependence are perceived as created by the task structure. In their later works, Johnson & Johnson identify three broad categories of interdependence: besides goal and means interdependence, they mention a type of interdependence characterised by a group demarcating itself from other groups (e.g. 2008b: 17f.). Jacobs (2006: 39ff.) takes yet a different stance: In his discussion on how positive interdependence (which he later terms ‘group solidarity’; ibid.: 39) can be fostered, he notes seven categories. Besides positive goal, reward, role and resource interdependence, these include positive ‘identity’ and ‘fantasy’ interdependence and also positive ‘outside challenge’ interdependence. Hands-on suggestions as to ways in which positive interdependence may be put into practice in the context of language teacher education in CL can be found, for example, in Olsen (1992) and Shaw (1992). Yet it is important to note that there are also circumstances in which the presence of positive interdependence may negatively affect cooperation (cf. Johnson & Johnson 1995: 193ff.). Chapters 6 and 7 will explore several strategies that were used by the participants to manage their virtual cooperation process. As will be argued in section 9.1.2, these may be viewed as ways of facilitating the establishment of positive interdependence in virtual space. This is also true for another central characteristic of CL, accountability, which will be addressed in the following section. 2.3.2 Accountability Accountability is another constituent of CL which is viewed as essential in promoting effective group learning. “Research shows that both individual and group accountability is important for achievement in CL settings, and most scholars [...] consider this to be a defining characteristic of CL” (Olsen & Kagan 1992: 13). Several researchers have identified these two strands of accountability as basic characteristics of CL (e.g. Olsen & Kagan 1992; Oxford 1997: 445; cf. also Coelho 1992). However, not all scholars discriminate between both types of accountability, but concentrate on highlighting the importance of individual accountability instead (e.g. Slavin 1995a; 1996; Johnson & Johnson 1990; 1995; Olsen 1992; Jacobs 2006). Within the framework of 50 this study, individual and group accountability will be considered essential components of accountability (cf. also the research cited in Olsen & Kagan 1992: 13). The term ‘accountability’ will therefore be used to denote both the personal responsibility of group members and the responsibility of the group as a whole. Coelho’s definition of accountability (1992: 131) can thus be applied: Although students work together, each is individually accountable to the group and the teacher for completion of his/ her own assignment or portion of it, and for helping others. The group as a whole is accountable for the group process and product, but each individual student is also evaluated by the teacher and peers. (italics added) In her definition, Coelho raises an important point in regard to individual accountability, which does not feature prominently in literature on CL: this is the personal accountability of the students towards the teacher. Like Coelho, Johnson & Johnson’s (1995) definition is also linked to the assessment dimension. However, since they note only individual accountability as a basic component of CL, their definition is limited to this concept: individual accountability “exists when the performance of each individual is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual” (ibid.: 191; cf. also ibid.: 179). If both individual and group accountability are taken into consideration, it can be said that members of CL groups are held accountable for their actions both as a group and as individual group members. In this way, positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1) and accountability are closely linked: while positive interdependence allows participants to be aware that they can fully rely on each other, the presence of accountability means that the individual group members can fulfil their various commitments while at the same time group unity is sustained, as members feel answerable to their group and to the whole class or cohort (cf. e.g. Olsen & Kagan 1992; Coelho 1992; Legutke 2003). Johnson & Johnson (2008b: 18) support this view by attesting that positive interdependence promotes the development of a sense of responsibility among group members as they feel committed or even obliged to fulfil their share of the task. In this way, individual accountability can be perceived as being ‘inherent’ in positive interdependence (ibid. 1995: 191). On the relationship between positive interdependence and personal accountability, Johnson & Johnson further note: “The greater the positive interdependence structured within a cooperative group, the more group members will feel personally responsible for contributing their efforts to accomplish the group’s goals” (1995: 191). However, conversely, this can also work the other way: 51 “Increasing the individual accountability will tend to increase members’ awareness of their positive interdependence” (ibid.). Slavin (1996) advocates a strong, mutually supportive connection between individual accountability and outcome-structured interdependence: “The importance of group goals and individual accountability is in providing students with an incentive to help each other and to encourage each other to put forth maximum effort” (ibid.: 54). He further outlines that the presence of individual accountability guards against certain possible challenges or drawbacks of CL: “In groups lacking individual accountability, one or two students may do the group’s work, while others engage in ‘social loafing’” (ibid.; yet, cf. also the comments of Abrami & Chambers 1996 on Slavin 1996). To accomplish accountability, various techniques have been proposed. These predominantly pertain to the areas of assessment and task specialisation. Assessment should address the quality of a member’s participation and his/ her demonstration of learning and be carried out by the teacher, peers and the participants themselves in the form of self-assessment (Coelho 1992: 131). It needs to incorporate individual grades and group scores (Olsen & Kagan 1992: 13), with group grades possibly also mirroring individual performance and thus encouraging the group to ensure that every member has mastered the subject (Slavin 1995a: 12f.; cf. also 2.3.1). Olsen & Kagan (1992: 13) add cooperation rules which establish that a group can only advance to the next activity once every member has completed a given task. As already hinted at in Olsen’s (1992) and Johnson & Johnson’s (1995) definitions above, another frequently cited means to ensure accountability is through testing (cf. Olsen & Kagan 1992: 13). Oxford (1997: 445) summarises the use of assessment to promote accountability: “Every person is accountable through individual grading and testing; the group is accountable through a group grade; improvement scores are possible”. Additionally, accountability may also be achieved through task specialisation, which ensures that “each student is given a unique responsibility for part of the group task” (Slavin 1995a: 12). Sharan & Sharan (1976) propose that every group should furthermore be responsible for an important sub-section of a class topic or project. The quality that needs to be intrinsic in a task to allow for task specialisation is of primary importance to Sharan & Sharan (1976: 34f.): They believe that ‘one-dimensional’ tasks that do not facilitate the assignment of smaller tasks to individual members are not suitable for group work. This is essential because, for them, in a group task every member must be able to make an individual contribution, must have the feeling that his/ her contribution is valued (ibid.), and, we could add, is an integral component of the whole. This view is backed by Slavin (1995a: 19) and Olsen (1992: 219), who hold that task specialisation can additionally guard against 52 the so-called free-rider effect, since group members are more likely to delegate responsibility in single tasks that, for example, require groups to hand in one group report or worksheet. Nevertheless, task specialisation may also have some disadvantages, as it may lead to students becoming experts in their assigned subtasks, while ignoring other areas of the subject (cf. e.g. Slavin 1995a: 19). Johnson & Johnson (1995) adopt a slightly different stance. For them, individual accountability can be promoted chiefly in four ways. These are in part connected to the issues of assessment and task specialisation outlined above, but they are not limited to these. They state (1995: 192): Individual accountability may be highlighted by frequently (1) identifying the contributions of each member, (2) assessing who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in fulfilling their responsibilities, (3) assessing what redundancy, if any, exists among member efforts, and (4) identifying the unique contributions of each group member Some of these dimensions, as we will see, are crucial to the discussion of ways to promote positive interdependence and accountability in virtual space (cf. 3.2). The following sections will highlight additional characteristics of CL that have repeatedly been postulated in the literature. However, while positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1) and accountability (cf. 2.3.2) are consistently put forward as essential constituents of any theory of CL (e.g. Jacobs 2006: 39), the elements outlined below (2.3.3 to 2.3.8) are not unanimously viewed as such. The following sections do not presume to review the entirety of characteristics and issues presented in the context of CL, but summarise findings relevant to the ensuing analysis of CL in the virtual space of blended learning. In this respect, the issues of group names, group size, team member roles, group composition, group reflection and the social and work-related needs of a group have been selected for discussion. They are dealt with in regard to their treatment in the CL literature. Chapter 3 will then discuss their importance in computer-mediated cooperation and will further address the question of whether face-to-face interaction is necessary for CL to take place. 2.3.3 Group names The use of group names has frequently been highlighted in the context of group dynamics (cf. e.g. Dörnyei & Murphey 2003) in connection with creating group cohesion or group unity. Jacobs (2006: 41) for example points out that “[g]roup unity is heightened when group members develop a group identity” and advocates the use of such team names as one way to develop a group identity. He underlines the particular relevance of this for long-term groups 53 (ibid.: 35). Coelho (1992: 139) supports this view by claiming that “students of all ages enjoy finding a name for their group”. She advocates teacher-assigned heterogeneous groups (cf. 2.3.6) and the use of group names to identify each team. She recommends the use of group names not only to designate teams, but also in logos or banners, for example to identify a group’s workspace (ibid.). Despite promising and enthusiastic approaches, there is no consensus for a clear correlation between the use of group names and the effectiveness of CL. Wee & Jacobs (2006: 118) capture nicely the notion that group names are not consistently viewed as necessary components of CL, neither by teachers nor by the group members themselves. On the topic of designating names to CL groups in a secondary school in Singapore, they cite the following teacher’s perspective: Having a way of calling on a specific group can be useful. To facilitate this, I tried having students choose a team name, which also promotes positive identity interdependence [...] However, I found the names confusing to remember, and groups seemed to jell well without them; so, we ended up just designating the groups by letter. In this way, using group names can be viewed as one of several strategies that can be used to promote positive interdependence (Wee & Jacobs 2006: 118; cf. also Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 28). In a similar way, opinions also diverge over the issue of group size, which will be the topic of the following section. 2.3.4 Group size Group sizes may vary widely in different CL settings. While there is no rigid rule regarding the number of members that should form a group, research has produced several recommendations on the effectiveness of certain group sizes. The minimum size of a group is two members (e.g. Olsen & Kagan 1992: 14) and, as a maximum number for CL to be effective, six or seven members are frequently cited (e.g. ibid; Kagan 1985: 71). Due to their flexible nature, groups of four seem to be particularly popular since members can be regrouped into two pairs for certain tasks (e.g. Jacobs 2006: 32; Coelho 1992: 130; Olsen & Kagan 1992: 14). In one CL context of teacher education, Foote et al. (2004: 100), too, describe the effectiveness of four to five members per group. Yet, Sharan & Sharan (1976: 32) aptly point out that the size of any CL group should be decided and planned to suit the group’s goals. While not all researchers place equal emphasis on the issue, for Coelho (1992: 129f.), group size, in conjunction with group composition (cf. 2.3.6), is so central that the characteristic of “small (heterogeneous) groups” is the first 54 on her list of five basic principles of CL, even before positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1) and accountability (cf. 2.3.2). She particularly advocates the use of small groups “to provide maximum opportunities for oral interaction” and recommends no more than four members per group (Coelho 1992: 130). Sharan & Sharan (1976: 32) add that small groups additionally give each member the opportunity to progress in the style of learning that suits them best. Although assessments of group size vary, there is general agreement amongst researchers that the salience and extent of positive interdependence in taskand reward-structured CL groups (cf. 2.3.1) correlates with group size and group composition (Kagan 1985: 83). Similarly, a clear connection between individual accountability and group size has been attested: Johnson & Johnson (2008b: 18) note that feelings of personal responsibility will increase if group members have to account for their actions, and they point out that small groups and individual tests are a suitable means of achieving this. On another occasion, Johnson & Johnson state that “[t]he smaller the size of the group, [...] the greater the individual accountability” (1995: 192). In a similar vein, Ghaith & Kawtharani (2006: 81) note that individual accountability is one of the factors “encouraged by keeping group size relatively small”. 2.3.5 Group member roles The value of a distribution of roles among group members has frequently been attested in the literature. Dörnyei & Murphey (2003: 109) for example state that “roles are of great importance with regard to the life and productivity of the group”. They explain that every group member naturally takes on one or more roles and that these largely determine the member’s ‘functioning’ in the group (ibid.). This was also alluded to in the works of Vygotsky regarding the functions that more expert partners perform (cf. 2.1.2.2). Yet Jacobs et al. (2006: 12) highlight that more recent attention “has turned to how students at a similar level of shared understanding can help one another” (italics added). As noted in 2.3.1, one way in which positive interdependence can be achieved is through role interdependence (e.g. Jacobs 2006: 41; Ghaith & Kawtharani 2006: 81; Jones & Taylor 2006: 111). In a language educational CL setting with primary school children, Roth (2009: 31) attests that taking on different functions or roles was a strong motivating factor for his students. Scholars further advocate that for CL to be maximally effective, group member roles should be used in connection with group norms (e.g. Dörnyei 2007a; Lotan 2004), appropriate group sizes (Roth 2009: 31) and group work reflection (ibid.). The following quotation by a CL student underlines the positive 55 effect that roles can have on a group’s productivity as well as on the members’ assessment of their contributions: Everybody knew what their task was, what role they had in the group, and that they could contribute to the group’s success with their own task. Thus everybody behaved naturally; we could be ourselves; and this made the group a good one. (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003: 110, citing Ehrman & Dörnyei 1998: 146) Nevertheless, roles can also be a barrier to effective CL as they might result in the delegation of responsibility or “dysfunctional divisions of labor” (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 179). Lotan (2004: 174) notes a further disadvantage connected with roles: “Although division of labour is often an efficient way to get the job done quickly, it also reduces interaction.” In view of the importance attributed to peer interaction in CL, this issue should not be underestimated. Roles can be classified into two groups: naturally emerging or informal roles and assigned or formal roles (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003). Informal roles evolve, often unconsciously, out of trial and error after a group has been formed, and are likely to persist once they are established (ibid.: 111). Given the two primary needs that a group has to cater for (cf. 2.3.8), informal roles are frequently divided into task and social roles (ibid.: 114). Formal roles, on the other hand, are allocated to the group by non-members, such as instructors. Formal roles form the basis for positive role interdependence (cf. 2.3.1). They are chosen to be “complementary and interconnected” (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 181) and utilised “to ensure a lack of redundancy and a unique contribution by each member” (ibid.: 192). In this way, they can promote the effectiveness of CL groups and ward off challenges like social loafing (cf. 2.3.2). 9 Since each role requires a group member to develop differentiated competencies (Finkbeiner 2004: 116), the value of rotating roles has been highlighted as a way of ensuring equal participation (Jacobs et al. 2002: 68), increasing group effectiveness (Miller & Harrington 1995: 209) and encouraging individual accountability (Jacobs 2006: 42), in particular for high-school students (Lotan 2004: 174). Yet, on the issue of rotating roles, Dörnyei & Murphey (2003: 109f.) warn that group members can be allocated suitable roles, but also sometimes inappropriate ones, the latter working against a group’s cohesiveness and effectiveness (cf. also Dörnyei 2007a: 723). Additionally, permanent roles can be chosen to accommodate a group member’s temperament and skills (Jacobs et al. 2002: 70). 9 Numerous examples of different roles and types of roles that group members can take on to help the group achieve its goals can, for example, be found in Jacobs (2006), Lotan (2004), Dörnyei & Murphey (2003). 56 Sapon-Shevin (2004: 6) points to the value of future teachers experiencing CL from the learner’s perspective, which includes taking on different roles, as this puts them in a position to model CL to their learners (cf. 4.3). Lotan (2004: 174) notes that this is no easy task for student teachers and that the reason may be connected to their lack of CL experience in actual classrooms. She reports that student teachers in her course had reservations about this because “they took harmoniously functioning groups for granted” (ibid.), but that they finally recognised the usefulness of CL roles when implementing group work in their own classrooms. 2.3.6 Group composition Various models for how to compose CL groups have been proposed. These involve varying degrees of instructor control in terms of how groups are formed and which characteristics group members share (Oxford 1997: 445; Olsen & Kagan 1992: 11). On the question of whether CL groups should be formed on the basis of student preferences or teacher assignment, research points to the benefits of pre-assigned groups in most educational situations (Olsen & Kagan 1992: 11). Miller & Harrington (1995: 213) add that “[i]f student preferences are the basis of team composition, existing social boundaries will be maintained”. Coelho (1992: 138) underlines her argument against self-selecting groups, which, as she states, might result in people with similarities seeking each other out, by emphasising that “everyone deserves opportunities to make more than one or two friends in the class”. This argument is supported by Jacobs & McCafferty (2006: 25), who refer to a key pedagogic aim that education of any kind should strive for: “[I]nstruction should sometimes place students in contexts outside their comfort zones so that their learning repertoire stretches beyond their preferred means of learning [...] students should come to recognize, understand, and value the diversity that exists among them.” Nevertheless, there are also advantages to self-selecting teams, among them the comfort level experienced by group members and similarities in working styles (Jacobs 2006: 32; cf. ibid. for a discussion of further weaknesses of teacher-selected groups). Besides the issues of who designates the groups, research has discussed the question of how groups should be formed. As above, various models seem feasible, ranging from forming groups randomly to forming groups based on student interests or on the instructor applying specific homogeneity and/ or heterogeneity criteria (Oxford 1997: 445). There is a general preference in the CL literature for teams that are heterogeneous on various levels, such as, in the context of language education, foreign language competence, achievement level, ethnicity, gender and other factors (e.g. Kessler 1992a: VI; Jacobs 2006: 57 32; Coelho 1992: 130; Sharan & Sharan 1976: 37; cf. also Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 22 for a link to Vygotsky in this respect). Heterogeneous grouping according to academic proficiency is a point of controversy (Jacobs 2006: 33). 10 In teacher education in particular, age has also been identified as a relevant factor on which to base heterogeneity, as this can provide “cross-age-group experiences that encourage reflection” (Foote et al. 2004: 105). The value of pre-assigned heterogeneous groups lies in the fact that the success of the whole concept of CL depends precisely on this heterogeneity of group members (Roth 2009: 32; cf. also 4.3.2). Roth reports that in his teaching context, teacher-selected grouping was carried out with widespread approval of the students (ibid.). With a particular view to language education, however, Olsen & Kagan (1992: 13) note that there may also be areas of instruction where homogeneous language proficiency groups may be desirable. Yet, these teams will still be heterogeneous on other levels. Further conditions or “Principles for the Design of Cooperative Teams” (Miller & Harrington 1995: 205) have been proposed. Among these, Dörnyei & Murphey (2003: 22) place a major emphasis on the rewarding nature of a team success, which “increases attraction toward group membership” and thus “is an excellent gelling agent” (ibid.). Instructors are further recommended to reduce the prominence of social categories through grouping, because, as research shows, participants tend to “exaggerate the differences between social groups and then explain actual differences in a biased manner [...], exaggerate the similarity among members of other groups compared with members of their own group” (Miller & Harrington 1995: 211). This issue will also become evident in the discussion of the perceptions of one of the focus groups (cf. 8.2; 5.6.1). Research also points to the necessity of teambuilding or introductory group activities for CL to be effective (e.g. Sharan & Sharan 1976: 37; Green & Green 2005: 51). For Coelho (1992: 138f.), such activities lead, for example, to the exploration of common traits in heterogeneous teams. In sum, as outlined by Sharan & Sharan (1976: 37), it is important to remember that the composition of CL teams is affected by a variety of factors, including the ‘character’ of the class or cohort, the nature of the task and the ability of the participants to cooperate with each other (cf. also Jacobs 2006: 32 for a detailed discussion of research on grouping). 10 See also Miller & Harrington’s (1995: 211f.) suggestions and caution regarding the grouping of minority students in heterogeneous teams. 58 2.3.7 Group work reflection The reflection of group work, also termed “group processing” (e.g. Johnson & Johnson 2004), is frequently considered to be a core element of CL (e.g. Green & Green 2005; Slavin 1996). Johnson & Johnson (1995: 179), for example, list it as one of three essential conditions for cooperative endeavours to be more effective than individualistic or competitive ones. Its aim is to ensure that teamwork is and remains profitable. It “leads to self-monitoring and selfefficacy” (ibid. 2004: 795; 1990: 30), and, if trained well and practiced regularly, can develop interaction competencies, improve cooperation processes and enhance group functioning and achievement (e.g. Slavin 1996: 47f.; Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 28; Huber & Eppler 1990: 169). Regular group work reflection typically involves the identification of team member behaviours and team processes “that led to success or failure” (Huber & Eppler 1990: 169). It can also include the exchange of experiences, perceptions and evaluations within the group and between group members and instructors, with the aim of generalising experiences to establish rules for future behaviour (ibid.). Precisely, the dimension of consciously processing experience through reflection also assumes a key role in experiential language learning: “learning requires a continuous recycling of experience, reflection, conceptualization and active experimentation. [...] experiences that are not reflected upon and conceptualized will not yield controlled learning” (Kohonen 1992: 29 ; cf. also 2.3 above). For group processing to have these effects, various components need to be in place. First and foremost, the group members need to have social and group work skills, and regular reflection on how successfully these are used is considered an integral part of group processing (Johnson & Johnson 1995: 179). As Johnson & Johnson (ibid.) point out: “Placing [...] individuals in a group and telling them to cooperate does not guarantee that they will be able to do so. Persons must be taught the small-group and interpersonal skills required for cooperating and be motivated to use them”. Group work reflection relies on the group members’ belief in their ability to influence decisions on learning objectives and curriculum matters (Sharan & Sharan 1976: 35ff.). Groups must strive for the integration of each member into the reflection and ensuing decision-making processes, because otherwise the high degree of individual commitment that is required for CL might not be reached (ibid.). In teacher education on CL, the importance of reflection is all the more emphasised. For Lyman & Davidson (2004: 83) for example, the use of tools for reflection is a central part of a methodology aimed at increasing the implementation of CL in (language) classrooms: To have a chance of future implementation, cooperative learning must be modelled for the preservice teachers and experienced by them as learners. The 59 student teachers should use cooperative learning in connection with tools for reflection, practice it repeatedly with feedback, see it as a part of a constellation of allied strategies and techniques, and understand its relationship to dependent variables such as social and academic outcomes. Finally they should value it as an adult learning strategy. (emphasis added) The results of the participants’ assessment of their own performance as team members in a teacher education context are described by Foote et al. (2004: 101) from the perspective of a teacher educator: “I find that this reflective practice drives students towards even more collaborative analysis and that the work at this phase of the program serves as a precursor for the intensive analysis demanded [of participants later in their careers].” As an example for the use of tools for reflection, Rolheiser & Anderson (2004: 25) cite professional learning portfolios as “the most significant and integrative assignment for the teacher candidates”. Electronic tools for group processing in teacher education will be discussed in sections 4.2.3 and 4.2.4. 2.3.8 Social and task-related relationships within a group A final dimension worth considering has not yet been consistently addressed in research, namely the fact that “[c]ooperation has both taskand personoriented components that are intertwined” (Miller & Harrington 1995: 208). The phenomenon is of key importance in understanding the functioning of CL in virtual space, as discussed below (cf. 3.3). It has already been identified by small group researchers (cf. 2.1), who pointed to the difficulty that every group has to cope with in catering for social, relationship-related aspects of the partnership on the one hand and task-related ones on the other (Hare 1976). Experiential language learning, which Kohonen (1992) inextricably links with CL (cf. 2.3 above), in addition underscores the significance of the affective domain of learning, which “contributes at least as much as and often more to language learning than the cognitive skills represented by aptitude assessment” (ibid.: 23). In CL research, the two basic needs of a group, i.e. “to accomplish tasks and to maintain good relationships” (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003: 114), are for example noted by Johnson & Johnson (2008b: 18), who state that CL is inherently more complex than individualistic or competitive learning because participants are simultaneously occupied with the task and with the group processes; by Dörnyei & Murphey (2003: 70ff.) and Sharan & Sharan (1976: 25f.) in the context of group cohesion regarding group member relationships and achievements; and by Green & Green (2005: 39ff.), who list basic assumptions on relationships and cooperation, stating, for example, that working together means building up relationships. Miller & Harrington (1995: 216), citing re- 60 search from Taylor (1979), add that “the exchange of intimate information is central to the formation of close relationships”. Practical considerations about how to set up group work which will proceed satisfactorily for its members and in which the group achieves its working goal, are presented by Sharan & Sharan (1976: 25ff.). With respect to language education, the topic has for example been discussed by Senior (2006). Appropriate group composition (cf. 2.3.6) has been put forward as one way to support members in establishing a task-wise and socially wellfunctioning group by Sharan & Sharan (1976: 37), who state that students in CL groups need to know each other well before they can commence their work. Dörnyei & Murphey (2003: 114) note that, in their quest to cater for the two needs, group members tend to take on informal task or social roles, with a tendency for people to specialise in one or the other (cf. 2.3.5). They further note the existence of pedagogic and social functions of tasks (ibid.: 20) and of procedural or task norms and social norms (ibid.: 35) in CL (cf. also 2.1.2.1). The preceding sections have examined the literature with respect to its treatment of so-called defining characteristics of CL. Positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1) and accountability (cf. 2.3.2) were given as the two key elements that set CL apart from individualistic and competitive forms of learning and that influence its effectiveness. As further core elements of CL, issues relating to the use of group names (cf. 2.3.3), a particular group size (cf. 2.3.4), group member roles (cf. 2.3.5), the composition of groups (cf. 2.3.6), the need for group processing (cf. 2.3.7) and the connection between social and taskrelated aspects of group work (cf. 2.3.8) were discussed. It is reasonable to assume that further defining characteristics are of importance to an understanding of CL. The chapter does not presume to review the complete body of CL research in this respect, but is rather an attempt to summarise major findings relevant to a discussion of CL in the virtual space of blended learning in a foreign language teacher education programme (cf. 4) 11 . The following chapter will now address the topic of computer-mediated cooperation and will discuss research into the functioning of CL in virtual environments. 11 For outlines of (additional) defining characteristics and basic elements of CL, cf. e.g. Dörnyei (1997: 483ff.), Sharan & Sharan (1976: 35ff.), Olsen & Kagan (1992: 8ff.), Slavin (1995a: 12f.), Johnson & Johnson (1995: 179ff.), Coelho (1992: 130) and Oxford (1997: 445). 61 3 Telecollaboration in Language Teaching The following chapter seeks to discuss the relationship between CL, which originated as a theory pertaining to face-to-face cooperation, and computermediated cooperation, defined in section 3.1 as ‘telecollaboration’. 12 Based on promising findings from research on CL, “one of the greatest success stories in the history of educational research” (Slavin 1996: 43; cf. chapter 2), section 3.2 sets out to discuss the suitability of core constituents of CL for cooperation that takes place through computer-mediated communication (CMC). Such a focus is strongly recommended by Brewer & Klein (2004: 147): In light of the growing prevalence of online distance programs for adult learners, it is worthwhile to continue exploring whether previous assumptions about cooperative learning in face-to-face environments are replicated in asynchronous, computer-mediated, and distance learning settings. Research of this type may help us better understand the conditions under which cooperative learning is most effective for adults in online environments. In addition, Legutke & Rösler (2005) underscore the value of integrating computer-mediated cooperation into foreign language teacher education. As the present study is set in the context of blended learning in foreign language teacher education, the need for face-to-face interaction as a condition for successful cooperation will be discussed (3.3) and the potential of telecollaboration for language teacher education as well as issues identified by research in this field will be addressed (3.4) in the following sections. 3.1 Defining telecollaboration Cooperative group work that takes place in virtual space has many names. Johnson & Johnson for example refer to “computer-supported cooperative learning” (2008a: 411; cf. also Nohr et al. 2004). In a similar vein, the term “computer-supported collaborative learning” (CSCL) is used, frequently with a focus on the role of online tools and software to support electronic group work (e.g. Dillenbourg & Fischer 2007 and Roggenkamp 2009 in the context 12 Footnote 2 discusses the synonymous use of cooperation/ collaboration and cooperative/ collaborative learning in this paper. This seems especially sensible since, to refer to computer-mediated CL, the term ‘telecollaboration’ (cf. 3.1) has frequently been used (cf. also Resta & Laferrière 2007: 66 on the difficulty of differentiating between the terms ‘collaborative’ and ‘cooperative’ learning in the research literature). 62 of (language) education). The work of Kinginger (2002) is frequently cited in language teacher education, for example by Belz & Müller-Hartmann (2003: 72): “Kinginger (2002) defines telecollaboration as ‘the application of global electronic networks to foreign language education’ so that ‘internationally dispersed learners [can] use technical communication tools […] to support social interaction, discussion, debate and intercultural exchange’”. Whilst it accommodates several dimensions of telecollaboration, such a definition does not give prominence to the aspects of collaboration on which the present study is based (cf. also Roggenkamp 2009). These are included in O’Dowd & Ritter (2006: 623), who refer to “the use of online communication tools to bring together language learners in different countries for the development of collaborative project work and intercultural exchange” (italics added). In the following study the concept of telecollaboration - also referred to as online, virtual, electronic or computer-mediated cooperation - is understood as a combination of Kinginger’s and O’Dowd & Ritter’s definition, and extended to include native and non-native speakers as well as trainee and in-service teachers (cf. Guth & Helm 2010a: 14f.). 3.2 Core CL characteristics in telecollaboration Researchers have applied numerous characteristics that had been originally postulated for CL (cf. chapter 2) to computer-supported learning contexts and have thus attested their value as core elements of telecollaborative learning in higher education and teacher education (e.g. Resta & Laferrière 2007; Biesenbach-Lucas 2004; Kreijns et al. 2003). Resta & Laferrière (2007: 71) even recommend a transfer of CL principles to online environments such as the one used in the present study: “Researchers are encouraged to apply what they know about face-to-face collaborative learning in their analysis of online interaction in CSCL environments.” In doing so, they subscribe to the notion that there exists a strong similarity between face-to-face and electronic cooperation that can be productively used in research (ibid.): Although technology affords new tools and environments to support collaborative learning, many of the goals, pedagogical strategies, and interactions are similar. Productive lines of research could be based on what is common to both environments, as well as what is unique to technology-supported collaboration. This recommendation is followed up in the present study. In the following, research discussing the validity of core elements of CL (cf. 2.3) in telecollaborative contexts will be reviewed with a specific view to research carried out in 63 the field of (language) teacher education. To avoid redundancies, a focus will be put on new dimensions brought in when telecollaboration is in place. Positive interdependence, described as “the heart of cooperative learning” (Collazos et al. 2003: 358) in section 2.3.1, has a similar status in telecollaboration (e.g. Hutchinson 2007; Brewer & Klein 2004; Collazos et al. 2003; Johnson & Johnson 2008a). Its positive effects, such as motivating students to engage in promotive interaction, have been deemed to also hold true for cooperation in electronic contexts (Jensen et al. 2002: 164). However, the need to familiarise group members with CMC can be observed, with the effects of positive interdependence not necessarily being present from the outset of electronic group work (ibid.). The validity of various types of positive interdependence, including goal, reward, task, role, identity and fantasy interdependence, and their mutually supportive nature (cf. 2.3.1) have also been asserted in regard to telecollaboration (e.g. Brewer & Klein 2004; Collazos et al. 2003; Millis 2001). As in CL, the significant role of positive interdependence is closely linked to other key elements (cf. 2.3), such as accountability (e.g. Felder & Brent 2001a; Millis n.d.). Brewer & Klein (2004: 142) even point to the “challenge of isolating positive interdependence from other elements known to be integral to cooperative learning”. It has been suggested that detrimental interpersonal and academic effects to a group in which positive interdependence and accountability are not present are potentially greater in online than in face-to-face contexts (e.g. Felder & Brent 2001a). Research has further emphasised the key role of (individual) accountability (cf. 2.3.2) in online cooperation (e.g. Brewer & Klein 2004; Swan 2002; Felder & Brent 2001b), generally in conjunction with positive interdependence (cf. above). Millis (n.d.) points to the specific advantages for teacher education, as research on the connection between accountability and achievement has demonstrated that “students find that their efforts to help others never hurt their own achievements” (ibid.: n.p.). This underlines the importance of peer-teaching: “those who teach learn the most” (ibid.). In an examination of in-service teachers’ perceptions of facilitating and impeding influences on the progress of their online group work, An et al. (2008) report that individual accountability was perceived as being the most critical facilitative factor. They posit that “the lack of individual accountability may be a more serious problem in online environments, since students are not always exposed to the pressures and responsibilities of group-based work found in face-to-face environments” (ibid.: 72) and recommend the conscious use of procedures to foster individual accountability in online settings (cf. also Hutchinson 2007: 362 on suggested ways to structure accountability in telecollaboration). 64 In telecollaboration research, the use of group names (cf. 2.3.3) has also been noted as a means to aid the development of positive interdependence (e.g. Collazos et al. 2003). Johnson & Johnson (2008a: 411) propagate the idea of their significance as a way of achieving the group unity outlined in the CL literature (e.g. Jacobs 2006), and add an additional dimension with regard to computer-mediated cooperation: the use of group names to create social presence. As will be discussed below (cf. 3.3), social presence may be promoted by group members behaving in a way favourable to the creation of group cohesion, acknowledging the achievements of individual members and encouraging participation (ibid.; Arnold & Ducate 2006 with respect to language teacher education). Besides group names, other strategies such as the use of members’ names, group logos and greetings are all cited as factors which can lead to an increase in social presence in telecollaboration (Johnson & Johnson 2008a; Arnold & Ducate 2006; Swan 2002). The issue of group size (cf. 2.3.4) has also been productively discussed in telecollaboration research. As in CL (e.g. Johnson & Johnson 2008b), the size of a group is related to members’ opportunities for achieving accountability (Hutchinson 2007) and social interaction (Kreijns et al. 2003). To be effective, the matter of how large or small a group should be, in telecollaboration as well as CL, should be considered in conjunction with issues related to group composition (cf. below). There is still only a limited amount of research available on the effects of online group size (Resta & Laferrière 2007). So far, recommendations advocate three to five members to a group (Genet 2010; Felder & Brent 2001b; Millis 2001). Groups of four in particular, are deemed to be small enough for cohesion to take place and to prevent members from ‘hiding’ (ibid.; Resta & Laferrière 2007), but “large enough to provide adequate diversity of opinions, experiences, and learning styles” (Felder & Brent 2001b: n.p.). If technical problems occur and one member is not electronically present, a group of four may still be able to function smoothly (Millis 2001). Based on research in teacher education, Wang & Woo (2009) posit that work in an online learning environment may be most suitable for groups larger than two, as the tandems in their study indicated “that they could easily communicate using mobile phones or emails [...] [and that] [s]haring files and communicating through [...] [the] online environment seemed to be redundant” (n.p.). The issue of group size in the present study will be taken up again in the discussion of the research context (cf. 5.6). The distribution of roles has in CL (e.g. Jacobs 2006; cf. 2.3.5) and telecollaboration (e.g. Brewer & Klein 2004; Collazos et al. 2003; Millis 2001) been seen as being closely connected to positive interdependence. Several studies suggest the value of pre-assigned roles in telecollaboration (e.g. Johnson & Johnson 2008a; Hutchinson 2007); and the connection between motivation 65 and roles (cf. 2.3.5) has also been attested for telecollaboration (Beatty & Nunan 2004). In teacher training, Biesenbach-Lucas (2004) cites the value of roles in connection with teaching logs, and Wang & Woo (2009) discuss the use of progress reports to specify roles. Software tools may support online groups by suggesting or assigning roles (Johnson & Johnson 2008a; Collazos et al. 2003). Research that indicates the importance of leadership in telecollaboration has also stressed the significance of roles (e.g. Palloff & Pratt 2005; An et al. 2008): An et al. (ibid.) report that, in their study in a teacher education programme, instructors neither stipulated that there be a team leader, nor did they specify what being a team leader involved, any yet, the presence of a ‘positive group leader’ was perceived by in-service teachers as a key factor supporting their online work. An et al. deduced that a major reason for this was so that the group leader could organise group work in the absence of instructor intervention on group proceedings (ibid.). Another factor which may influence the effectiveness of CL, i.e. group composition (cf. 2.3.6), has also been highlighted in the research on telecollaboration. Despite the ongoing controversy regarding the influence of homogeneity or heterogeneity factors (Johnson & Johnson 2008a), much research points to the value of forming heterogeneous telecollaborative teams (Felder & Brent 2001a; Millis 2001) to achieve academic and affective gains (Millis 2001) and maximise participation (Palloff & Pratt 2005) and social interaction (Kreijns et al. 2003). Heterogeneity can in particular comprise participants’ IT knowledge and skills (Resta & Laferrière 2007; Felder & Brent 2001b), but there might also be a role for homogeneity (e.g. in terms of the conditions participants work under or the time zones that they live in) as a facilitator of electronic communication (cf. Felder & Brent 2001a; An et al. 2008). The building of instructor-assigned teams has been cited as a means to ensure adequate grouping (e.g. by Arnold & Ducate 2006), with grouping rationales made evident (Millis 2001) and participants being encouraged “to celebrate the difference [...] in their groups and appreciate the richness that a diverse learning experience brings” (Palloff & Pratt 2005: 34; cf. also Johnson & Johnson 2004: 792). In answer to their participants’ resistance to pre-selected grouping, in particular in adult education, Felder & Brent (2001a: 71) recommend the following: “As we tell our students, we’re sorry if they’re unhappy [...] but the truth is that our job is not to make them happy - it is to prepare them to be professionals.” Issues connected to grouping and group composition in the present study will be discussed in section 5.3.2. 13 13 For further studies on grouping in telecollaborative teacher education, cf. Biesenbach-Lucas (2004), Wang & Woo (2009), An et al. (2008) and Arnold & Ducate (2006). 66 The significance of group processing (cf. 2.3.7) to mediate group effectiveness and goal attainment has also been asserted as a successful way of ensuring online cooperation (e.g. An & Kim 2007; Palloff & Pratt 2005; Johnson & Johnson 2004; Kreijns et al. 2003; Felder & Brent 2001b). In an analogy with the celebration of diversity in heterogeneous groups (cf. above), Hutchinson (2004) emphasises the value of group celebration in group processing (cf. also Arnold & Ducate 2006: 44). The potential of asynchronous CMC for reflection has been specifically outlined (e.g. by Dooly 2007). This research underlines the fact that, unlike in traditional classrooms or verbal reflection, the “time lag between reading a posting, formulating a reply, revising it, and finally sending it” (Arnold & Ducate 2006: 43) allows increased time for deliberation (ibid.; Biesenbach-Lucas 2004; Richardson & Swan 2003), “providing opportunities to test understanding, and promoting critical thought” (Biesenbach-Lucas 2004: 157f.). In addition, asynchronous CMC enables non-native speakers to work at their own pace (ibid. 2004; Richardson & Swan 2003), an important characteristic of language teacher education courses like the one used for the present study (cf. chapter 4). Asynchronous CMC will be used for analysis of the focus groups in this study. The issue of social behaviour in group work receives prominent treatment in the research on telecollaboration. It is frequently treated in discussions on social presence (cf. 3.3), but it has also been addressed in other contexts. To quote Sproull & Faraj (1997: 38; cf. Kreijns et al. 2003: 349): “People on the net are not only solitary information processors, but also social beings. They are not only looking for information; they are also looking for affiliation, support and affirmation.” Studies point to the improvement of participants’ social skills as a result of online collaboration (cf. for example An & Kim 2007 and Biesenbach-Lucas 2004 with respect to teacher education). In-service teachers have been reported to rate affective team support as a key factor that allowed their groups to complete their work successfully (An et al. 2008; cf. also An & Kim 2007: 14). Kreijns et al. (2003) bring the issues mentioned in the previous sections together by underlining that various elements of CL (such as group size and composition) “are related in one way or another to one single key element [in group learning]: social interaction” (ibid.: 337f.). Telecollaborative partners give and receive social support in personal and academic matters, and friendships have even been formed through telecollaboration (Johnson & Johnson 2004; Wang & Woo 2009). Affective gains like these also became evident in the present study, as will be discussed below. It has also been reported that social issues are in many cases related to technical ones (cf. Resta & Laferrière 2007: 68 for higher education; Tsui & Ki 2002 and Ng 2002 for teacher education; Hesse et al. 1997). While the formation of friendships is possible in virtual space (cf. also Darhower 2007), 67 even by way of asynchronous CMC (Biesenbach-Lucas 2004), research attests that existing online environments and tools do not provide sufficient opportunities for social interaction (Kreijns et al. 2003) and make it ”difficult to support the social side of learning” (Bronack et al. 2008: 60) 14 . Unlike in faceto-face learning, there is a particular need to intentionally build social interaction into models for telecollaboration, as it will not take place “simply because the environment makes it possible” (Kreijns et al. 2003: 335; cf. also An et al. 2008). 15 Because of their centrality to a theory of telecollaboration, the following sections will address the issues of social interaction and social ‘presence’ in some detail. 3.3 Face-to-face contact and CL While “online education has progressed to the point where students no longer need to be able to meet face-to-face in order to complete a course” (Richardson & Swan 2003: 69), it is frequently reported that interactions in virtual space “just did not measure up to face-to-face context” (Johnson & Johnson 2004: 794). It has been suggested that several attributes of CMC have huge potential for telecollaboration, but there are also others that may make it more challenging than face-to-face collaboration. Both areas will be considered in the following, before moving on to issues related to social presence and ‘digital invisibility’ (cf. 3.3.2). 3.3.1 Cooperation via the medium of CMC There is much research to suggest that the use of CMC provides benefits for foreign language education (cf. e.g. O’Dowd 2007a: 18f.; Kern 2006). As far as the implementation of computer-mediated collaborative learning is concerned, Warschauer (1997) states that CMC is independent of place and time, allows for long-distance and many-to-many communication, is - often, we might add - text-based and computer-mediated, and allows for the publication and distribution of multimedia documents. All these features can be advantageous for telecollaboration in language education. Furthermore, some claim that CMC is equally as good as face-to-face communication in that it 14 For a description of an online environment that was designed to explicitly support the formation of online communities in higher education, see Bronack et al. (2008). 15 For further studies that specifically address social issues in telecollaborative teacher education, cf. Belz (2002), Belz & Müller-Hartmann (2003), Tsui & Ki (2002), Ng (2002). 68 allows promotive interaction (Biesenbach-Lucas 2004), negotiation of meaning (Chapelle 2007) and scaffolding to take place (Arnold & Ducate 2006), and in that it creates opportunities for joint knowledge construction (ibid.). It has been suggested that the attributes of asynchronous CMC, as is the focus of the present study, stimulate increased and more equal participation (Warschauer 1996; 1999; Sproull & Kiesler 1986). CMC is also believed to have “some advantages over live discussion in terms of engagement in learning, depth of discussion, time on task, and the promotion of higher-order thinking skills” (Johnson & Johnson 2004: 794). Arnold & Ducate (2006) further attest that the development of a learning community is possible through use of asynchronous CMC. However, CMC lacks certain aspects of face-to-face communication, which “may cause different problems that might not surface during face-toface group work” (An et al. 2008: 75). Asynchronous interaction has, for example, been blamed for preventing the provision of immediate feedback (Arnold & Ducate 2006; Kreijns et al. 2003). It is also said to be more intellectually demanding than face-to-face discussions (Hutchinson 2007) and to present challenges to reaching agreement (ibid.; Hesse et al. 1997) and dealing with conflicts and feelings of isolation (An et al. 2008). This may impact on participants’ “sense of belonging and acceptance in a group” (Lin 2004: 588, citing research by Rovai; Hesse et al. 1997). Most notably, researchers have pointed to the absence of nonverbal and paralinguistic cues in text-based CMC. In face-to-face interaction, these convey information about a person’s physical, organisational and situational social context (Sproull & Kiesler 1986; cf. also Kreijns et al. 2003). Their absence or minimal presence in CMC has been claimed to deter the formation of interpersonal impressions and hence to hinder the establishment of social relationships (Sproull & Kiesler 1986; Kreijns et al. 2003), as the former depend on an exchange of “socio-emotional and affective information [...] usually transmitted by vision (e.g. facial expressions, posture, gaze and gestures), olfaction (e.g. use of Cologne/ perfume, body odor), and/ or audition (e.g. voice volume, inflection and tone)” (Kreijns et al. 2003: 344). Researchers also argue that it is precisely the absence of these features that makes CMC less intimidating (e.g. O’Dowd 2007a), provides fewer opportunities for personalisation (Kreijns et al. 2003) and causes participation to frequently be only “scanty and patchy” (Tsui & Ki 2002: 24) 16 . 16 For a detailed treatment of the importance of nonverbal communication in (language) learning, see also McCafferty (2002), Pennycook (1985), Rosenbusch (1986). See Chapelle (2007: 104ff.) for a comprehensive review of the research on interaction in CMC and face-to-face contexts. 69 Having said that, it is necessary to stress that (cooperative) learning is not solely affected by the medium in which interaction takes place, such as CMC, but also by “the context in which it takes place” (Arnold & Ducate 2006: 43; cf. also 2.1.2.2), by the participants involved (ibid.), including their selfperception and issues of self-presentation (Tsui & Ki 2002; cf. also the research findings presented in chapter 6), and the frequency, the time lapse between and the quality of the messages exchanged (Swan 2002). These factors might contribute to making online collaboration more challenging than CL (e.g. Felder & Brent 2001a), and they certainly point out the necessity for the careful design and implementation of telecollaboration in foreign language learning (Doughty & Long 2003; Brewer & Klein 2004; An et al. 2008). These issues will be taken up again in a discussion of the telecollaborative dealings of the focus groups in chapters 6 to 8. 3.3.2 Social presence and digital invisibility Many of the aspects mentioned in 3.3.1 have been subsumed into the concept of ‘social presence’, which has been identified as a central factor mediating the success of online learning and telecollaboration. 17 It will be discussed here in some detail as it will prove to be of major importance for a discussion of this study’s findings, which centre around conceptions of digital presence and invisibility (cf. chapters 6 and 7). Social presence, “better known as a feeling of community and connection among learners” (Palloff & Pratt 2005: 7), was originally defined as characterising different communication media (Short et al. 1976; cf. also Kreijns et al. 2003 and Swan 2002) and can be interpreted as “the degree to which a person is perceived as ‘real’ in mediated communication” (Richardson & Swan 2003: 70) 18 . It has been argued that social presence is not solely an attribute of a medium, but that it is also related to participants’ perceptions of presence and of the medium and that, as a result, it can be cultivated (Gunawardena & Zittle 1997; cf. also Kreijns et al. 2003 and Swan 2002). There is general agreement that “social presence, the perceived interaction with others, [is] [...] one of the cornerstones for the development of online learning communities” (Swan 2002: 26; cf. Rourke et al. 2001; Kreijns et al 2003). Participants’ perceptions of their instructor’s and/ or peers’ social presence are generally connected to their online participation and social interac- 17 Cf. also section 2.1.1 for a treatment of the issue of presence in small group research. 18 See also the discussion on the concept of ‘media richness’ in this context in Swan (2002). 70 tion (Lin 2004) as well as to their (perceived) learning achievements and satisfaction with the course and the instructor (Richardson & Swan 2003; Palloff & Pratt 2005). Research further suggests that social presence not only shapes designated group activities, but also individual tasks (Richardson & Swan 2003). The significance of virtual presence for telecollaboration in teacher education is illustrated by the following description by An & Kim (2007: 14): [M]any teacher participants reported that they experienced benefits from supportive online group members which enhanced their own learning. In particular, belongingness and virtual presence seemed to be very affective factors, since they increased student motivation. Indeed, making classmates aware of their own presence in an online learning environment, either by contributing significantly to the group project or simply by posting short messages (e.g., “I agree” or “I don’t agree”) on the group discussion board, certainly proved to be beneficial [...]. Without any tools to sustain social connections with their online classmates [...] group members frequently experienced frustration and had a hard time moving along. Several ways of conceptualising social presence have been proposed (Lin 2004). For Garrison et al. (2001; cf. Arnold & Ducate 2006: 47) 19 , for example, it includes emotional expression, open communication (demonstrating mutual awareness and recognition of others), and group cohesion (utterances that contribute to building a supportive community and participation within the group, such as greetings and use of names). To increase social presence in telecollaboration, research has also pointed to the value of social interaction, group identity (for example through a group name; cf. 3.2) (Johnson & Johnson 2008a) and self-disclosure, defined as the mutual exchange of personal information (ibid.; Swan 2002; Hesse et al. 1997). Chapter 6 will look at how the participants in this study achieved self-disclosure. To promote social presence, Swan (2002) assigns prime importance to interactive verbal immediacy behaviours, which “use language to show that discussion participants are attending to each other’s contributions” (e.g. expressing acknowledgement, agreement, approval, invitation, and personal advice; ibid.: 41). These types of behaviour were also identified as significant in the focus group interaction (cf. e.g. 7.3). Designers and instructors of online courses need to pay great attention to mechanisms for conveying social presence and build them into their courses (Richardson & Swan 2003). A detailed examination of the ways in which social presence was promoted by the focus group participants in this study will be given in chapter 7. 19 Cf. also the notions of teaching presence and cognitive presence outlined by Garrison, Anderson & Archer to account for learning in online environments (2001). 71 An et al. (2008: 68) also connect online collaboration to issues of hampered presence when they state that “unlike in face-to-face environments, an individual’s actions or activities are not easily visible to others in online environments” (italics added). The issue of ‘digital invisibility’ and participants’ strategies to surmount such non-presence were central to the focus group interaction and will be discussed in sections 7.1 to 7.5. 3.3.3 CL revisited Having attended to the benefits and possible drawbacks of CMC for online collaboration (3.3.1) and the issues connected to social presence in telecollaboration (3.3.2), which will be of importance for the discussion of the research findings, this section sets out to bring these arguments together and to review CL and telecollaboration theory with respect to their treatment of the need for face-to-face interaction. Whilst recognising the challenges that CMC may present to electronic group work, much research acknowledges the fact that other factors may have equal or greater influence than issues involving face-to-face contact and social presence (cf. also 3.3.1). Among them, interaction assumes a central role (Brewer & Klein 2004; Richardson & Swan 2003; Swan 2002; cf. also Wang & Woo 2009 with respect to ‘communication support’). It has been associated with the achievements of group members (Kreijns et al. 2003), and its significance for online collaboration may be even greater than that for face-to-face cooperation (ibid.). As Richardson & Swan (2003: 69) explain: When considering the challenge of the effectiveness of online learning in comparison to traditional classroom learning, researchers have to ask themselves if it is really the physical presence of the instructor and students that is an essential element of learning; or, if not, then what element are critics denouncing? Perhaps we should really focus on the interactions that take place between students and instructors. In a similar vein, Palloff & Pratt (2007: 49) vividly depict how, in contrast to face-to-face CL, a group member’s presence (or absence) in virtual space is closely connected to his/ her interaction: The physical presence or absence of someone in a face-to-face group is noticeable, whether they participate verbally or not. In an online setting people can disappear more easily; their absence is noticed but is easier to ignore than an empty chair would be. It is also easier to be a silent member in a face-to-face group. People know that you are present even if you are not speaking. In our online groups, however, silent members are just not there. 72 Yet, as noted above (cf. 3.2), “social interaction in CSCL environments must be organized or it is unlikely to occur or be meaningful” (Kreijns et al. 2003: 340). In a similar way, and even more importantly, online environments can promote telecollaboration, but do not always necessarily or automatically do so (Kreijns et al. 2003; Biesenbach-Lucas 2004; Ahrens & Zaščerinska 2011). Once again, in this context, the need to adhere to the defining characteristics of CL in telecollaboration (cf. 3.2) has been strongly called for (e.g. Felder & Brent 2001b; An et al. 2008; Johnson & Johnson 2008a; Brewer & Klein 2004). A further critical factor that might affect the influence of social presence is the issue of the length of time that is available for online collaboration: “If time limitation plays no role, the same personal impressions [as in face-to-face communication] will be developed in CMC” (Kreijns et al. 2003: 345). Issues like these have led researchers to recommend the integration of periods of physical presence into online collaboration. They point, for example, to the successes of blended learning. To give one example, in a study on telecollaboration in teacher training, Wang & Woo (2009: n.p.) observed that “group members actually worked collaboratively on the final project outside of the CSCL environment or without the support of the environment”. This reflects the participants’ appreciation of non-electronic interaction to support their cooperation. It also implies “that group members’ collaborative efforts may not be fully reflected through the indicators found in a CSCL environment” (ibid.). Both factors are supported by the present research, which was carried out in the context of blended learning (cf. 4.2.4.1). In a similar vein, Belz (2005), Felder & Brent (2001a), Ng (2002), Johnson & Johnson (2004; 2008a) and others either cite research findings where computer-mediated interactions were profitably complemented by face-to-face contact, or specifically recommend a combination of face-to-face and computer-mediated collaboration for best results. The CL literature does not unanimously highlight face-to-face interaction as a necessary prerequisite for CL. While some early definitions assumed faceto-face contact to be in place (e.g. Meyer 1977a: 94: groups can be formed of people who are in one place at the same time), in-person exchanges are frequently viewed as conducive to, but not absolutely necessary for cooperation to take place (e.g. McDonell 1992b: 166ff.; Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 28; Olsen & Kagan 1992), and the sufficient frequency and suitable content of interaction (Hörmann 1993: 92; Sharan & Sharan 1976: 28ff.), combined with members’ cooperative efforts (Johnson & Johnson 2008a), are assumed to be vital. Furthermore, as Wolf & Peuke (2003: 114) point out, direct face-to-face contact is not the only factor that makes up a relationship, even in our day-today dealings. 73 The changing attitude to the treatment of face-to-face interaction is particularly obvious in the works of Johnson & Johnson, when they refer to the basic elements of cooperation: “promotive (face-to-face) interaction” (1990: 30), and more than a decade later: “promotive interaction” (2004: 793; 2008a). In this way, the potential lack of face-to-face contact among cooperative partners, a characteristic inherent in telecollaboration, can be assumed to be in line with a theory of CL. Since several other of the basic premises of CL have also been seen to be in place in telecollaboration (cf. 3.2), we may argue that a redefinition of CL may be unnecessary at the moment and that it is possible to study computer-mediated forms of collaboration by having recourse to the theories of CL. 3.4 Potential and conditions for success and the challenges involved Before moving on to a description of the research context and methods, the potential and issues that telecollaboration research in language teacher education has identified will be examined. There are numerous general pedagogic references (most notably academic and affective) and also many references to the language-learning related benefits of group work that is structured according to the principles of CL (e.g. Millis 2001; Slavin 1995a; Olsen & Kagan 1992; McDonell 1992a). The suitability of these principles for use in adult education and language teacher education has also been pointed out (e.g. An et al. 2008; Olsen 1992; Shaw 1992; Nagl 1976). The changing teacher role in CL and telecollaboration, where the teacher is no longer the sole mediator of knowledge and initiator of learning, along with calls for reform in teacher education (cf. 4.1), underscore the need to integrate collaborative learning into teacher education and to allow student teachers to experience it firsthand, in the learner’s role, to enable them to apply CL in their own classrooms (Legutke & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2009; Reinders 2009; Müller- Hartmann 2007; O’Dowd 2007a; An & Kim 2007; Johnston 2009; Kohonen 1992; cf. also 2.3 above). Specific benefits of telecollaboration in higher education, and in particular in teacher education, include catering for participants’ noted preference for group work over individual work (Brewer & Klein 2004), convenience and flexibility (Ng 2002; Richardson & Swan 2003), overcoming anonymity and isolation (Brewer & Klein 2004) and the positive influences on the learning process created by promoting the “[d]evelopment of critical thinking skills; [c]o-creation of knowledge and meaning; [r]eflection; [t]ransformative learning” (Palloff & Pratt 2005: 4; cf. also An & Kim 2007; An et al. 2008). These frequently result in “improved learning outcomes, such 74 as higher levels of academic performance and social competency, as compared to competitive or individual learning” (An & Kim 2007: 4). Student teachers further reported the following benefits: development of their “meta-cognitive knowledge [...] [e.g.] the ability to monitor the assumptions and implications of one’s activities [...] the value of a supportive learning community [...] [and] their new understanding of the constructive use of online communication tools” (An & et al. 2008: 69; cf. also 3.2 and 3.3.1 for a summary of advantages connected to specific CMC attributes, including increased opportunities for reflection and support for non-native speakers). Challenges and issues connected to the implementation of telecollaboration in (language) teacher education have also been identified. These largely pertain to affective, technical, linguistic and institutional and intercultural areas, as well as to a perceived absence of CL characteristics. 20 In the affective domain, particularly the CMC-related challenges to establishing social presence (cf. 3.3.2) and affective team support (An et al. 2008) and to developing interpersonal relationships (Kreijns et al. 2003; cf. also Hare 1976 in 3.2) have been noted. One way of overcoming these is by establishing an explicit focus on exchanging personal and task-related information (Hesse et al. 1997). Challenges are also related to participants’ attitudes to and perceptions of the technology (Beatty & Nunan 2004; Tsui & Ki 2002), among others regarding communication, participation, negotiation and consensus-building in CMC (An & Kim 2007; Palloff & Pratt 2005; Tsui & Ki 2002; Hesse et al. 1997; An et al. 2008; cf. also 3.3.1) as well as access to technical support mechanisms (Tsui & Ki 2002). One possible solution to technical issues may be achieved by the establishment of an explicit focus on media-specific characteristics and strategies as well as by improving software and tools to facilitate electronic group work (Hesse et al. 1997; cf. also the research findings reported in section 7.5). References to linguistic challenges occur in relation to differences in communication styles and the inherent lack of paralinguistic cues (e.g. tone of voice, irony, humour) in text-based CMC, in particular in exchanges between native and non-native speakers (e.g. Belz 2003). Institutional and intercultural differences, such as the “misalignment of academic calendars” (Belz & Müller- Hartmann 2003: 71), different time zones (An & Kim 2007), cultural issues (Palloff & Pratt 2005) and intercultural misunderstandings based on insufficient knowledge of the partners (Kramsch & Thorne 2002; cf. Basharina 20 For an overview of the challenges identified in CL research which may also be relevant to telecollaboration, see for example Kreijns et al. (2003: 339f.); Sharan & Sharan (1976: 44ff.); Slavin (1995a); Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. (1995a); Johnson & Johnson (1995: 178ff.). 75 2007), are all additional issues in telecollaboration in teacher education. One way of addressing these is by focussing explicitly on reflection and group processing (Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; cf. 2.3.7). Finally, the absence of certain characteristics in CL (cf. 3.2) may present a challenge to telecollaboration in teacher education. This concerns in particular the absence of individual accountability (cf. 2.3.2; 3.2) and the lack of a positive group leader (An et al. 2008; cf. also 2.3.5; 3.2). Yet importantly, challenges do not necessarily have to lead to negative results. Rather, as Beatty & Nunan (2004: 179; italics added) point out: “Ignoring a challenge denies a learning opportunity.” In view of advantages and challenges like the ones cited above, research has proposed a variety of preconditions that need to be met for telecollaboration to be successful. Among these are the gradual introduction of cooperative structures (Olsen 1992; Sharan & Sharan 1976), a consideration of student teachers’ attitudes towards cooperation, including possible resistance (An & Kim 2007; O’Dowd 2007a; Beatty & Nunan 2004), counteracting inexperience in using CL and CMC (cf. Sproull & Kiesler 1986) through appropriate training (An et al. 2008; O’Dowd 2007a), instructor assistance and intervention (An et al. 2008; Palloff & Pratt 2005) and ‘expert’ feedback (Brewer & Klein 2004). In turn, these depend to a large extent on participants’ willingness “to overcome the initial uneasiness with this mode of communication” (Tsui & Ki 2002: 31), designated attention to social aspects of cooperation (Kreijns et al. 2003; cf. 3.2; 3.3.2), appropriate group tasks tailored to the needs and contexts of student teachers (An & Kim 2007; cf. also Doughty & Long 2003 and Dooly 2007), ideally including support from their school (Tsui & Ki 2002), as well as opportunities for a presentation of self (Swan 2002; Johnson & Johnson 2008a; cf. 3.3.2), including sharing information about personal group work (An et al. 2008) and teaching experiences (Biesenbach-Lucas 2004), selfperception (Beatty & Nunan 2004; Tsui & Ki 2002) and motivation (Beatty & Nunan 2004). Of these conditions, the issues related to student teachers’ personal viewpoints regarding group learning, group members’ inexperience with CMC and strategies relating to the presentation of self are of central importance to the present study and will be discussed later (cf. chapter 6). Research has identified several areas relating to telecollaboration in language teacher education which are in need of further examination. Of central importance for the present study are the need to critically assess “the usefulness of online group work” (An & Kim 2007: 15) and a call for qualitative research to give due account to the special conditions peculiar to teacher education (Borg 2009: 166; cf. also Hertz-Lazarowitz et al. 1995a in 2.2.3.3): [T]eacher learning in preservice teacher education is a complex process that varies even among individuals on the same program. Given this complexity, it is likely that an element of qualitative analysis [...] is desirable [...] if meaning- 76 ful conclusions about the impact of preservice teacher education are to be reached. Specifically, in view of the growing number of students enrolling in courses for online teacher education, research should take into account their perceptions of and experiences with online collaboration (An et al. 2008). It needs to address “how we can help teachers develop more supportive online collaborative learning environments” (An & Kim 2007: 15) and “how we can further distinguish the ways in which students can achieve positive benefits that are not possible in face-to-face environments” (ibid.). Findings like these will grant course designers and instructors insights that may make telecollaboration in foreign language teacher education more effective and more directly geared towards the participants’ needs, possibilities and special contexts. This is crucial “for online teacher education programs, because the experiences and perspectives teachers obtain there will influence their willingness to implement this learning method in their own classrooms” (An et al. 2008: 67). The present study is one response to these calls for research. The specific context in which the study took place will now be described. 77 4 Research Context: The E-LINGO Programme The M.A. programme “E-LINGO - Teaching Languages to Young Learners” (E-LINGO - Didaktik des Frühen Fremdsprachenlernens) is a joint project of the German Universities of Education (Pädagogische Hochschulen) of Freiburg and Heidelberg and Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen, Germany, and is sponsored by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation (Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, formerly Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg). It was launched in 2002 as a reaction to growing demands for professional mediators of language and culture at primary and pre-school level within the European Union. At the same time, concern was voiced at university level calling for a reform of teacher education and training courses. The following chapter will detail the historical and political background that led to the establishment of the programme and will, in this context, point out its special features and the ways in which it was intended to tackle the issues that led to its establishment. 21 4.1 Political and educational background 4.1.1 Early foreign language teaching in Europe The last decades have seen a momentous development in the educational sector across almost all of Europe: the introduction of early foreign language education into primary schools and even into nurseries and kindergartens. While there are considerable differences among the various European countries regarding, for example, the entry age of the children, the number of lessons allocated or the status accorded to pre-school education (cf. European Commission 2007b), the programmes generally share certain basic principles and objectives (cf. Legutke 2008: 10ff.). Amongst their salient characteristics are: they are usually aimed at fostering tolerance as well as a positive attitude towards other cultures; they are designed to cater for the different learning styles and strategies of children and they are predominantly competenceoriented. 21 E-LINGO was offered from 2002 to 2013 and then discontinued due to funding reasons. However, its theoretical framework, organisational format and action research approach have formed the basis for the very successful in-service teacher education programme "Deutsch Lehren Lernen" (Learning to Teach German) of the Goethe Institute (for details, cf. https: / / www.goethe.de/ de/ spr/ unt/ for/ dll.html). 78 The political decisions at the heart of these developments across Europe are, on the one hand, based on the various benefits associated with early foreign language instruction. However, on the other hand they are also a reaction to current globalisation trends, not only across Europe, but worldwide. With communications and travel having become cheaper and easier, and with the trend towards international business start-ups, the ability to converse in a foreign language has become more and more a prerequisite for successful participation in all facets of contemporary life, and in European mobility in general (cf. Moser & Weber 2008: 1f.; Legutke 2008: 11). Moser & Weber aptly summarise what ‘knowing’ a (foreign) language, and thus being able to communicate with others, means for us: “Ohne Sprache - besser: ohne Sprachen - geht nichts 22 ” (2008: 1). By using the plural ‘languages’ (Sprachen), they also emphasise the importance of a person’s linguistic competence, not merely in their mother tongue, but in more than one language. Thus, language competence logically refers to multilingual competence (ibid.: 2). This view is mirrored and taken even further by the European Commission, which, in its Action Plan 2004-2006, entitled “Promoting Language Learning and Linguistic Diversity”, states that every EU citizen should be able to communicate competently in his or her mother tongue and at least two foreign languages (European Commission 2003: 4). If this ambitious objective is to be achieved, one obvious implication is to start foreign language education at as early an age as possible (cf. ibid.; Legutke 2008: 12). Thus, initiating, fostering and supporting the development of language competence and in particular the teaching of languages to young learners, has become the centre of numerous attempts at educational reform across Europe throughout the last decades. Numerous studies point to the benefits of introducing foreign language instruction at primary and pre-school level. Some common arguments, which generally pertain to linguistic, didactic and political domains, will briefly be cited here (for a detailed overview, cf. for example Lightbown & Spada 2006). From a linguistic perspective, various studies report that children have a much greater capacity for imitating pronunciation and picking up accents than adults and that they greatly enjoy playing and experimenting with language (cf. for example Ur 1996; Lightbown & Spada 2006; Cameron 2001). Seen from a teaching point of view, young learners are generally considered to be easier to motivate than most adults and they are not afraid in the same way of making mistakes and losing face. At a political and societal level, early foreign language learning can help foster a positive attitude towards other cul- 22 My translation: Without language - rather: without languages - there is no way forward. 79 tures from an early age on and can be a gateway to lifelong learning (cf. Legutke 2008: 11f.). Referring to Tracy (2007: 4ff.), Moser & Weber (2008: 7) react to common misgivings regarding the introduction of foreign languages at primary or preschool level. They confirm the belief that learning a second or further language does not place excessive demands on young children, but indeed supports their personal willingness to learn. Legutke (2008: 11) takes this argument even further by referring to the work of Andreas Marschollek (2002) and highlighting the idea that learning a foreign language not only supports children’s development, but that it presents them with an opportunity to grow cognitively and emotionally. In this vein, foreign language learning at an early age is not seen as being in conflict with the development of mother tongue literacy, but as supporting it (Edelenbos et al. 2006: 80ff.; cf. Legutke 2008: 12). Even so, most researchers are careful to highlight the fact that ‘young’ does not necessarily and by no means automatically equal ‘better’ (e.g. Ur 1996; Lightbown & Spada 2006; Legutke 2008). In the conclusion to their large-scale review of studies on this topic, Singleton & Ryan (2004: 266) summarise their findings as follows: With specific regard to L2 acquisition, it is no longer possible to accept the view that younger L2 learners are in all respects an at every stage of learning superior to older learners, nor that older learners are in all respects and at every stage of learning superior to younger learners. Indeed, a number of conditions have to be met in order to make early language learning successful and productive. Among the factors that have a strong influence on the development of foreign language competence, Legutke (2008: 10f.) cites the quality of the language lessons and teaching materials, the length of contact time that students have with the foreign language, the education and training of the teachers and, most importantly, the teachers’ foreign language competence. This view is shared by Edelenbos et al. (2006), who, in their review of research studies, also come to the conclusion that the success rates of foreign language programmes for young learners depend to a large extent on the linguistic and didactic competences of the teachers. In terms of maintaining and improving standards in foreign language education, the teacher can thus be positioned as the central figure and gatekeeper. 4.1.2 The role of the teacher in early foreign language education One recent document highlighting the key significance of the teacher in (early) foreign language teaching is the Mannheim Declaration on Multilingual- 80 ism in Early Childhood (Mannheimer Erklärung zur frühen Mehrsprachigkeit), which was issued in 2006 as the pinnacle publication of a conference on the challenges and opportunities of early childhood multilingualism organised by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation (cf. also above). The declaration asserts that the successful development of foreign language competences depends on the existence of favourable underlying circumstances. It goes on to postulate that insights gained from language acquisition research (cf. also 4.1.1 above) need to be put into practice and continually evaluated and refined on the basis of further research if foreign language teaching is to be effective (Mannheimer Erklärung 2006). It names some of the specific conditions that have to be met for early language education to be beneficial: “Kinder brauchen ein adäquates zielsprachliches Vorbild. Dies setzt eine entsprechende Qualifikation aller am Bildungsprozess Beteiligten voraus” 23 (ibid). The declaration thus clearly refers to the key role of the teacher and hence emphasises the importance of sound linguistic, pedagogic and didactic qualifications that primary language teachers need to be equipped with. By doing so, it strongly advocates the importance of and need for a solid framework for teacher training and education, designed to prepare student teachers to cope with the demands of being mediators of language and culture for (very) young learners. At an international level, the importance of high-quality language teacher qualifications, and hence of teacher education and training, has been strongly promoted by the European Union. With regard to multilingualism and lifelong learning, it states: “Language teachers have a crucial role to play in building a multilingual Europe. If they have the right combination of language and pedagogical skills they can awaken in the learner an enthusiasm for languages that will last a lifetime” (European Communities 2004: 51). In addition, the impact that language teachers, coupled with beneficial conditions for language learning, should have on attaining the Action Plan 2004-2006 goals (cf. above) are clearly outlined (European Union 2007): Language teachers will play a major part in achieving the European Union’s objective that all EU citizens should be proficient in their mother tongue and two other languages. [...] An early start to language learning will only be of benefit if teachers are specially trained to teach languages to young children in classes where enough time and attention can be devoted to language teaching. Finally, teacher training and qualifications have also been addressed as core factors in early foreign language education by the European Commission in 23 My translation: Children need a teacher that can present them with an adequate model of the target language. This implies that every person involved in the educational process needs to be appropriately qualified to achieve this. 81 its information bulletin on young language learners: “[A]n early start does not guarantee better results. It must be combined with effective teaching methods [...] delivered by appropriately trained teachers” (European Commission 2007a). What is particularly noteworthy is that all these documents clearly and strongly link the effectiveness of language teaching to the role of the teacher and culminate in a call for teacher education of a high standard. To illustrate this, we need only look at the 45 proposals set out in the Action Plan 2004-2006 to be carried out between the years 2004 and 2006, which fall in the three broad categories of “Life-Long Language Learning”, “Better Language Teaching” and “Building a Language-Friendly Environment”. Interestingly enough, in the second category, which aims at enhancing the quality of language teaching, three out of the six areas in which action should be pursued target language teachers and language teacher education. These are: “Language teacher training”, “Supply of language teachers” and “Training teachers of other subjects” (cf. European Commission 2003). As these publications have shown, languages are considered to be a major asset by the European Union. However, it has also become clear that language teaching in general requires, first and foremost, the sound methodological, didactic and linguistic skills and competences of the teachers in order to be beneficial. It has been suggested that, of all the prerequisites for the success of early foreign language learning and the development of early foreign language competence, the most important one can be considered to be the teacher (e.g. Legutke 2008; cf. also 4.1.4). Thus, it becomes evident that the provision of teacher training of a high standard is vital. Furthermore, it is important to note that the field of teaching foreign languages to young learners requires a specific type of teacher preparation and education, as the methods and approaches needed are different to those common in secondary level language teaching. A look at some of the central issues and challenges that early foreign language instruction has to face will further clarify the need for and importance of a solidly grounded approach to teacher education. Legutke (2008: 13ff.) points out four central issues that primary language teachers in particular will be confronted with in their daily work, and that they will need to know (i.e. have been trained) how to respond to. The first challenge concerns ways of integrating knowledge of the language(s) that the children have previously learnt and that they bring to the classroom. Of course, this will include issues related to previous language learning experiences and linguistic heritage. The second issue concerns questions of continuity and accomplishing language learning in a coordinated, continuous way. To ensure a steady progress of the development of the children’s language competence, the transition from a primary to a secondary educational environment needs to be marked by con- 82 tinuity of teaching methods and of the forms of assessment, among other things (cf. also European Commission 2007b). Related to this, a third challenge that primary and pre-school language teachers are confronted with is that of finding ways of paving the way for life-long language learning, e.g. by providing students with a first introduction to simple forms of self-assessment and self-reflection and ways of monitoring their own progress. Finally, those who teach languages to young learners need to be aware of their special responsibility towards other languages that the children will learn later in their lives. The first foreign language should function as a gateway to further language learning, e.g. by developing a sense of curiosity towards language learning and an interest in languages in general. As can be seen, when it comes to the challenges of teaching languages to children, the central role of the teacher becomes distinctly evident. Legutke (2008: 13) makes this absolutely clear when he states that all the challenges have to be eventually dealt with by the teacher in his/ her classroom in some form or other. It goes without saying that teachers can only be expected to be able to accomplish this if they have acquired the necessary qualifications during their teacher training period which will help them to cope. 4.1.3 Standards in foreign language teacher education The central role of primary and pre-school teacher education programmes has been described above. However, the intensity and the standards of (language) teacher training programmes still vary considerably from country to country within Europe (Legutke 2008: 10). Consequently, following the successful introduction of the “Common European Framework of Reference for Languages” by the Council of Europe (Council of Europe 2001), the European Commission has funded the development of a “European Profile for Language Teacher Education” (Kelly & Grenfell n.d.) to set out the conditions necessary for the improvement of language teacher education by providing a frame of reference for policy makers, teacher educators and (trainee) language teachers (cf. ibid.). The Profile investigates essential components of language teacher training in Europe in terms of “Structure”, “Knowledge and Understanding”, “Strategies and Skills” and “Values” with the aim of equipping teachers with the relevant professional skills, knowledge and competences (ibid.). It is also designed to increase transparency in view of the differing national and international qualifications for language teachers (ibid.). Legutke (2008: 17) notes two further specific interrelated features of the Profile that carry great innovative potential. The first of these is the consistent integration of teachers’ practical teaching experience into the Profile across all four sections mentioned above, and secondly there is the continual process of teacher 83 reflection on precisely these teaching experiences - again at all levels of the Profile (cf. also section 4.1.4 on research into teacher training). A further step in the direction of providing standards for language teacher education - with a particular emphasis on training those who teach languages to young learners - has been made by the German BIG Committee (BIG- Kreis: Arbeitskreis “Beratung, Informationen und Gespräche”), a working committee on early foreign language learning set up by the Learning Foundation (Stiftung Lernen) (cf. Legutke 2008: 17f.). Its publication on standards, quality of teaching and teacher training (BIG-Kreis 2005) sets out minimum attainment target levels that all German primary school children should have achieved by the end of Year Four. Based on this, it outlines principles according to which the actual lessons in the classrooms should be designed and subsequently presents an initial conceptualisation of corresponding qualifications and competences that teachers need to have in order to be able to offer early foreign language education in such a way as to allow children to achieve the outlined targets (ibid.). Like the European Profile for Language Teacher Education, the BIG Committee publication integrates findings from recent research on teacher training into its competence profiles and recommendations. It specifically outlines a holistic and process-oriented form of teacher education that is centred around the principles of reflected practice (reflektiertes Erfahrungslernen) and a research approach to learning (forschendes Lernen) (Legutke 2008: 18; cf. also Legutke & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2009; Schockervon Ditfurth 2001; 2002 and sections 4.1.4; 4.2.3). It thus encourages programmes to offer student teachers innovative and first-hand experiences of teaching and learning a language, which might indeed be radically different from those they experienced during their own school days (cf. 2.3 on experiential learning and 2.1.2.2 on the co-construction of knowledge). By doing so, these programmes will help student teachers avoid the trap of what Lortie (1975) has termed the ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (e.g. Legutke & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2009). In line with the above mentioned EU language policy issues and initiatives and the European Profile for Language Teacher Education, the eminent researchers, practitioners and politicians who form the BIG Committee have voiced their concern for the quality of (early) foreign language teaching (as manifested, for example, in the fact that current performance targets are not being achieved) and issued an urgent call for a comprehensive reform of teacher training and education at a national level (BIG-Kreis 2005: 15): Wenn die Einführung von Standards erfolgreich verlaufen soll, bedarf es großer Anstrengungen in der Lehrerbildung. […] Eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der Bundesländer vor bzw. bei der Einführung einer Fremdsprache in der Grundschule und ihren Standards ist […] die vorbereitende und begleitende 84 Qualifizierung derjenigen Lehrkräfte, die künftig und gegenwärtig diesen Unterricht erteilen. 24 Before concluding this chapter by looking at an innovative plan for a teacher education programme that aims at training future primary and pre-school language teachers to be linguistically and didactically qualified mediators of language and culture (sections 4.2 and 4.3), I will take a brief look at the concrete situation in Germany, and, in particular, at the state of Baden- Württemberg, where the above-mentioned teacher training programme has already been established. By doing so it will soon become clear that, even though political objectives have provided clear signposts for the future of language teaching, these aims are still far from being achieved. As a central prerequisite for a possible improvement of the current situation, the benchmark function of the above-mentioned competence profiles has frequently been highlighted (e.g. by Legutke 2008). 4.1.4 Early foreign language teaching and teacher education in Germany In accordance with developments in the majority of European countries, the teaching of at least one foreign language has been introduced in primary schools across Germany. However, with responsibility for educational policy being in the hands of the German federal state parliaments, the rate with which this has been implemented has differed in each province. In the state of Baden-Württemberg for example, the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been compulsory in schools from Year One on since the beginning of the 2003/ 2004 school year (Hägele 2008: 144). The importance that has thus been placed on early language instruction has, however, not been mirrored by a corresponding increase in the number of teachers with appropriate qualifications for teaching languages to young learners. The increased demand for this type of teacher has not yet been satisfied (Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2006: 6). As far as Baden-Württemberg is concerned, Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth (ibid.) go as far as to state that a large backlog demand for qualification measures for language mediators exists, in particular for the target group of young learners. Mertens (2000) cites the inade- 24 My translation: If the introduction of standards is to be successful, considerable efforts in the field of teacher education are required. [...] One of the most important tasks of the [German] states before and during the introduction of (standards for) foreign language education into primary schools is [...] the preparatory and in-service qualification of those teachers that are currently teaching and will be teaching foreign languages to young learners. 85 quacy of traditional formats of language teacher education to cater for the needs of large groups of potential early foreign language instructors (Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2006: 6): Vorhandene traditionelle Qualifizierungsangebote […] reichen bei weitem nicht aus […]. Vor allem aber erreichen sie nicht diejenigen Personengruppen, denen aufgrund ihrer familiären Verhältnisse kein Vollzeitstudium möglich ist oder die als Sprecher der Zielsprache (native speaker) gute Basisqualifikationen mitbringen, jedoch keinerlei pädagogische Qualifikation zur altersgemäßen Fremdsprachenvermittlung haben. 25 The implications of the issue become even clearer if we take a look at the overall situation in Germany (cf. Legutke 2008: 16). Legutke (ibid.) points out that, even if we include the numerous pilot projects that have been running in Germany for many years, only a maximum of twenty per cent of primary school language teachers are appropriately qualified for the work they are doing (cf. also Claus & Schmidt 2008: 36). Once again highlighting the pivotal role that the language teacher plays in terms of the quality of any educational effort, Legutke (2008: 16) also calls for an increased focus on establishing improved qualification measures for early foreign language educators: Auf die Lehrerin und den Lehrer kommt es an. Lehrpläne, Materialien und die Ausstattung des Lernraums sind wichtige Faktoren für das Gelingen der Programme. An erster Stelle steht jedoch die Qualität der Lehrperson, ihr Grad an fremdsprachlicher Kompetenz und fachdidaktischer Ausbildung. Während alle europäischen Staaten den Frühbeginn propagieren und entsprechende Programme auf den Weg gebracht haben, reicht das Engagement für die Aus- und Fortbildung nicht aus. 26 This chapter has outlined a significant development that has shaped the educational landscape of Europe in the past decades: the introduction of foreign 25 My translation: The existing traditional qualification measures [...] are far from sufficient [...]. Most importantly, they do not target those prospective students who cannot engage in full-time study due to family obligations or who are native speakers of the target language and thus bring with them a basic qualification, but who have no pedagogic qualification as language mediators for young learners. 26 My translation: It is the teacher who matters. Curriculums, teaching materials and the classroom environment are important factors that determine the success of such [early foreign language education] programmes. However, the most central factor is the quality of teaching, the teacher’s level of foreign language competence and his/ her training as a language mediator. Whilst all states of Europe advocate an early start for foreign language education and have set up corresponding programmes, the current efforts made in terms of teacher education and training are not sufficient. 86 language education at primary and pre-school level. It has further highlighted the political, economic and didactic rationales and objectives behind this significant educational endeavour. Based on these, it has become clear that there is one major challenge that still needs to be addressed in order to guarantee a high standard of (early) language instruction: the issue of teacher training and qualifications. This has been made clear with regard to the significance that political initiatives and plans for action attribute to teacher education, with regard to the difficulties that early foreign language educators are likely to have to deal with in their classrooms and with regard to the regional differences (some of which are large indeed) in teacher education programmes and the need for standards for language teacher education. It is against this background of EU language policy, coupled with recent developments in the educational sector and increased demands for an improvement of language teacher education across Europe in general, and in Germany in particular, that the Master’s Programme “E-LINGO - Teaching Languages to Young Learners” was created. The following chapter will describe this programme in some detail. It will outline its structure and content as well as refer to ways in which the programme hopes to tackle (some of) the educational and political challenges connected with teaching languages to young learners. 4.2 THE E-LINGO programme: Structure and contents In this chapter, I will introduce the programme under investigation, the Master’s course “E-LINGO - Teaching Languages to Young Learners”. My starting point will be a general overview of the E-LINGO programme, including underlying principles of design, programme structure, entry requirements and an overview of the content studied by the candidates. This will then be followed by an analysis of the programme’s distinctive features. E-LINGO is an accredited Master’s programme directed at early childhood educators and foreign language teachers wishing to obtain an (additional) Master’s level academic qualification in teaching languages to young children. It was originally offered in two different strands, between which candidates needed to choose: teaching English as a foreign language and teaching French as a foreign language. The French component was, however, phased out later. Yet, as Moser & Weber (2008: 3) document, the programme is in principle transferable to the teaching of other languages. 87 4.2.1 Developing and piloting E-LINGO: a chronological outline The E-LINGO programme was initiated by the Rectors’ Conference of the Universities of Education of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, which, in November 2000, convoked a group of experts to develop and pilot a Master’s programme on teaching languages to young learners in a blended learning format. The group of experts, consisting of representatives of the Universities of Education of the German state of Baden-Württemberg and of experts from other German states, was constituted one month later (Moser & Weber 2008; Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2007). Within the framework of the E-LINGO project, the development of the Master’s programme has been funded since 2001 by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation, a non-profitmaking organisation that supports non-commercial projects for the benefit of the general public in Baden-Württemberg (Moser & Weber 2008). The programme was joined by the state of Hesse (as represented by Justus-Liebig- University of Gießen, Germany) in 2003 and it has since been developed by the Universities of Education of Heidelberg and of Freiburg and by Justus- Liebig-University of Gießen (JLU) as the bodies responsible for the project under the aegis of the Baden-Württemberg Foundation (Moser & Weber 2008; Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2007; for further details on the Hessian sub-project, cf. 4.2.4.2). The development of the E-LINGO programme for early foreign language educators can be seen as consisting of different stages. The first project stage was launched on 01.05.2002 for an initial pilot phase of four years. It ended on 30.09.2006. In order to optimise the results and to accomplish the second project stage, the Supervisory Board of the Baden-Württemberg Foundation decided to fund the project for another two years as of 01.10.2006. One aim of this second phase was to allow for the official accreditation of the programme as a course of study (Moser & Weber 2008). The final report on the first project stage was published by the Baden-Württemberg Foundation as a working paper: Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth (2006). Observations and results from the subsequent phases have been published in book format: Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg in cooperation with Michael Legutke & Marita Schocker-von Ditfurth (2008). Starting in spring 2002, materials’ designers were recruited, a curriculum was developed and content and technical issues were considered. The project work during this first phase centred around the development of appropriate content for the study modules and the establishment of an online learning environment and content management system suited to the specific needs of the blended learning programme (Moser & Weber 2008: 4f.; cf. also below). 88 Two years later, in March 2004, the Master’s programme entered its test phase, with twenty-four students (twelve in the English cohort and twelve in the French cohort) commencing their studies with E-LINGO. The main aim of this phase was to evaluate the online learning environment and the content of the study modules (cf. Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2004: 37). After four semesters, the students of the test phase successfully completed their studies in March 2006 and the test phase was concluded with a final evaluation. The first seventeen E-LINGO graduates received their Master’s certificates on 13 April 2006 (Moser & Weber 2008: 5), and subsequently, the second cohort consisting of twenty-two students began their E-LINGO studies in October 2006. In September 2007, the Master’s programme was officially accredited by the ACQUIN Institute, one of six authorised accreditation agencies for new courses of study leading to Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees in Germany. The successful termination of the developmental phase of E-LINGO was celebrated in a ceremonial act in the German city of Stuttgart on 23 October 2008, in which the graduates of the second cohort received their Master’s certificates (cf. Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2008). With its official accreditation, the foundations were laid for the establishment of E-LINGO as a “regular course of study” (Moser & Weber 2008: 6; own translation) to obtain a Master’s degree in Germany. 4.2.2 Course organisation and contents In terms of its overall organisation, E-LINGO has been designed as a 4semester part-time vocational training course in a blended learning format, thus effectively combining phases of online work with face-to-face instruction (cf. 3.3.3). Individual and cooperative online studies, which the participants undertake in small groups within an online virtual learning environment, are combined with regular face-to-face sessions during which all the students of a cohort meet, have time to socialise, receive additional input, present and discuss the results of their online group work and have the opportunity to talk to their tutors 27 . During the four semesters of their studies, one of the ways in which study is organised is for participants to work in predetermined teams of two to three students (tandems/ tridems) on three classroom-based action research projects (cf. e.g. Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a; see also 4.3.1). Central 27 When referring to the E-LINGO course leaders, the term ‘tutor’ will be used. According to Müller-Hartmann (2008: 92), the E-LINGO educators focus in their tasks on the moderation and support of the participants and thus the term ‘tutor’ should be preferred over e.g. the term ‘instructor’. 89 tenets of a constructivist approach to learning (cf. 2.1.2.2) are already evident at this stage (cf. also 4.3 for details). An overview of the content and the subjects that the participants study is outlined in Table 2 below. Towards the end of each semester, each group presents the results of their research to their tutors and fellow students at a face-to-face meeting (cf. 4.2.4.1). Since, ideally, the tandems and tridems remain the same for the duration of the whole programme (i.e. for the work on all three research questions) 28 and since, additionally, various face-to-face meetings focus on and are aimed at developing and increasing group coherence (cf. Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen: Department of English 2007), the E-LINGO programme lends itself to an analysis of the principles of telecollaboration (i.e. long-distance cooperation) in foreign language teacher education (cf. chapter 3). The specific ways in which cooperation is achieved in the programme will be looked at in further detail in section 4.3. As regards entrance requirements for the programme, candidates are expected to have completed at least six semesters of previous study equivalent to a university degree at Bachelor level (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 24). In addition, candidates need to have a good command of the target language they are going to study (English or French), corresponding to the B2 reference level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2001) as well as basic computer skills and knowledge (e.g. Internet, email, word processing) (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 24). Finally, prospective students should have had at least one year of previous work experience in an educational setting. Although the face-to-face sessions are held in Germany, the course is taught completely in English/ French respectively and thus candidates do not have to fulfil any German language requirements (ibid.). One important characteristic of the course content is to provide student teachers with numerous opportunities to experience language teaching ‘in action’ and to reflect on their own teaching practices and on those of others. In addition, it links these with recent insights from the fields of didactics, linguistics, literary and cultural studies and developmental psychology. The programme is thus designed in line with the tenets of experiential language learning (cf. 2.3), the principles of reflected practice and a research approach to learning (cf. 4.1.3; 4.2.3). The course consists of nine modules that lead students from an “Introduction to Theory and Practice” of the course and of the field of study (cf. below) all the way through to their Master thesis and their preparation for the final oral examinations. Within these nine modules, 28 See 4.3.2 for a description of the treatment of student dropout in E-LINGO and 5.6 for how this affected one of the focus group in the study. 90 students independently (and sometimes in teams) work on 12 task-based online units (modules 2, 4, 6; cf. below) from their home computers. These deal with relevant theories and approaches in the field (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a). In each module, participants are asked to study the theoretical input of each unit and to engage in practical and reflective tasks, such as analysing videos of teachers and students in action in various early language learning settings. Each unit has been exclusively written for E-LINGO by groups of experts. The content of the modules studied in each semester will be detailed below and reference will also be made to the corresponding classroom-based research projects that students carry out in each semester and the face-to-face sessions generally scheduled at the end of each semester (cf. Table 2). It should be noted that, while overall course content in the nine modules is the same for both the English and the French cohorts, contents of the individual units vary to some degree in the French and English modules. The English modules will be cited here for reference purposes (cf. Table 2 below): Face-to-face session 1 Semester 1 Module 1  CARP I 29  Introduction to theory and practice current approaches to teaching young learners Module 2 Early foreign language learning: Language acquisition and language teaching  Unit 1 Texts and types of texts I - Stories  Unit 2 How children learn languages  Unit 3 Learning and teaching words and structures  Unit 4 Developing and evaluating course materials Face-to-face session 2 Semester 2 Module 3  CARP II Module 4 Early foreign language learning: An introduction to teaching approaches and methods  Unit 5 Task-based language learning  Unit 6 Classroom interaction - Social interaction patterns and modes of working  Unit 7 The use of media  Unit 8 Integrating skills I 29 CARP = Classroom Action Research Project; see also section 4.3.1 91 Face-to-face session 3 Semester 3 Module 5  CARP III Module 6 Early foreign language learning: Processes and products  Unit 9 Texts and types of texts II - Short literary texts  Unit 10 Intercultural learning  Unit 11 Integrating skills II - Crosscurricular teaching  Unit 12 Assessing young learners of English Module 7  Study abroad or internship programme 30 Face-to-face session 4 Semester 4 Module 8 Master Thesis: Students discuss a research topic with their supervisor, conduct research and write their Thesis. Module 9 Final Examination: Students do their final oral examination (which includes among others giving a talk on their Master Thesis) Table 2: E-LINGO course structure and content overview (adapted from Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 25; Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2005) 4.2.3 Distinctive features and language teacher education reform through E-LINGO In the previous chapter I have outlined the challenges that the successful introduction of early foreign language teaching into primary schools and preschools is currently facing: it was pointed out that foreign language educators need to possess adequate qualifications if language programmes are to be successful. In particular, this concerns teachers’ target language competence, their insights into the functioning of early foreign language learning and teaching and the need for a continuously reflected educational practice. Yet it has been shown that it is precisely these linguistic, pedagogic and didactic skills which are often neglected in (early) foreign language education courses. In this context, the E-LINGO programme claims to offer considerable benefits. Given the course structure and content outlined above, its potential 30 The stay abroad or the alternative internship experience for native speakers is not attached to a particular semester (see below for details). 92 for language teacher education can be described as threefold (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 24): the programme offers solutions for the challenges that current educational policy is facing, i.e. a) the lack of well-qualified teachers for early foreign language learning across Europe; b) the heavy public criticism of the quality of traditional programmes of teacher education (for example for their lack of orientation towards the future workplace of the student teachers, i.e. the classroom); and c) the currently unfulfilled high expectations set in the potential of the new media and their integration into universitylevel teacher training (cf. also 2.2.4). To justify these ambitious claims, the designers of E-LINGO generally point to a number of underlying principles according to which the programme was conceptualised. These are based on insights into research on the development of teaching competences (e.g. from the field of teacher training research) and on insights regarding the potential and the challenges of virtual learning environments and e-learning in general (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 25). These principles will now be discussed in detail.  E-Learning/ Blended Learning: As it is administered in the format of blended learning (cf. 3.3.3), as opposed to being a pure distance-learning programme, E-LINGO is set apart from the more conventional distancelearning courses and has been able to offer close personal contact among students and between students and staff, and thus has experienced a very low student dropout rate 31 compared to other programmes. (Moser & Weber 2008: 4; Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2006; Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 29)  Research-based approach to learning/ Integration of theory and practice: Teaching and learning in the E-LINGO programme follows a researchbased approach to learning (cf. Legutke & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2009 and sections 4.1.3; 4.2.2), enabling student teachers to develop a “multiperspective view of the […] [second language] classroom” (ibid.). As all the modules are comprised of a research component in conjunction with theoretical considerations on language teaching, students can build up practical knowledge, which is directly relevant for their future occupational field, in addition to theoretical and scientific knowledge. This will put them in a position to analyse, understand and eventually improve the specific language learning context they will be teaching in. (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 26f.; Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2006)  Foreign Language Didactics as the core subject: Through their work with the online units, the students build up a practically and theoretically 31 See also footnote 28 in section 4.2.2 93 grounded knowledge base in foreign language teaching methodology with special reference to teaching languages to children. Relevant research and findings from other disciplines, such as Linguistics and Literary and Cultural Studies, are integrated into the units. In addition, all the online units have been written by leading scholars in the field of early foreign language education exclusively for students of the E-LINGO course. (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 26; Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2006)  Learning tasks in the online units: The structure and sequence of the tasks in the online units is based on research into foreign language teaching and its practical applications (e.g. Appel 2000). Thus, the online units allow students access to various knowledge bases in a particular field and go beyond an exclusively cognitive engagement with relevant theoretical positions. Students begin their work for each unit by reflecting on knowledge they have gained through personal experience (cf. 2.3 on experiential learning); next, they look at relevant knowledge derived from published literature and then enter into a theory-driven discussion of practical and experiential knowledge and of published teaching materials. Finally, the integration of classroom action research projects into the study programme is to initiate the development of teaching and mediation knowledge and competences. (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 27f.; cf. also 4.3.1)  Integrated practical language training: As the programme is taught entirely in the target language (English or French), and as students conduct all their teamwork communication in the target language, and as, whenever possible, one native speaker of the target language is included in every team of students (cf. also 4.3.2), participants have plenty of opportunities to practice and improve their personal language skills. Since language training is thus not treated as an isolated component, participants will be capable of using the language in colloquial contexts as well as for academic purposes. As has been pointed out, use of the target language as a medium of communication and of studying the subject matter is also central to a theory of experiential language learning (Kohonen 1992; cf. 2.3). (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a)  Compulsory stay abroad: In addition to the integrated language practice that students experience through the online and face-to-face sessions (cf. also 4.2.4.1), a further compulsory course component focuses on language development, combined with intercultural experience: non-native speakers of the target language are required to spend a certain period of time in a target language community - generally in the form of a two-week combined language and methodology course abroad. During this stay abroad, 94 they may also do a placement or work as guest teachers at an educational institution. Native speakers of English or French are offered an alternative programme which gives them the opportunity to gain insights into early foreign language education in a German-speaking context through a placement of at least two weeks’ duration in a German-speaking institution where English or French is taught as a foreign language. All students are expected to analyse their respective educational contexts and document their experiences. In this way, as an integral part of the E-LINGO programme, both native and non-native speakers of the target language not only improve their foreign language skills, but they also experience and learn to reflect on intercultural issues pertaining to early foreign language instruction in institutionalised settings. (Landesstiftung Baden- Württemberg 2005; Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 30)  International recognition/ Orientation towards European standards: The E-LINGO programme may be classified as an internationally oriented course of studies in various ways: students in the programme will work with and apply the language competence model and the underlying view of language learning as outlined by the European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2001). In addition, they will receive credits for the courses they have completed following the model of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), which is recognised by the European Commission (European Communities 2009). Furthermore, graduates will be awarded the internationally recognised university degree of Master of Arts. (Mertens & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2006) These important features that set the programme apart from other courses can also be underpinned by referring back to the issue of standards in language teacher education discussed above. Interestingly, the underlying principles of E-LINGO have also been focussed upon by the members of the independent BIG Committee, which closes its publication on standards, quality of teaching and teacher training with specific demands pertaining to the attainment levels that teacher trainers should reach, and which concludes with concrete guidelines on how teacher education courses should be structured (BIG- Kreis 2005: 17): Für die Gestaltung einer solchen Lehrerbildung ergeben sich Forderungen an die Qualifikation der Fachkräfte in der Aus- und Fortbzw. Weiterbildung; denn diese müssen selbst über all jene Kompetenzen verfügen, die die Lehrerinnen und Lehrer erreichen sollen. Sie brauchen deshalb eine auf Kompetenzerwerb ausgerichtete Qualifizierung. Sie müssen - sprachlich und didaktisch-methodisch versiert - 95 - die Aus- und Fortbildung weitgehend einsprachig durchführen, - (möglichst) authentische Sprach- und Sprechsituationen schaffen und - die Veranstaltungen im Sinne der Erwachsenenbildung handlungs- und partnerorientiert planen und durchführen. 32 4.2.4 Key components After this overview of the most significant features of the E-LINGO programme, I will now examine selected components that are central to the present study. These are the online and face-to-face sessions (4.2.4.1), the online multimedia database (4.2.4.2) and online learning environment (4.2.4.3), as well as the communication and interaction channels of the learning diary (4.2.4.4) and the group forum (4.2.4.5). 4.2.4.1 The nature of the face-to-face sessions and online phases As we have seen above, the E-LINGO programme is administered in the format of blended learning. During their studies, participants attend four faceto-face sessions together with their cohort. The dates of these for the cohort under study can be found in 5.5. All face-to-face sessions last for two consecutive days and usually take place at the University of Education in Freiburg, Germany on a Friday and Saturday. Participants generally organise their own travel and accommodation. However, as we shall see, once groups are formed, team partners frequently arrange travel and accommodation together wherever possible in order to maximise their time together. During each face-to-face session, the participants of a cohort not only study together, but they also eat lunch and dinner together and with their tutors. There is an assigned time slot for feedback on the past semester as well as time for exchanges among participants and among tutors and participants. As Bäcker & Zibelius (2008: 63) note, the face-to-face sessions also provide a concrete opportunity for addressing critical issues in a team or resolving differences of opinion, with or without tutor support. The central prominence given to group interaction and 32 My translation: The design of such forms of teacher education demands certain qualifications from the teacher educators in preand in-service programmes. These educators must be equipped with all those competencies that they require their (student) teachers to develop. The teacher educators therefore need a competenceoriented qualification. In terms of language and language education methodology they have to - largely teach the courses in the target language - create authentic situations for language use, if possible, and - conduct the courses in a cooperative and task-oriented manner to accommodate the needs of the adult learners. 96 team member support in E-LINGO is chiefly attributed to social constructivism (cf. 2.1.2.2) and based on the principles of the CL approach (cf. 2.3 and, for practical applications in E-LINGO, 4.3). The first face-to-face session for each cohort takes place immediately before semester 1. Here, all the students in the cohort meet for the first time and are introduced to the programme, the online learning environment (cf. 4.2.4.3), their tutors and, most importantly, their cooperative team partners. During the online phases following a face-to-face session, participants work on individual and group tasks in the online modules (cf. 4.2.3) and jointly prepare, conduct and evaluate their classroom action research projects (CARPs). The actual tasks carried out during the online phases and their inherent potential for cooperation will be discussed in section 4.3.1. For the online work, participants communicate through the various communication channels of the online learning environment (cf. 4.2.4.3), but are also free to use other means of communication and interaction, such as private email, telephone, Skype or private face-to-face meetings. Except for the first one, all face-to-face sessions take place at the end of a semester. In the sessions after semesters 1 to 3 (cf. Table 2), each group presents the CARP that each member has carried out (cf. 4.3.1), together with a joint conclusion from all group members. The cohort and tutors then discuss the findings as well as the implementation and presentation of each CARP (for a detailed treatment of the schedule and topics at the face-to-face sessions, see Bäcker 2008b). The oral examination after semester 4 may also be regarded as a fifth ‘face-to-face meeting’. Yet, as these examinations are carried out individually, the members of a cohort do not necessarily meet each other there. 4.2.4.2 The integrated multimedia database When the German federal state of Hesse, represented by Justus-Liebig- University of Gießen (JLU), joined the E-LINGO project on 01.04.2003, it became a cooperative partner and partook in the development and the startup of E-LINGO (cf. 4.2.1). In consultation with JLU, it supported the preparation and provision of digital video recordings from lessons for early English and French as a foreign language for teaching and training purposes (Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2007). While studying for the online units, E-LINGO participants are given direct access to a multimedia database containing a wide range of digitally archived video documents, most of which had been produced especially for E-LINGO (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a: 29f.). The recordings are directly connected to individual and group tasks and thus facilitate multimedia-supported theme-centred interaction during the online phases (ibid.). 97 The database, which was established in 2004, is integrated into the online learning environment (cf. 4.2.4.3). In June 2008, it already contained a stock of 168 EFL and 45 French language teaching recordings, ranging from a sequence lasting just a few minutes taken from a language classroom in action to recordings of entire lessons, lectures or interviews with the respective teachers (Kämmerer & Morkötter 2008: 45). The prime aim of the database is twofold: first, it exemplifies theoretical concepts and theories that the participants have studied, thus facilitating the transfer and application of theoretical knowledge to more practical contexts. Second, it functions as a starting point for a deeper engagement with and advanced treatment of didactic issues, for example through further study tasks and activities (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008a). Overall, the videos make no claims to show perfect teaching, nor do they necessarily present teaching sequences in an exemplary manner. By contrast, their aim is to stimulate an exchange among the participants on the subject of teaching (Legutke 2011: 261). 4.2.4.3 The online learning environment The virtual e-learning platform was set up much earlier than the multimedia database. In December 2002, after a detailed assessment of various online platforms and virtual learning environments, the project team had come to the conclusion that a combination of two different online systems was the most suitable solution for the purposes of the programme: in order to allow students and tutors to communicate effectively using both synchronous and asynchronous channels (cf. 3.3.1) and to have easy recourse to the online materials, it was decided that an adaption of the ILIAS Open Source Learning Platform should be used in conjunction with the Content Management System Syndicat  (Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg 2007). The online learning environment is accessible to all participants through a password-protected internet site. Upon logging in, they enter an electronic platform from which they have recourse to all communication channels and online learning materials, such as course units, tasks and administrative information. Figure 1 shows the ‘Welcome’ page and the general layout of the learning environment. Major functions and tools will be described below. 98 Figure 1: ‘Welcome’ screen of the online learning environment In the horizontal menu bar (cf. Figure 1), the ‘My Course’ tab gives participants direct access to every task and individual step in a task of the course (cf. 4.3.1). However, they can only access tasks in their current semester and from previous semesters. In the ‘Course Information’ section, they find various documents on the topics in ‘Study Aid’ (e.g. templates, checklists, study and examination regulations, example lesson plans) and ‘Study Abroad’ (e.g. guidelines, internet links, contacts). The ‘Infocard’ keeps participants up to date on new messages (cf. 4.2.4.5) and the latest administrative matters, such as deadline extensions or platform closures. It also gives them an overview of tasks and steps they have already completed (including hand-in date and ac- 99 companying tutor message) and approaching and missed deadlines. By clicking on the ‘My E-LINGO’ tab, participants access their online learning diary (cf. 4.2.4.4) as well as information on the portfolio, a compulsory component of the final examination, and a chronological overview of all online tasks and steps and their status (individual and group work, completed, to do, missed; cf. ‘Infocard’). Finally, ‘My Semester’ lists all the students and tutors of a cohort, including profiles and contact details. It also includes links to the online diaries of the tandem or tridem partners. In the menu on the right-hand side, eight icons link participants to a set of resources and the communication tools. The top icon leads to an electronic calendar in which important dates are marked (hand-in and semester dates, face-to-face meetings, etc.). Through a hyperlink structure, participants can click on a calendar entry and are directed to the relevant page, for example the task instructions in an online module. The second icon, a coffee mug, brings participants to the chat rooms and the chat history. The chat section allows for private communication as well as for group and cohort chats and chats with external experts (for details, see Peter 2008). By clicking on the next menu item, participants can access the ‘Blackboard’, a general discussion forum open to all the members and tutors of a cohort. The fourth icon leads participants to their own ‘Profile’, which they can edit at any time (cf. ‘My Semester’ above). Next, participants can access a glossary of didactic terms based on their online units (for details, see Schäfer 2008) and the programme’s ‘FAQ’ section. Clicking on the seventh icon opens a list of internet links to multilingual online dictionaries and finally, the bottom icon, a speech bubble, gives participants access to their respective ‘team-forum’ (cf. 4.2.4.5) and private conversations with tutors (called ‘one2one’). 4.2.4.4 The learning diary As noted above, every participant has access to an individual online learning diary. Throughout their time on the course, participants are strongly advised to use a learning diary to document their professional development, for example by reflecting on their experiences and achievements as well as open questions and unresolved issues. 33 At regular intervals, participants are encouraged in the online tasks to make an entry in their diary by answering guiding questions and to read and respond to their team partners’ entries. Nevertheless, they are not obliged to use their electronic diary, and there are no control mechanisms to find out whether participants who do not make entries in their online diary use an alternative format. In spite of this, the ma- 33 For a detailed discussion on the benefits of learning diaries in teacher education in general and in E-LINGO in particular, see Bäcker (2008a). 100 jority of E-LINGO participants makes use of the online diary (Bäcker 2008a: 86). Its principal aim is to support the students in the composition of their learning portfolio, which has to be handed in together with the Master’s thesis and is discussed in the final oral examination. In their online diaries, participants can make entries at any time, and there are generally no formal criteria for what an entry should look like. After an entry is published, it can be read, edited or deleted by the participant at any time. Even though participants do not have the option to format their entries, for example by using bold print or colours, some individualisation may be achieved by adding attachments (e.g. photos or videos) to an entry. Yet, there is a limit of three attachments per entry (Bäcker 2008a). To ensure a certain level of privacy while at the same time facilitating joint reflection on participants’ professional development, entries can only be read by fellow team members and the tutor. The readers have read-only access, and, for technical reasons, it is not possible for them to leave comments on entries (ibid.). How participants dealt with these issues and how they used their online diaries in the course of their virtual collaboration will be discussed at length in sections 6 to 8. To give a more detailed insight into the online learning diary, which forms one key data source (cf. 5.3.1) in my study, Figure 2 shows a screenshot from a diary entry, as seen from the participant’s perspective. 101 Figure 2: Electronic diary excerpt, participant view 4.2.4.5 The team-forum Throughout their time on the E-LINGO course, participants have access to a variety of synchronous and asynchronous communication channels in the online learning environment (cf. 4.2.4.3). One of them, the team-forum, is described here in detail because participants’ entries in this forum have been selected as a primary source to inform the present study (cf. 5.3.1). As an asynchronous communication channel, the team-forum is in essence a textbased discussion forum, participation in which is limited to the members of a group. As in the diary, up to three attachments can be uploaded with each team-forum entry, yet in contrast to the diary, team-forum entries cannot be deleted once published (Meier-Hafner 2008: 136). While every group member has the opportunity to post a new entry or an answer to an existing entry at any time when entering the team-forum, he/ she can also instantly create a new entry when working on a task. By clicking on an icon in the task window, a new team-forum message will open, and its subject line will quote the task and step that it is sent from. This allows for the immediate creation of theme- 102 centred messages and facilitates unambiguous referencing and easy documentation. Meier-Hafner (ibid.: 134) reports that while some discussion forums may prevent the development of a conversation flow and contributions appear disjointed, this has so far not been observed in the E-LINGO forums. Again, to facilitate an in-depth understanding of this data source and the ways in which it informed the study, a screenshot of the team-forum is presented. It illustrates the first three entries made by a group during the first face-to-face session. To protect the anonymity of the participants, names have been erased. In the next section, the issue of cooperation in E-LINGO will be addressed in detail. In particular, the cooperative potential of the tasks and CARPs will be examined, as well as other E-LINGO strategies to facilitate cooperation, such as group formation practices. Figure 3: Electronic team-forum excerpt, participant view 4.3 Electronic cooperation in E-LINGO Research has shown that for teacher training to be successful, a focus on a research approach to learning is necessary, as has been discussed above (e.g. Legutke & Schocker-von Ditfurth 2009; cf. 4.1.3, 4.2.3). It allows student teachers to reflect on their own perceptions and practices and develop their 103 teaching competence (e.g. Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008b). Besides various other distinctive features (cf. 4.2.3), E-LINGO achieves this through a focus on Cooperative Learning experiences (ibid.). By definition, in the context of blended learning, these may not exclusively be face-to-face, but can also be electronically mediated or are most likely a combination of both (cf. 4.2.4.1). The programme’s focus on small groups has already been mentioned in several sections above. Cooperative work in E-LINGO plays a central role in the context of the tasks in general and the CARPs in particular. Both will be examined in the following with respect to the EFL strand. Next, a consideration of selected characteristics from CL theorising in the context of E-LINGO will follow. 4.3.1 Action research projects and tasks as vehicles for cooperation Asking participants to work cooperatively on tasks in tandems or tridems is one of the main concerns of the E-LINGO programme. Many tasks have been created precisely to encourage cooperative activities among the partners (Bäcker & Zibelius 2008: 57). In these tasks, participants jointly learn about and reflect on theoretical knowledge and their own experiences. They also encounter practical applications of a topic in a primary EFL classroom and analyse these (ibid.: 58). A typical E-LINGO task can be seen as following four distinct steps (Legutke 2011: 260f.): reflection on personal experience pertaining to a certain topic; engagement with the relevant published literature; analysis of teaching materials and teachers’ practices and comments based on theoretical knowledge; systematic initiation of teaching competences within a small-scale action research project. Besides the content level, the technical realisation of the tasks in the online learning environment also supports electronic cooperation among team partners: all tasks are set in the larger context of a didactic topic relevant to teaching English to young learners (cf. Table 2). Online modules, units and tasks are clearly structured to assist comprehension and to allow for a flexible arrangement of the contents and activities to suit participants’ individual schedules - a factor of crucial importance to part-time distance education programmes like E-LINGO (Bäcker & Zibelius 2008: 62; cf. also 3.3). To achieve this, every task is subdivided into several ‘steps’ which can be completed in manageable time spans. Tasks and steps are referred to by names that denote their location in the semester, module and unit. Thus, the activity in semester 3, module 6, unit 9, task 2, step 1 is called S3M6U9T2S1. To provide guidance and transparency, every task begins with an introductory explanation of its purpose, the product participants are expected to produce and an overview of the procedure (i.e. the individual ‘steps’) necessary to complete 104 the task. The learning environment additionally keeps track of what a participant has been working on to allow for a smooth re-commencement of work (ibid.: 63). Figure 4 illustrates the access menu to all the tasks and steps in the ‘My Course’ menu bar (cf.Figure 1) on the left side and step 1 and parts of step 2 of task 2 in semester 2, module 4, unit 7 (S2M4U7T2S1; right). 105 Figure 4: Drop-down menu for tasks and steps in ‘My Course’ (left) and example task S2M4U7T2S1 (right) 105 106 One specific type of task, and one central E-LINGO component that unites all four steps outlined by Legutke (2011; cf. above), are the CARPs. These are based on the conception of action research as a key element in becoming a professional language teacher (e.g. Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008b; Minuth 2008). In a CARP, which is thematically connected to the previously studied units, each participant conducts a small-scale qualitative case study in his/ her teaching context. In this, he/ she not only applies newly gained knowledge, but also tests which practices are possible in and suitable for his/ her individual context (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008b: 71). Participants thus examine their own teaching and draw conclusions for future work (Minuth 2008: 78). Several group work stages in the preparation, conduction and analysis of each individual CARP make working on them an extremely cooperative process. In short, the research cycle of a CARP can be envisaged as follows (Schocker-von Ditfurth 2008b: 73f.): Group members agree on a joint research question and formulate hypotheses; they examine their individual CARP teaching contexts in this respect; on their own and with their partners they plan a teaching sequence and develop indicators to prove their hypotheses, observe the effects of their actions, collect and analyse relevant data and draw conclusions, first individually and then by comparing each other’s research. Finally, each group prepares a joint research report to be presented at the next face-to-face meeting (cf. also Minuth 2008; Legutke 2011). 34 In general, E-LINGO participants regard the CARPs as being fairly laborious procedures, but conducive to learning (Legutke 2011: 265; see Benitt & Legutke 2012 for an in-depth discussion of additional student perspectives on the E- LINGO tasks). It has become obvious that the CARPs can only be carried out successfully if there is close cooperation between the team partners, in content as well as organisational matters (Bäcker & Zibelius 2008: 57ff.). The joint agreement on central elements of the research process (research questions, hypotheses, indicators) leads participants to engage in a constructive professional dialogue that by and large has a positive impact on group work results (ibid.: 61). In this way, the CARPs offer ample opportunities for mutually enriching and rewarding cooperative work, but they may also be the cause of struggles and risks (ibid.). Among these are (perceived) feelings of a partner’s lack of commitment or reliability or a belief that work has been unevenly distributed, as well as personal misunderstandings between partners. As one possible explanation for these challenges, Bäcker & Zibelius (2008) assume a lack of insight 34 For practical examples of CARPs produced by E-LINGO students, see Schockervon Ditfurth (2008b: 74ff.) for the English, and Minuth (2008: 79ff.) for the French strand. 107 into the personal and working commitments of the partners, their individual competencies and personality traits. As will become obvious in sections 6.2 and 7.4, areas like these are precisely those targeted by the participants with the measures they applied in the course of their online cooperation. 4.3.2 CL theorising in E-LINGO This section discusses the application of selected aspects of CL theorising in the E-LINGO programme. For example, it will set out how E-LINGO groups are composed and how positive interdependence and accountability are encouraged. Descriptions of the programme will be enhanced by references to relevant literature (cf. 2.3; 3). The actual effects that these features had on the participants’ electronic cooperation are addressed, for example, in section 5.6. Firstly, it should be noted that cooperative experiences in the E-LINGO programme are pursued and encouraged on various levels. The most obvious, naturally, is the domain of collaboration between tridem and tandem partners. But beyond this, participants may also work together cooperatively with other members of a cohort and they are encouraged and instructed to collaborate with other teachers, colleagues and experts in their schools and teaching contexts. A final level of cooperation that is built in as an integral part of the CARPs is the collaboration with local teachers, as most participants either need to find a partner teacher in whose class they can carry out the CARP (cf. 4.3.1) or need to find a colleague or helper to carry out the filming and observation during the CARP. Based on recommendations for the composition of CL and telecollaborative groups (cf. 2.3.6 and 3.2), all E-LINGO teams are tandems or tridems, thus allowing the participants to benefit from the cooperative experience while at the same time keeping groups relatively small in order to facilitate communication, negotiation and agreement, and to minimise the need for coordination efforts in virtual space. Further, the teams are put together on the basis of homogeneity and heterogeneity characteristics of the members. To facilitate this, participants are grouped by the tutors prior to the first faceto-face session (cf. 4.2.4.1; for an exception to this, cf. 5.6.2). This strategy enables participants to complement each other and profit from their partners’ experiences and individual competencies from the start of the first semester. When forming teams, the tutors attempt to meet the following criteria (Bäcker & Zibelius 2008: 57): if possible, at least one team partner already has teaching experience in the primary school sector and at least one group member has a good level of experience of working with a computer. To aid participants with their work in the E-LINGO environment, where the target language is used for nearly all purposes, at least one team member should, if 108 possible, be a native speaker of English. Also if possible, teams are composed of partners who live in the same region to allow for mutual support when they are preparing their CARPs. The composition of the E-LINGO teams should ideally stay the same for the duration of the whole four semesters, to allow for synergy effects to be continually in place and due to the increasing complexity of the CARPs (ibid.: 58; cf. also Foote et al. 2004). However, this is not always possible, for example due to student attrition. If a student drops out, groups are either re-formed or, depending on the progress of the course and in case a tridem member quits, the remaining partners may be asked to continue their work as a tandem for the remainder of the programme, as was the case in one of the focus groups (cf. 5.6). Positive interdependence, one of the key elements in the theorising on CL, is achieved in various ways. Among the five principal ways listed by Olsen & Kagan (1992; cf. 2.3.1), it is mainly achieved by structuring the goal and the rewards. In terms of goal structure, E-LINGO participants frequently have to hand in a single team product (for example as the product of E-LINGO tasks) or prepare a joint performance (e.g. to present their CARP results), and are thus encouraged to collaborate with their team partners in order to reach this target. Oxford (1997: 445) further notes that “positive interdependence is enhanced by having clearly defined rules and clear criteria for grading”. This is also true of E-LINGO, in particular for the CARPs, as participants receive information on how they will be graded as well as a template of the actual grading scheme prior to their first CARP. They are also presented with an example CARP from one of the previous semesters during the first face-toface session. In addition, each team’s first CARP is considered a ‘dry run’ in that its grade does not count towards the final mark. The reward structure encourages positive interdependence since the tasks and CARPs (cf. 4.3.1) are structured in such a way that participants carry out individual and group work and receive team scores as well as individual scores. In this way, a group’s cooperative achievements are rewarded, while at the same time individual efforts and achievements are acknowledged. The CL tasks further guide the establishment of positive interdependence in that they generally start out with individual work, in which each participant prepares the ensuing group encounters, and thus is partly responsible for the success of the cooperative work (Hammoud & Ratzki 2009: 10; cf. 2.3.1). As far as accountability is concerned (cf. 2.3.2), Johnson & Johnson (2008b: 18) list personal responsibility as one of the five key elements of CL. In E-LINGO, one way in which accountability is encouraged is through assessment (cf. reward structure above). By giving group grades, it is hoped that group members will feel committed to contribute their share to the group result. Johnson & Johnson (ibid.) further note that personal accountability is 109 reinforced if participants have account for their actions, and they state that small groups are conducive to this. This is accounted for in E-LINGO, since, for one thing, groups consist of a maximum of three members. Furthermore, each participant is answerable for his/ her actions to the cohort and the tutors in the presentation of his/ her individual CARP research and to the tutors for the execution of the individual tasks. Through the group grades, participants are further encouraged to ensure that every member performs his/ her share of the work in an adequate manner. Task specialisation (e.g. Slavin 1995a; cf. 2.3.2) is a further means in which accountability is promoted. As discussed above, the E-LINGO teams are composed of members that have heterogeneous experiences and competencies. In this way, participants’ computer knowledge and language competence as well as their teaching experience and their access to primary EFL classrooms may function as channels for individual and group accountability (for a discussion of these characteristics in the focus groups, cf. 5.6). A further structure to promote positive interdependence cited by Olsen & Kagan (1992), the assignment of student roles, whereby team members are allocated specific responsibilities, is only indirectly accounted for in E-LINGO through task specialisation and heterogeneous grouping (cf. above). While working with E-LINGO, it remains the responsibility of the participants themselves to allocate roles within their teams and it takes place on their own initiative. The focus in E-LINGO lies on the autonomous coordination of the group work within the teams because this is seen as a central part of the learning process and the development of participants’ professional competences, and thus as a key step towards preparing them for their future tasks as disseminators of language and culture (Bäcker & Zibelius 2008: 64). If we now look specifically at electronic collaboration, we can note that E- LINGO makes use of the possibilities offered by the online learning environment (cf. 4.2.4.3) in several ways to support cooperation amongst the participants (Legutke 2011: 264): For one thing, the learning environment supports communication between team partners who are in different locations by providing them with synchronous and asynchronous communication channels. In this way, it makes possible, for example, the negotiation process within E-LINGO tasks. Furthermore, it facilitates the exchange of materials (documents, photos, songs, videos, etc.) among the partners. Yet, as Legutke (ibid.) also notes, many participants also use additional tools that are not provided by the online learning environment, such as private email or Skype. It has already been noted that the team-forum and diary entries made by the participants assume a prime function in informing the present study. This is mirrored on the one hand by Rolheiser & Anderson (2004: 25), whose use of professional learning portfolios resembles the function assumed by the E- 110 LINGO diaries, and by postings in the team-forum in which participants document and share their learning and progress with their partners and tutors. The value of sharing experiences with others is also emphasised by Foote et al. (2004: 103), who asked students to send their team partners reflections via email. She reports that “the fact that the teams can ‘virtually’ meet outside of class time allows the students to experience the thoughts of their peers in a manner they might not otherwise have used” (ibid.). In general, Biesenbach- Lucas (2004: 158) notes the value of asynchronous CMC channels for collaborative learning in teacher training which, due to their lower level of interactivity, “promote more substantive - as opposed to procedural - information in comparison to synchronous technologies” (cf. also Dooly 2007: 227). This is supported by Arnold & Ducate (2006: 44), who report that “asynchronous electronic exchanges seem to foster the building of a leaning community”. Even more generally, they highlight the particular significance of writing (e.g. in participants’ diary and team-forum entries) over speaking to facilitate cooperation (2006: 43; cf. also the links to constructivist thinking, discussed in 2.1.2.2): [The] collaborative learning process is often facilitated by scaffolding, when interlocutors provide prompts, hints, explanations, questions, and suggestions to assist each other [...] When students scaffold each other, they can ultimately reach higher-level understandings of tasks or solve problems they would have been unable to solve alone. When done through writing instead of speaking, as is the case in CMC, the writing process changes from an independently performed task to one that promotes use of the input and reflection of other students. 111 5 Research Methodology or: The natural history of my research 35 The following chapter details the methodological approach employed in the study. It presents the research topic and questions (5.1) and discusses the ensuing choice of research framework (5.2), data collection and analysis (5.3; 5.4) as well as questions of research ethics (5.7). An explicit focus on researcher reflexivity, including a discussion of the limitations of the study, will also be presented (5.8). 5.1 Research questions The study set out with the purpose of shedding light on the cooperative procedures of small groups of adults who cooperate electronically while pursuing their studies in a teacher development programme that is administered in the format of blended learning. Of particular interest were questions centring on the use of general patterns of interaction and cooperation which may foster the creation and maintenance of productive social and working relationships in the virtual space of an electronic platform. I began my study not with a fixed set of research questions to be answered, but rather with “a research purpose and conceptual framework, and a sense of the initial focus of interest”, which Croker (2009: 10) outlines as valid practice. This initial interest stemmed from my personal experience with CL in foreign language teacher education and my curiosity about its application in computer-mediated settings. As Freeman (2009: 30) states: Whether you start your project with a clearly articulated question or just a hunch that you express as ‘What happens when... ? ’, this area of interest and your feelings about it combine into an inquiry, and it is the inquiry that actually drives the research process. As I became familiar with the E-LINGO programme, its structure and participants (cf. 4.2; 4.3), the following issues crystallised: through the study of such a programme, it might be possible to formulate certain suggestions for telecol- 35 Credit needs to be given to Silverman (2000) for this compelling title and the tone of the chapter. He recommends the use of an autobiographical style in the methodology chapter, noting that “your readers will be more interested in a methodological discussion in which you explain the actual course of your decision-making rather than a series of blunt assertions in the passive voice” (ibid.: 235). 112 laborative group work and for the design of telecollaborative learning scenarios in educational contexts. Additionally, conclusions might be drawn regarding the conception and implementation of blended learning and/ or the design of online learning environments for teacher education. The following primary research questions guiding my study evolved (cf. Croker 2009: 10):  How do the participants cooperate in the virtual space of blended learning? Are there specific techniques or mechanisms that they apply to achieve positive interdependence and accountability as well as coherence and unity in their virtual teams?  Which role do CMC media play in this process? Do they support the establishment of virtual CL groups? Does the fact that CMC differs from face-to-face communication have an impact on the techniques used by participants? Referring to the development of research questions, Freeman (2009: 28) states: “The (re)formulation of research questions is proactive, ongoing, and iterative [...], and it is central to both the processes of designing and implementing a qualitative research study.” That the selection of a research focus on electronic cooperation in the field of foreign language education is valid, is for example illustrated by the following statement about classroom research (Nunan 2005: 237): [W]ith the increasing mobility of millions of individuals for employment, educational and leisure purposes, the emergence of information technology, and the rapid growth of e-learning, we can no longer make the assumption that language learning will involve face-to-face interaction, nor that it will take place in a space that looks anything like a classroom as traditionally conceived. [...] What does this mean for classroom research? [...] [I]t opens up many exciting new research possibilities. At the same time, it forces those of us involved in classroom research to redefine our agenda, our methods, and our assumptions. Throughout the whole of my study, I was aware of a need for possible further reformulation of my research questions to accommodate any new issues that might emerge as the research proceeded (cf. for example Freeman 2009; Croker 2009). I will elaborate on this topic further in the following sections. 5.2 Research framework For my study, I selected a qualitative research framework. The rationale for this choice is based on several factors. For one thing, qualitative research has proven effective in examining issues on which only a limited amount of pre- 113 vious research has been carried out. As discussed, for example, in 2.1.4, this is true for the present study. Furthermore, the research questions are openended and focus on the participants’ experiences of virtual collaboration as it occurs in its natural setting. This is reflected in a key objective of qualitative research: “[Q]ualitative researchers [...] are interested in the ordinary, everyday worlds of their participants - where they live, work, and study. [...] They recognize that these settings are complex, dynamic, and multifaceted” (Croker 2009: 7; cf. Denzin & Lincoln 2003: 5; Dörnyei 2007b: 37ff.). Finally, the aim of my study lends itself to the use of a qualitative framework, because qualitative research “is exploratory its purpose is to discover new ideas and insights or even generate new theories” (Croker 2009: 9; Silverman 2000: 8). This applies to the setting of my research. Further key characteristics of qualitative research, such as the fact that the “research questions will be (re)shaped by the setting [...] [; ] analyses will likely be more cyclical than linear [...] [and] claims [...] will be anchored in warrants of the meaningfulness of your findings to those in the setting” (Freeman 2009: 38) are also present, as discussed below. Furthermore, a qualitative research framework has also proved to be particularly suited to exploring processes in the field of education (Miethe 2012: 160). 36 5.3 Data collection and sampling Various data collection methods and data sources were used in this study. This is not uncommon in qualitative research (e.g. Dörnyei 2007b; Thornberg 2012). It allows for a great variety of different viewpoints about the phenomenon being studied and in this way, “a fuller, richer picture of the participants’ perspective can be explored and represented” (Croker 2009: 8). This section will detail the data sources I have used for my study and give a rationale for my choice of these sources. It will also address the selection of my focus groups. 5.3.1 Data sources To gather my research data, I accompanied a cohort of the E-LINGO programme for the whole of their studies (cf. 5.5). I was present at their face-toface sessions and followed the electronic interaction (for a discussion of ethi- 36 For a discussion of the weaknesses of qualitative research and criticism of its underlying assumptions, see Dörnyei (2007b), Croker (2009), Silverman (2000: 9ff.). For a critical treatment of the division into qualitative and quantitative research approaches, see Dörnyei (2007b: 24ff.) and Nunan (2005). 114 cal issues, see 5.7). During the face-to-face sessions, I assumed the role of a participant observer and I also had the opportunity to carry out informal exchanges with the participants (cf. Dörnyei 2007b: 135f.). These exchanges might be described as unstructured mini-interviews, since they generally lasted only a few minutes and were dependent on the willingness and motivation of the participants to take part. In order not to be obtrusive or overly formal, I took hand-written notes during these exchanges. These interviews allowed me to gain regular insights into the participants’ view of their cooperation and group work processes. I additionally carried out semi-structured videotaped interviews with all the groups at the end of their third semester, when the group work officially ended (cf. 4.2.2). Semi-structured interviews are particularly valuable “when the researcher has a good enough overview of the phenomenon [...] in question and is able to develop broad questions [...] in advance but does not want to use ready-made response categories” (Dörnyei 2007b: 136). The interviews granted the participants the opportunity to review their collaboration of the past semesters and to pinpoint critical incidents or refer to issues that may not otherwise necessarily have become evident to me, the researcher, just by reading their online exchanges. The above-mentioned methods of data collection (participant observation, informal exchanges, semi-structured interviews) provided me with a general background to the group proceedings and developments. They assumed the function of ‘secondary’ sources. As my broader concern was the implementation of cooperation in electronic space, primary research data were participants’ entries in their online learning diaries (cf. 4.2.4.4) and interaction in their electronic team-forum (cf. 4.2.4.5). Learner diaries in particular are a popular source of data for qualitative inquiries in applied linguistics (Nunan & Choi 2011; Croker 2009). They are yet “another way of accessing participants’ inner worlds” (Croker 2009: 18). Further electronic data were gathered, but were not analysed because it became evident that they were not of central importance to the evolving research questions (cf. e.g. Silverman 2000). Among these were chats between the participants, hand-ins for individual and group tasks, group work products, communication with tutors and module evaluation questionnaires. I selected the diary and team-forum entries as a primary source of information for my study for various reasons. For one thing, they were obligatory components in the course design that the students were required to adhere to throughout the E-LINGO tasks. Thus, regular interaction in the team-forum and regular entries in the diary could be observed for the majority of participants. Another reason which influenced my choice was that asynchronous forms of communication were given preference over synchronous ones be- 115 cause, besides continuity, a higher level of reflection and expressiveness was to be expected, as discussed in 3.3.1. Finally, the research questions called for a focus on the level of participants’ actual behaviour, as opposed to them talking about their actions, as they would, for example, in interviews (cf. e.g. Silverman 2000: 34). Possible limitations of this choice of data sources are discussed in 5.8. 5.3.2 Selection of focus groups As regards the choice of participants, my ongoing analysis of the data revealed that the virtual dealings of the groups were so complex that it would be impossible to devote equal attention to them all during the study. Therefore, two focus groups were eventually selected. They will be portrayed in detail in section 5.6 (for a discussion of the role of the other groups, see 5.4.2). Towards the end of the data collection process, I decided to focus on a tridem and only selected the second focus group, a tandem, after broad data analysis, including a detailed consideration of the various other potential focus groups. The tridem struck me as a potential source of promising insights into the functioning of electronic cooperation because of its group development and the strong focus that the members put on using the electronic platform for communication and interaction (as opposed to, say, private email messages). The decision to add the tandem as a second focus group was based primarily on issues of maximal difference: as it had become evident during the data analysis, the tridem was a group that had had strong initial reservations and that constantly had to struggle with several problems. The tandem might in contrast be viewed as a ‘model’ CL group (for details, cf. 5.6). Such a sampling strategy is recommended by Dörnyei (2007b: 127), who notes that “[t]he more cohesive/ homogeneous the sample, the faster the saturation, but at the same time, the narrower the scope of the project.” The particular characteristics of both focus groups, including member profiles and scale of difference, are discussed in 5.6. Both groups thus cooperated under different conditions and yet the strategies that they employed, as discussed in chapters 6 and 7, were in the majority of cases very similar. Thornberg (2012: 86) supports the notion that this procedure is in line with Grounded Theory (cf. 5.4) when he states that data collection methods should be used “that best suit the research problem and the ongoing analysis of the data” and that hence data analysis “might lead the researcher to change or add a new data collection method”. In this respect, my sampling can be viewed as purposive or theoretical (Glaser & Strauss 1967) in that it was naturally challenged by the available time and resources, but most importantly by the overall framework and purpose of my study. I had followed Denzin & 116 Lincoln’s (2005: 378, cf. also Silverman 2000: 104) recommendation to “seek out groups, settings and individuals where [...] the processes being studied are most likely to occur.” The three features of theoretical sampling given by Silverman (2000: 105f.) are also adhered to. First, I chose the cases which were best suited to the terms of my theory. Next, the tridem, especially in the initial period of its cooperation, might be considered a ‘deviant’ case. Finally, the sample size was not fixed at the outset of my research but evolved through an in-depth examination of the data. My research thus takes the form of a multiple case study (e.g. Hood 2009: 70). “Case studies are empirical investigations of contemporary phenomena within real-life contexts. They comprise a bounded system, including an individual or entity and the settings in which they act” (Hood 2009: 86). The bounded system, in the case of my research, is the focus group. Using a case study appears promising as it is concerned with achieving “a logic of replication where the researcher predicts either similar or contradictory findings” (Richards 2011: 211). As there are two focus groups that together consist of a total of five students, their dealings and experiences can be compared and discussed. By contrast, a single case study is predominantly concerned with understanding a rare or unique event (ibid.). Given the choice of focus groups and the detailed insights that their data provided into the functioning of virtual cooperation, I considered the sample size to be sufficient to meet my research purpose. While a small sample size can be a weakness because it only provides limited insights and is by no means representative, it can also be an advantage: “Qualitative researchers [...] question the value of preparing an overall, average description of a larger group of people because in this way we lose the individual stories [...] the real meaning lies with individual cases who make up our world.” (Dörnyei 2007b: 27; cf. also e.g. Croker 2009). Or, as Silverman (2000: 41) puts it: Having a small sample, you are “in a good position to say ‘a lot about a little’.” Whenever excerpts from the data are cited in the study, the document code (e.g. DJ 15.10.07) is presented in brackets at the end of the quotation for audit purposes. Participants’ names have been rendered anonymous. The data sources are abbreviated according to the chart below, to provide transparent results whilst protecting the identity of all the individuals involved (cf. 5.7). In order to render the data excerpts easier to read, and since the focus in my study is on participants’ functional use of language, spelling and punctuation mistakes have been corrected in the entries. However, additions and changes to the content have been clearly marked, as is the case with all quotations (see section 5.6 for further details about the participants in the study and 5.7 for details on research ethics). 117 Data Source Participant Name Date (and time, if required for clarity) Example: Diary (D) Team- Forum (T-F) Informal Exchange (E) Kim (K) Valerie (V) Gerrit (G) Jean (J) Cathy (C) e.g. 13.10.07 e.g. 18.11.07 15: 49 DK 13.10.07 = Diary entry by Kim on 13 October 2007 DJ 18.11.07 15: 49 = Diary entry by Jean on 18 November 2007 at 15: 49 DK 20.06.09 Attachment = Attachment to a diary entry by Kim on 20 June 2009 T-FV 2009-03-08 10: 55: 19 = Team-Forum entry by Valerie on 08 March 2009 at 10: 55 EVKG 29.02.08 = Informal exchange with Valerie, Kim, Gerrit on 29 February 2008 Table 3: Composition of document codes to identify data excerpts 5.4 Data analysis As my method of data analysis I chose the strategies provided by Grounded Theory (GT). Based on a thorough consideration of the research questions, setting and data, as well as the limited amount of previous research on my topic (cf. 2.1.4; 2.2.3.2), I decided to use GT as a research method (see 5.4.1 for details; cf. also for example Freeman 2009; Croker 2009). Support for the validity of such a focus is given by Thornberg (2012: 85), who gives examples of research questions from the field of education for which GT might be a good choice. One of them is very similar to the questions driving my study (cf. 5.1), namely “What goes on while students are doing group work? ” (cf. also ibid.: 92). To discuss the rationale for my choice further, I will include a 118 brief introduction to GT followed by the specific ways in which GT came into play in the data analysis. 5.4.1 Grounded theory To begin with, it is important to note that there is considerable variation in the use and definition of the term ‘Grounded Theory’. Broadly speaking, it is referred to as a research methodology or procedure as well as a set of methods, although different variations and versions also exist (Miethe 2012; Waring 2012; Thornberg 2012; Dörnyei 2007b). Arthur et al. (2012) illustrate this succinctly: in their table of contents, two different chapters entitled “Grounded Theory” can be found. The first one is in the section on “Research Designs”, written by Thornberg (2012), and the second in the section on “Analysis Methods” (Waring 2012). It appears that a range of conceptualisations of GT exist that vary in their scope. A ‘methodology’, according to Waring (2012: 299), is concerned with “which procedures and logic to follow”, whereas ‘methods’ are “the specific techniques used to collect data” (ibid.). Waring concludes that “[t]here is clearly confusion as to whether grounded theory is a methodology or a set of methods. The short answer is that it [grounded theory] is a methodology” (ibid.); yet Dörnyei, for example, refers to GT as a data analytical approach (2007b: 242f.) and as “a qualitative research method” (ibid. 258). As a result of this, researchers are recommended to align themselves with one version when applying GT (e.g. Waring 2012: 306; Dörnyei 2007b: 259). In my case, GT has been used as a strategy to inform the data analysis (cf. Miethe 2012; Arthur et al. 2012 above; see also Strauss & Corbin, e.g. 1996). The explicit goal of GT, which was developed by Glaser & Strauss (1967), is “the discovery of theory from data” (1967: 1). Its emphasis is hence on theory generation, as opposed to theory verification (ibid.), while ‘theory’ may be defined as “an abstract explanation of a process” that goes “beyond merely describing or categorizing the target phenomenon” (Dörnyei 2007b: 260). Importantly, GT was not envisaged as a fixed methodology, as Glaser & Strauss point out: “Because this is only a beginning, we shall often state positions, counter-positions and examples, rather than offering clear-cut procedures and definitions” (1967: 1). “Our principal aim is to stimulate other theorists to codify and publish their own methods for generating theory.” (ibid.: 8). This makes GT as a research approach systematic, while at the same time it offers “flexible guidelines for collecting and analysing data” (Thornberg 2012: 85; cf. also Miethe 2012: 150). To achieve inductive theory generation, Glaser & Strauss (1967) and later Strauss & Corbin (e.g. 1996) propose a set of methods, possibly the most pop- 119 ular being the coding system (Dörnyei 2007b: 260; Waring 2012: 301). This consists of the three recursive phases of open, axial and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin 1998; cf. Dörnyei 2007b: 261). Coding begins as soon as the first data is gathered and does not make use of preconceived codes (cf. also Thornberg 2012: 86). Open coding involves the provisional coding of the data line by line or even word by word (Strauss & Corbin 1996: 53; cf. also Thornberg 2012), responding to questions like: “What is this piece of data an example of? What is going on? What principles underlie these actions/ statements? ” (Dörnyei 2007b: 260). Axial coding then “extends the abstracting process from first-order concepts to higher-order concepts” (ibid.: 261; cf. also Strauss & Corbin 1996: 75ff.). It includes an identification of significant codes and an attempt to establish relationships and interconnections between different codes (Thornberg 2012; Cohen et al. 2011: 600). Finally, selective coding involves a systematic scan of the data for the core variable(s), while the other codes are subordinated. When they apply the constant comparative method set out by Glaser & Strauss (1967: 101ff.), researchers “compare data with data, data with code, and code with code, to find similarities and differences”. This leads to “the sorting and clustering of initial codes into new, more elaborated codes” (Thornberg 2012: 87) and ultimately to the identification of a core variable or category (Cohen et al. 2011: 601). In order to illustrate the coding process during my research, open coding carried out with Valerie’s diary (DV; cf. 5.3.2), one of the first data sources that was coded (see also 5.4.2), will first be exemplified. This process involved a microanalysis of all of Valerie’s diary entries, frequently based on a word by word analysis, guided for example by questions like “What is happening in Valerie’s E-LINGO life according to her diary? ” (cf. Dörnyei 2007b above). Codes I used during this phase were, for example, those I subsequently labelled “Work-related statements”, “Statements about the partners” or “Language Growth”. This analysis revealed certain themes which appeared to be of central importance for Valerie: her initial struggles and gradually improving language skills owing to her work with the programme; her development as a group member, which began with mutual initial reservations among the group members; and her struggle to keep up with the requirements of the E- LINGO programme. Axial coding of DV and other data sources from participants within and outside of Valerie’s group revealed that, for example, although the issue of improved language skills was a central one to Valerie’s E- LINGO experience, it did not feature so strongly in other data sources. Interconnections between codes that became evident were, for example, participants’ descriptions of feelings of contentment that were frequently linked to descriptions or awareness of their partners’ and/ or group work efforts. Also, the statements made by the partners in which they talked about themselves 120 appeared not to be random, but seemed to be in some way connected to their (current) work on the programme. A significant code was one which I termed “Elements/ behaviours which the participants use to structure their (cooperative) work with E-LINGO”, which also comprised various sub-codes. As a result of multiple attempts at structuring and clustering, these “elements” were developed further into the core variables described in chapters 6 and 7. “Ironically, it is the main strength of grounded theory, the detailed procedural guidelines for data analysis, that led to a rift between the two originators of the method” (Dörnyei 2007b: 259). One cause of the division between Glaser and Strauss centred on the role attributed to a researcher’s prior theoretical knowledge. While in their early publication (1967), theory may be understood as emerging exclusively from the data (but cf. also Miethe 2012: 154; Waring 2012: 306), Strauss & Corbin (e.g. 1990) did not exclude the use of preconceived ideas in GT (e.g. Dörnyei 2007b: 259; cf. also Miethe 2012: 153f.). Whilst recognising the potential of the view of the unbiased researcher to be “as free and open as possible to discovery” (Thornberg 2012: 91) and thus to be a way of avoiding distortion of the emergent theory, there has been strong opposition to this source. As Thornberg (ibid.) remarks: [I]gnoring established theories and research findings [...] implies a loss of knowledge. Instead of running the risk of reinventing the wheel, missing wellknown aspects and coming up with trivial products or repeating others’ mistakes, the researchers should take advantage of the pre-existing body of related literature to see further. Despite the fact that there are diverging interpretations of GT, they also share similarities. Two of these can be found in Dörnyei (2007b: 258): “the data analysis follows the specific sequential coding system advocated by grounded theory [...] and [...] the analysis produces some theory as an outcome”. Further “essential elements” (Waring 2012: 300) which are discussed with reference to the present study are theoretical sampling (cf. 5.3), the writing of memos throughout the research process (cf. 5.4.2), the use of constant comparative analysis and theoretical sensitivity (i.e. the dependence of the generation of categories on prior theoretical knowledge) (cf. e.g. Waring 2012; Miethe 2012). 37 37 For a detailed discussion of premises and criteria for an integration of prior theoretical knowledge into GT, see Miethe 2012 and for a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of GT, see Dörnyei (2007b: 262) and Waring (2012: 305f.). 121 5.4.2 Research procedure As outlined above (cf. 5.3), data from a range of sources were collected and initial analysis was conducted while the participants were studying in the EL programme. For pragmatic reasons, electronic interactions on the learning platform were largely gathered after the participants had finished their studies to allow for a complete data set with no more interaction taking place. I commenced my analysis with data from the tridem (see also 5.4.1), which later became one of the focus groups. The reasons for selecting this group to begin with are outlined in 5.3 and 5.6. In accordance with constant comparative analysis, data from other groups were always kept in mind during the focus group analysis. Data analysis was mainly carried out using wordprocessing programmes. Coding was conducted according to the guidelines of GT (cf. 5.4.1) and primarily involved the analysis of each focus group participant’s electronic diary entry and the set of group interaction in their team-forum. Consistent with methods of constant comparative analysis, I compared the data, and in particular the categories, and set them in relation to each other throughout the process of data analysis (cf. 5.4.1). I began the analysis of my data, specifically the participant observation research notes and the informal exchanges with participants (cf. 5.3), whilst they were being collected. In the open coding phase (cf. 5.4.1), I conducted a thorough line by line coding of the data, which frequently amounted to what was effectively word by word coding. I was careful not to let my prior knowledge of CL and telecollaboration interfere with coding, although this was challenging at times (cf. also below). The phases of open and axial coding overlapped to some extent. I began axial coding (cf. 5.4.1) with an in-depth analysis of the codes I had assigned to one specific set of data, i.e. Valerie’s diary entries, and then moved on to the other data, while applying the constant comparative method. Trying to review my initial codes and to “group them into more encompassing concepts” (Dörnyei 2007b: 261) was demanding, as I found it difficult to look at the data from a more abstract angle. Identifying a core category (cf. 5.4.1) was possibly the most challenging task in the coding process. This was due to my concern about ‘losing’ some of the coded data through the identification of a core variable. It took several attempts until two key categories, which form the basis for chapters 6 and 7, were identified. Looking back at the coding process, I am in absolute agreement with Dunne (2008: 94), who remarks about coding in his GT study: “Although this was very time consuming and intellectually challenging, it ultimately benefited the overall analysis.” Throughout my research, I regularly engaged in memo-writing (cf. for example Strauss & Corbin 1996: 169f.). The value of this was immense. Despite 122 the fact that I had underrated its importance at the beginning of my research, I had constantly made notes of any initial thoughts, ideas and questions that came to my mind. Reviewing my memos during the process of selected coding proved highly productive as it allowed me to access previously envisaged interrelationships among codes and tentative conclusions I had made at earlier stages, when I had a different view of the data. It was not uncommon for these revisited memos to inspire me in the formulation of a thought or paragraph in the research findings chapters. Thus, I can unconditionally agree with Charmaz (2003: 261), who states that memo writing “helps to spark our thinking and encourages us to look at our data and codes in new ways”. As noted above, I was not free of any preconceived ideas when I entered the research field (cf. 5.4.1). However, these were only part of my prior knowledge base, and did not lead me to form a theory beforehand (cf. Strauss & Corbin 1996: 33f.). As I had already carried out teacher training courses on both CL and telecollaboration, I had a fairly broad grasp of the literature on these topics and the studies that had been carried out. I am aware that this may be seen by some grounded theorists as opposing classic GT principles, yet I have taken care, in particular in the data analysis, to allow categories to emerge naturally from the data. This is also reflected in the chapters on research findings, which first and foremost deal with data-driven insights into cooperation across a distance (chapters 6 and 7) and, in a concluding part, relate issues connected to CL theory that came up in the wake of the GT study (chapter 8). 5.5 The cohort under investigation Following the discussion of the E-LINGO programme (cf. chapter 4) and the research methodology (cf. 5.1 to 5.4), the present section will now briefly introduce the cohort under investigation. To provide a general context and framework to the data excerpts discussed in sections 6 to 8, the academic calendar and other characteristics peculiar to the cohort will be presented. The cohort selected for my analysis (cf. 5.7 for a discussion of the rationale for this choice) began their studies with E-LINGO in October 2007. After four semesters of study, the participants graduated in September 2009. Initially, the cohort consisted of thirteen students, who were organised into five cooperative groups, three tridems and two tandems. Throughout the course of the programme, two members left the cohort, causing two former tridems to become tandems (cf. 4.3.2; see 5.6 for details of one case). In accordance with the outline of the E-LINGO programme (cf. 4.2.2), the participants met for the first time during the initial face-to-face meeting, which marked the official 123 beginning of Semester 1. Next, they worked individually and in their groups on the online learning platform and met again for the presentation of their CARPs in a face-to-face session at the end of each semester. The following table summarises these dates (for a detailed overview of the contents of each semester, cf. Table 2). 13.10.07 14.10.07 Face-to-face session 1 Introduction to the programme Semester 1 Module 1 Work on CARP I Module 2 Work on Units 1 to 4 29.02.08 01.03.08 Face-to-face session 2 Presentation of CARP I Results Semester 2 Module 3 Work on CARP II Module 4 Work on Units 5 to 8 01.08.08 02.08.08 Face-to-face session 3 Presentation of CARP II Results Semester 3 Module 5 Work on CARP III Module 6 Work on Units 9 to 12 13.02.09 14.02.09 Face-to-face session 4 Presentation of CARP III Results Semester 4 Module 8 Preparation of M.A. Thesis Module 8 Final examination Table 4: Academic calendar and relevant dates of the cohort under investigation 5.6 The focus groups The following sections portray the two focus groups, a tridem (cf. 5.6.1) and a tandem (cf. 5.6.2), in some detail. Individual member characteristics will be discussed, as well as factors contributing to homogeneity and heterogeneity within the team and areas which might provide fruitful ground for the formation of positive interdependence. Finally, issues in the group development which are relevant for a discussion of the data (cf. 5.3) will be highlighted. In this way, the distinguishing features of the focus groups will be laid out, and criteria for the selection of these two groups will be explained. 124 5.6.1 The tridem This cooperative group consists of three members: Gerrit, Valerie and Kim. The three had not known each other prior to their studies with E-LINGO and, as is general practice in the programme (cf. 4.3.2), were assigned to work together by the course tutors. The most salient factors in terms of group composition will be detailed in the following, and in this way a concise profile of the group as a whole and of each individual member will be presented. To begin with, the demographic factors of age, gender and nationality will be considered. In the tridem, these characteristics are both sources of homogeneity and heterogeneity. The group consists of two females (Valerie and Kim) and one male member (Gerrit). Kim is in her twenties and by far the youngest member. Gerrit and Valerie are both past their forties and have decades of life and professional (teaching) experience that Kim lacks. In this way, age and gender divide the group into two different camps, with Kim and Valerie being partnered up in terms of gender and Valerie and Gerrit in terms of their age. In terms of nationality, Gerrit and Valerie are German, whereas Kim is Austrian and works in Austria. While Valerie and Gerrit both work in Germany, they nevertheless live far apart from each other, in different federal states. This is a key factor regarding the group’s cooperative dealings, since school regulations in Germany (e.g. pedagogical practices, holidays and staffing) differ from state to state. Needless to say, these differences are even greater between different countries, in this case Germany and Austria. Next, a discussion of the member profiles in terms of specific characteristics and competences relevant for completing the E-LINGO programme will follow. First, regarding experience and skills in using computers for communication and work (e.g. word-processing, slide-presentations, online research), the group is again clearly divided. In contrast to Kim, who has wideranging computer skills (DK 13.10.07), Valerie and Gerrit have little experience in the area of information technology (IT). Kim is thus designated the expert in this field, which requires her to transmit her knowledge and experience to the partners if the group is to succeed. By the same token, Valerie and Gerrit will need to turn to and rely on the inner-group support that is available to them through Kim. Given this, and provided individual accountability and an initial sense of belonging have been established in the group, positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1; 3.2) in the field of computer skills may develop. The group composition, in particular in terms of IT skills, resulted in the tridem predominantly communicating asynchronously through the teamforum (EVKG 29.02.08). A further central dimension is the participants’ prior teaching experience. Gerrit is an experienced teacher who has been teaching both young learners in 125 primary and older learners in high school contexts for many years. While studying with E-LINGO, he continues to work in his current position as a primary school teacher. As such, Gerrit is undoubtedly the member with the longest and most profound teaching experience. He also has, in contrast to his partners, the easiest and most direct access to primary school (EFL) classrooms (e.g. DK 13.10.07). This puts him in the position of an expert with regard to the execution, planning and evaluation of CARP-related matters (cf. 4.3.1). By contrast, both Kim and Valerie have less experience teaching languages to young learners. While Kim has just finished her formal training as a primary school teacher, Valerie works as a pedagogic assistant and substitute teacher at a primary school, but does not have a permanent teaching contract (DV 26.10.07; DK 20.06.09 Attachment). In this way, teaching experience is another source of heterogeneity and may also lead to the establishment of positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1). Language proficiency is also a crucial area since, as described previously (cf. 4.2.3), the course is carried out entirely in the target language. In this respect, both focus groups may not be considered ‘typical’ E-LINGO teams, since they are both homogeneous in their target language competence: While all tridem members are native speakers of German and non-native speakers of English, both members of the tandem are native speakers of English (cf. also 5.6.2). Among the tridem members, Kim’s English language proficiency might be considered the most advanced, since she has recently spent nine months as an au-pair in Australia (DK 20.06.09 Attachment). By contrast, Valerie’s and Gerrit’s English dates back at least several years if not decades. As discussed above, Gerrit, Valerie and Kim met for the first time at the initial E-LINGO face-to-face meeting (cf. 4.2.4.1). As will be detailed in section 6.3, a number of the previously mentioned differences in the group became evident to them at this stage (e.g. DK 13.10.07). While there is general excitement among the group members (e.g. DK 13.10.07), a note of dissatisfaction can also be observed. Having become aware of the fact that other teams in the cohort consist of only two members and may be able to meet face-to-face due to the relative proximity of their homes, the tridem members feel disadvantaged and fear that this situation reduces their chances of successfully completing the programme (cf. also 8.2 for discussion of this issue). This feeling lasts well through the first semester (EVKG 29.02.08), but ultimately changes, as discussed later. Another critical incident occurs towards the end of the third semester, when Gerrit resigns from E-LINGO for personal reasons. He leaves Kim and Valerie as a tandem, planning to finish his studies in the following cohort. The reasons provided by Gerrit for his decision to postpone his studies at this stage are mainly related to competing (professional) priorities and the ensuing 126 lack of sufficient time to complete the course. While Valerie and Kim had previously lamented being a tridem, the data now reflect their deep grief at the loss of their third group member, as will be discussed in detail below. On selecting a case in qualitative research, Silverman (2000: 104f.) highlights the value of establishing a matrix to illustrate “any grounds other than convenience or accessibility” (ibid.: 104) that guided the purposive sampling. Following this recommendation, the specific features that led me to choose the two focus groups are summarised in Tables 5 Table 5to 7. Taking into consideration my research questions (cf. 5.1) and the research setting (cf. 5.3), the following central dimensions informed this choice (cf. Table 5 below): Participant Name 38 Gender Age Nationality & First Language Language Teaching Experience (Young Learners) Computer Experience Easy Access to CARP Contexts Kim Female Young adult Austrian German Narrow Extensive, personal and professional No Valerie Female Mature German German Narrow Narrow Yes Gerrit Male Mature German German Extensive Narrow Yes Table 5: Summary of focus group member characteristics (tridem) 5.6.2 The tandem As discussed in section 5.3.2, the second focus group was not selected at the outset of the study, but only after some broad data analysis of the first focus group (cf. 5.6.1) had been conducted. The second focus group, a tandem, consists of two females, Jean and Cathy. Cathy is Irish, whereas Jean is Canadian and trained as a primary school teacher in Canada. Both are married to Germans and have been living in Germany for many years. They are also of a similar age, and both have two school children (EJC 01.03.08). Jean works as a teacher of adult learners and Cathy teaches English to very young learners, 38 All participant names are pseudonyms (cf. 5.7). 127 such as three-year-olds in a German kindergarten. Even though they are working in almost opposite areas of the educational scale, both partners share a wide experience of foreign language teaching. In contrast to the tridem, Jean and Cathy chose to work with each other. Even though they did not know each other personally before the start of E-LINGO, they share a mutual acquaintance, which led them to approach the tutors prior to their studies, asking to be grouped together. Jean and Cathy are also comparatively homogeneous in terms of their IT skills, as both have little experience using computers for communication and online learning. This had an effect on their communication practices, as Cathy relates in retrospect: Neither of us had used an online forum or chat before and for the first few weeks of the course we used the old fashioned phone as a means of communication on team tasks. However we soon replaced this with the platform. Initial attempts sometimes led to confusion [...]. Progress was sometimes slowed down as a result and again the phone was our backup support. However, our confidence and capability with this medium grew with each task. By the end of the course, we were both proud to have learned to communicate and complete team tasks competently and efficiently on the platform. (DC 19.05.09 12: 13) In terms of group communication, it must be said that the partners made effective use of the fact that their homes were relatively close to each other. Thus, regular face-to-face meetings, combined with chats in the online learning environment (cf. 4.2.4.3) and frequent telephone conversations, formed part of a communication routine for Jean and Cathy (DJ 07.06.09; EJC 01.03.08). The first telephone exchange between both partners had already taken place a few days after they got to know each other at the initial face-toface session (e.g. DJ 15.10.07). Both Cathy and Jean are native speakers of English and learnt German as a second language. As outlined in 4.3.2, the E-LINGO tutors aim to form groups that are heterogeneous with respect to language competence. However, since Jean and Cathy had pre-selected their team, this was not possible for the tandem and might have resulted in other groups, such as the tridem (cf. 5.6.1), being homogeneous in this respect. As discussed previously, both focus groups might not be comparable to other E-LINGO teams in this respect. Nevertheless, their other features are so central to the research questions, and the first insights gained from initial data analysis proved so promising that I decided to overlook this criterion for my sampling. Comparing the tandem to the tridem (cf. 5.6.1), it became apparent that the tandem shared more facets of homogeneity in the aforementioned characteristics. As mentioned previously, the heterogeneity among group members might be a rich source which encourages positive interdependence to develop 128 (cf. 2.3.1). At the outset of their cooperation, the tridem partners did not seem to be fully aware of this profitable initial situation. In contrast, the tandem partners repeatedly stated their immediate liking of their group and the group work based on their perceived homogeneity (e.g. DJ 15.10.07; DC 14.10.07). At the same time, they viewed the differences in their teaching contexts as an advantage for their joint work (e.g. DC 14.10.07). Another key factor in my research is the fact that, in contrast to the tridem members, the members of the tandem had prior experience with CL, although not in the context of electronic cooperation. Cathy states in detail that she has previously worked on various team projects before, in school contexts and in her work for a publishing company (DC 19.05.09 12: 13). Jean, on the other hand, has a theoretical background in CL and language education (DJ 29.08.08). Both partners are aware of their shared liking of CL and even make CL the explicit topic of one of their CARPs, as discussed below. Even though Jean and Cathy share many similarities, professed an initial liking for each other and both had previous CL experience, their group was not exempt from experiencing challenges and problems. One area of strong initial challenge for the team was the technical domain, but there were also problems in terms of their joint work, with the group going through major developments over the course of the study. As Jean relates in retrospect: Looking back at Semester 1, it is quite obvious that ‘I’ in our working habits was far too prominent for what was expected in the TW [teamwork]. This, fortunately, evolved into a ‘we’ and Cathy and I started becoming a real team. [...] our work together became much more effective and enjoyable [...] (DJ 07.06.09) In this way, it can be assumed that friendship issues and initial similarities among group members may have an influence on the group work, but are no guarantee of smooth cooperation or an insurance against troublesome times. This is one of the issues dealt with in detail below. As with the tridem, the individual characteristics of the tandem members can be summarised in a matrix (cf. Table 6 below). Together with Table 5, this serves as an illustration and a summary of the process of focus group selection in my study. 129 Participant Name 39 Gender Age Nationality & First Language Language Teaching Experience (Young Learners) Computer Experience Easy Access to CARP Contexts Jean Female Mature Canadian English Little Narrow No Cathy Female Mature Irish English Extensive Narrow Initially no, later yes Table 6: Summary of focus group member characteristics (tandem) It is evident that both focus groups, besides being of a different size, entered into their electronic cooperation in the E-LINGO programme with very different initial conditions. Nevertheless, as will be outlined in detail in chapters 6 and 7, both groups shared the use of various techniques that they applied in the process of their online collaboration. These may be viewed as possible ways to assist the establishment of positive interdependence and accountability in virtual space. Before progressing to the next section, a summarised comparison of both focus groups is presented in terms of central dimensions for the subsequent data analysis. 39 All participant names are pseudonyms (cf. 5.7). 130 Focus Group Opportunity for Face-toace Interactions Outside Scheduled Course Meetings Members’ Previous Experience with CL English Language Competence Choice of Partners & Previous Knowledge of Partners Satisfaction with Team Characteristics Tridem No None/ little Nonnative speakers Preassigned No Initial reservations and dissatisfaction Tandem Yes Extensive Native speakers Selfselected No Complete satisfaction throughout cooperation process Table 7: Summary of similarities and differences between focus groups 5.7 Ethical considerations In the following I will set out the ethical issues pertaining to my study. For example, issues related to the recruitment of participants, confidentiality and participant information and consent will be looked at. That considerations of this sort are of central importance to studies like mine is outlined in a statement by the Australian Government (2007: 11f.): The relationship between researchers and research participants is the ground on which human research is conducted. The values [...] - respect for human beings, research merit and integrity, justice, and beneficence - help to shape that relationship as one of trust, mutual responsibility and ethical equality. [...] The design, review and conduct of research must reflect each of these values. To select my participants, I approached all the students of the cohort at a campus-based face-to-face session at the beginning of their studies. I explained the nature and purpose of my research and gave them the opportunity to ask questions and discuss the research with their peers and with me during the whole of the two-day meeting. The cohort was selected because the aim of the study was to accompany a group of students throughout the whole of their studies with E-LINGO (see also 5.1). The chosen cohort had just started their studies when my enrolment as a PhD student in Germany was completed. However, selection of the cohort depended on the participants giving their F 131 consent (cf. Australian Government 2007: 28). They freely and willingly gave me their consent and encouraged me to carry out the research in their cohort. A consent form was signed; verbal consent from the tutors had been obtained prior to the visit. The consent obtained was ‘specific’ as defined by the “National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research” (ibid.: 21), i.e. “limited to the specific project under consideration”. My research required hardly any extra work from the participants. Except for the semi-structured interviews (cf. 5.3), all the data were collected from the work that they had to carry out in the context of their studies with E- LINGO. The adoption of such a strategy is supported by Silverman (2000: 35), who suggests gathering “documents that routinely arise”. Recordings of participants’ voices and images were made during the semi-structured interviews at the end of semester three (cf. 5.3). This was done openly with the full consent of the participants. I assured the participants that the recordings would not be made accessible to persons outside the research team and that generally the confidentiality of any data gathered would be ensured. To achieve this in the present paper, all quotes used by participants have been rendered anonymous, so that the identification of individuals is not possible (cf. Australian Government 2007: 27f.). 5.8 Reflection on the research and limitations of the study The importance of reflexivity has frequently been cited in connection with GT and case studies (e.g. Hood 2009). Nunan & Choi (2011: 231) note “the centrality of the human story to qualitative research in terms of what the story is and how the story is told”. They highlight the fact that the writer assumes a vital role in this story (ibid.) and define reflexivity as “a stance taken by the writer towards the research as it unfolds” (ibid.: 232). Hood (2009: 85) illustrates the consequences of insufficient self-reflexivity when he states that the case study researcher’s involvement in the research “adds depth to the study”, yet causes problems if the researcher “fails to account for the ways in which his presence and personal predispositions might affect the project” (ibid.). The previous sections have already presented various reflective comments. This section extends the application of reflexivity and at the same time discusses the limitations of the study. As far as the data sources used are concerned, the choice of asynchronous data in general and of diary and team-forum entries in particular might be challenged, and the integration of synchronous CMC data, such as chat transcripts, may be advocated. Yet as chapters 6 to 8 will show, the chosen sources complied with the key requirement for qualitative data; that is to “capture rich 132 and complex details” (Dörnyei 2007b: 38). Any claims I make are not held to be universal, but are to be interpreted as understandings gained in this particular research setting, with the possibility of some transferability to certain other areas. It is essential that further research be conducted to discuss and probe these insights. As Silverman (2000: 38) postulates, “the necessary ‘partial’ character of any data source [...] is potentially huge yet, in a practical sense, easily resolved. One simply avoids trying to find the ‘whole picture’.” (cf. also 9.1) Another debatable issue may be theoretical sampling, which Glaser & Strauss (1967: 45) define as “the process of data collection for generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects, codes, and analyses his data and decides what data to collect next”. Whilst “interplay between data collection and analysis” (Thornberg 2012: 86) could be observed, the analysis of additional data might have developed my emergent concepts even further. On this topic, Dörnyei (2007b: 127) remarks that “ideally the iterative process should go on until we reach saturation. [...] In practice, however, researchers usually decide when to stop adding cases [...] based on a combination of theoretical saturation and pragmatic considerations”. This was true for my study, where one pragmatic consideration was the time available to carry out the research as defined by the terms governing my PhD candidature. Additionally, as is true for any qualitative study, I must acknowledge that every attempt at collecting and particularly at coding data is necessarily subjective and interpretive, based on my “own intellectual baggage and life experiences” (Croker 2009: 11; cf. also e.g. Denzin & Lincoln 2003: 5; Freeman 2009). I have tried to set out and describe the preconceptions and suppositions I brought to this study. Reflective self-examination was further practised through collegial supervision, for example in research colloquiums at the Justus-Liebig-University of Gießen (Germany) and Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia), which assisted me in circumventing my own subjectivity and which were a valuable tool for quality assurance. An additional method of counteracting my subjectivity was the use of triangulation (e.g. Nunan 2005; Denzin & Lincoln 2003; Croker 2009): to attain a range of perspectives on the processes of online cooperation, I employed various data collection techniques and gathered data from a variety of participants, who were members of diverse groups. Through drawing on these sources to support my findings, I hope I have averted the danger that “the inference may fall flat, and the reader of the report [is] left intrigued but unconvinced” (Hood 2009: 85). However, it should not be forgotten that “[o]n the other hand, some qualitative researchers see subjectivity as a virtue” (Croker 2009: 11). Glaser & Strauss (1967: 4) remark that “grounded theories - which take hard study of much data - are worth the precious time and focus of all of us in 133 our research, study and teaching.” As the previous comments have illustrated, the challenge of mastering a “well-organized, easily accessible mountain of data” (Hood 2009: 82; cf. also for example Croker 2009; Dörnyei 2007b: 42; 125) was certainly a crucial issue in my study, and yet the advantages have also become apparent: “The data that researchers collect permits them to paint a richly descriptive picture of their participants’ worlds - the participants themselves, the setting, and the major and minor events that happen there” (Croker 2009: 9). The pictures that were painted by the data in response to the research questions (cf. 5.1) are illustrated in the following chapters. For these, I decided to follow Croker’s (ibid.) recommendation of using the participants’ own words. This process, I hope, will “bring the realities of the participants’ worlds to the printed page” (Croker 2009: 20). 135 6 The presentation of self: sharing personal information with the team partners As set out in chapter 1, this study seeks to understand how participants in an online teacher education programme collaborated in the virtual space of blended learning. The following chapters will present research findings based on an analysis of the data sources outlined in section 5.3. A discussion of the findings will address the practices that the participants applied in the course of their cooperation in the virtual environment. These pertain to the specific actions of sharing information about oneself with team partners (this chapter) and of applying methods to overcome a perceived lack of presence in the virtual environment (chapter 7). The research presented in chapter 8 will discuss the insights gained with respect to the larger framework of the CL approach. It will revisit core elements of CL (cf. 2.3; 3.2) and discuss their applicability in the context of the present study. In the case of many of the findings in this chapter and in chapter 7, it is impossible to corroborate with certainty that each piece of information shared by the participants was acknowledged (i.e. read, accepted and/ or made use of) by their partners. Therefore, it is necessary to stress at this point that attributions of these actions to the support of positive interdependence and accountability, however compelling such a practice or aim may sound, cannot be proven with absolute certainty and therefore have to remain hypothetical. It is the aim of further research to continue to target the application and effects of the outlined measures. An examination of various data sources revealed that volunteering information about oneself was a central feature in the participants’ virtual dealings. In some cases, information about themselves was shared, not primarily with the stated intention of supporting their group’s work or their partners, but with what could be interpreted as a wish to present a portrait of self. Certain other elements in the presentation of self indicated the intention of the participants to enhance and support cooperation by way of volunteering personal information. In some instances this was clearly articulated, whilst in others it remained vague. The present chapter will discuss selected examples of the presentation of self, including ones from all of the areas mentioned above. I will discuss the information collected in the diary and team-forum entries, focussing on various segments in which the participants shared information about themselves. This chapter seeks to understand if and how these manifestations of self-expression might be able to exercise a positive influence on the cooperative dealings of a virtual group. I will therefore portray the actual stu- 136 dents’ entries on the online platform, whilst attempting to establish a link between those actions and the way in which they might be perceived as a means of supporting CL in a virtual environment. Analysis of the data showing ways in which the students portray themselves reveals that their descriptions centre on three broad areas: a) their personal learning and decision-making process (cf. 6.1) b) personal goals, plans, expectations (cf. 6.2) c) their professional background and experiences (cf. 6.3) The present chapter will illustrate elements of this type of self-portrayal as used by the participants. Chapter 7 will then focus on those elements that can be recognised as a means used by participants to try to combat the problem of ‘digital invisibility’. However, as will become evident, there is no clear-cut distinction, and both types display a tendency to overlap. As detailed in chapter 5, the participants’ names have been rendered anonymous and the data sources have been abbreviated according to Table 3 in section 5.3.2. Non- English expressions and cultural references in the entries will be briefly glossed in a corresponding footnote when they occur for the first time. In accordance with Silverman’s (2000: 245) “golden rule for writing data analysis [...] [, i.e.] to make one point at a time”, I will present several data extracts more than once and look at them from different perspectives. I will not show the data sources separately, but will attempt to triangulate them to bring together a more comprehensive picture of how the participants dealt with the cooperation process in the virtual environment (cf. also chapter 5). 6.1 The personal learning and decision-making process 6.1.1 Sharing personal views on learning In revealing information about their personal learning process, many participants utilised one of their first electronic messages to the partners to first and foremost signal that they are willing and ready to engage in further learning. This sentiment is, for example, expressed by Kim, a member of the tridem, in her first diary entry, written on the second day of the first face-to-face meeting: 137 [My dear team, dear tutor,] I’m looking forward to working with all of you and this platform! I’m curious what we will get to learn within the next two years and am sure that it was the right decision to come to Freiburg 40 ! (DK 13.10.07) By choosing this message content, Kim signals her openness to new learning experiences. Significantly, in this very first diary entry, she has already set up a clear connection between future learning opportunities and her team partners and tutor (cf. the salutation and the use of the first person plural in “we will get...”). Similarly, Cathy, a student from the tandem, states her general willingness and ability to learn. My strength would be my eagerness to learn. I think I’m very open to new methods and perspectives especially in this area and I also like working in a team. (DC 16.10.07) Cathy, too, connects the experience of engaging in new learning to “working in a team”. However, while Kim was responding to a comparatively general task (“Open your diary […] and write a few words about our first face-to-face meeting and your expectations for the next two years”; S1M0U1T3 41 ), Cathy cites an “eagerness to learn” as her personal strength. This statement was made as part of a longer diary entry in response to one of the first tasks the participants had to complete in their private working spaces after the first face-to-face meeting. One of the required responses was to state personal strengths and/ or weaknesses regarding their future work with E-LINGO (S1M1T1S1 42 ): Now make an entry in your diary to record your ideas and expectations at the start of this course. Here are some suggestions of things to reflect upon to get you started. […]  What do you believe to be your strengths and/ or weaknesses?  What demands do you think the course will make on you? Which ones do you think you will find easy to cope with? Which ones do you think you may find difficult?  What are your learning goals for this M.A. course? […] Interestingly, neither task explicitly requires participants to include any statement about their openness to new learning experiences. Therefore, what unites Kim’s and Cathy’s entries is that, of all the things they could have chosen to say, they both decided to highlight their willingness and readiness to 40 The German city in which the E-LINGO face-to-face sessions are held (cf. 4.2.4.1). 41 See section 4.3.1 for details on E-LINGO tasks and task names. 42 Module 1 is not sub-divided into different units. Therefore, no unit details are given in the task name. 138 engage in further learning and that, additionally, they both view such opportunities as having something to do with CL. Of course, such a readiness to gain new knowledge and skills may simply have been a by-product of the euphoria of the first days of studying with E- LINGO (as could easily be inferred from the above examples). However, two further diary entries by Kim would seem to suggest that this is not the case. One was written approximately one month into the course, the other at the end of the third semester. Many of the readings I went through remind me of what I heard already - but in a much more detailed way of course. I’m curious about what we will learn in the following semesters and how I feel about my competences and professionalism at the end [...]! (DK 18.11.07 15: 49) I attached the last graded task as I think it is a good piece of work [...] : ) Let’s see what [my tutor] has to say to this piece of work, I hope she likes it as much as I do! (DK 10.02.09) Both entries illustrate that Kim’s positive attitude to learning also persists in the context of dealing with the day-to-day tasks of the E-LINGO programme (i.e. literature readings, completing hand-ins for tutor feedback). The first entry also illustrates the fact that, for Kim, there is a link between her readiness to gain new qualifications and her prior knowledge and experiences (“...what I heard already”; DK 18.11.07 15: 49), and with becoming a more professional teacher or individual (“...my competences and professionalism”; DK 18.11.07 15: 49). The fact that opportunities to engage in further learning are not only seen in conjunction with the teamwork that is conducted with partners, but also in connection with the feedback provided by the E-LINGO tutors, is reflected in Kim’s second entry. By stating “Let’s see...” (DK 10.02.09), she indicates her openness to the tutor’s comments and corrections, even if they are contrary to her own perspective (i.e. “a good piece of work”; DK 10.02.09). A further aspect of the participants’ willingness to learn is expressed in entries where they not only state their readiness to learn, but also name specific areas in which they have a vested interest in further learning, as expressed in the following data sources. Die Routine fehlt mir freilich - hab ja noch keine Klasse (wie viele andere hier in diesem Raum), und somit könnte ich in Sachen Routine/ Struktur/ Disziplin bestimmt noch einiges dazu lernen und werde ich auch. 43 (DK 13.10.07) 43 My translation: The teaching routine is what I’m missing of course - as I don’t have my own class yet (in contrast to many others in this room), and therefore I’m sure I can and will learn lots in terms of routine/ structure/ discipline. 139 My only experience with “the little ones” was in my “Chatterbox” group, therefore I’ll need to delve into the field of prim. ed. [primary education] in order to successfully complete the course. [...] I’d also like to be more confident when working with the media equipment. (DJ 15.10.07) During our face to face meeting I realized soon that time has not only passed but that in the last 8 years there have been significant changes in the research of ELL [Early Language Learning]. [...] So I hope to renew my knowledge and my skills for the advantage of my future pupils and I’m quite convinced that together with my group we will succeed. (DG 20.10.07) For example, in Kim’s first diary entry and in Jean’s and Gerrit’s second entry, they explicitly tell their partners about areas in which they see a personal need for improvement. In the case of Gerrit, a tridem member, he also explicitly names his team partners as one means to his own personal professional advancement. It would therefore seem to be reasonable to conclude that, although they may not have been intended for this purpose, the statements of the participants concerning their willingness to learn may prove valuable for future cooperation if they are acknowledged by fellow team members: general statements about a person’s readiness to engage in further learning can show their partners that they are willing to take on new perspectives - a precondition for any genuine group discussion and an encouragement to every group member to share their viewpoint with their partners. More specific allusions to areas in which a person would like or will need to improve their skills and/ or knowledge may give rise to the others making direct specific efforts to encourage that member. In heterogeneous groups in particular, such indications may indicate to the various members where their expertise and support is needed and appreciated, and can, in this way, provide the group with a direction for its future activities, whilst fostering each member’s feeling of belonging to the group (cf. 2.3 and 5.6). Statements illustrating the willingness of members to take part in new learning experiences and which reveal details of their preferred areas of personal advancement, provide evidence for what each member views as being their personal priorities, i.e. where they see their own weaknesses and are ready to develop professionally with the help of their partners and others. In this way, such statements may function as one means to aid the establishment of positive interdependence (2.3.1) and accountability (2.3.2) in virtual space. 140 6.1.2 Relating instances of self-reflection A further dimension of self-description became very evident in Valerie’s diary entries. This pertains to the domain of self-reflection and its importance for the group members. The data collected from this area can mainly be described as consisting of statements of self-description and self-evaluation. That such statements may provide valuable information for cooperative partners will be illustrated by the following examples. In several of her diary entries, Valerie writes about her own ambitions. I’m the one with the largest increase during this course. And she said that twice during this weekend! And being honest - I felt that I deserved that. I noticed that some of my [...] fellow students [...] [make] more mistakes than I do. And I really worked hard on E-lingo. (DV 16.02.09) In the above extract from her diary, which was written towards the end of the course, she reflects on the efforts she has put into the course, evaluating them in the light of an informal assessment given to her by her tutor and setting them in relation to those made by fellow students. The event which triggered this moment of self-reflection was a comment made by Valerie’s tutor at the fourth face-to-face meeting. In a further self-reflective comment about her personal goals, Valerie uses the coming end of the third semester to reflect on the past year and a half with E-LINGO. This semester went much better than the ones before. [...] Maybe I really did not know so much in the beginning and did learn much more than I thought. [...] I always felt like I did a good job in -nearlyevery task. But I’m very ambitious, concerning my grades. And I have to be if I apply [...] [to be] accepted as a teacher. The students [...] [who do not have a very good grade] have difficulties to get a job (DV 06.02.09) Looking at her ambitions from the end of semester three, Valerie is not only speaking about her personal learning progress, but is also seeing her own achievements in a new light. If this is acknowledged by her partners, this may provide them with valuable background information on why Valerie felt she had to make so many demands of herself, and why this might have resulted in her underestimating her work. Therefore, the entry provides readers not only with a picture of Valerie as she would describe herself with respect to E- LINGO (ambitious, eager to receive excellent grades): it also gives us information as to why she makes such high demands of herself (she needs to find a job as a teacher; see also 5.6.1 for details of Valerie’s job situation during her studies with E-LINGO). Moreover, it is evidence of a change of perspective 141 that has taken or is taking place within Valerie with regard to the way in which she assesses her own learning. Besides shedding light on her ambitions and the huge efforts she has made, a further area of self-reflection that appears frequently in the data gathered from Valerie’s entries relates to her own teaching. The pupils of the Thursday group were offered to talk with me about the test results. Several of them took the opportunity. [...] I added some advice on how to learn vocabulary [...], but [...] [their] interest was low. So I didn’t with the other [...] [group of students]. (DV 24.01.09) In various statements, as illustrated by the one above, Valerie reflects on her own lesson plans and in particular on changes made to what she had originally planned. In this way, she not only provides detailed insights into her way of thinking and reasoning, but also gives her readers important information regarding the progress of her individual work. In the above diary excerpt, she explains in her self-reflective comments why she altered her original plan of talking about self-assessment and learning strategies with one group of students from her English Club. The following data extract is a further example of this. I just did the next task planning the first lesson about “Toys”. I have been working on that now several days. My first ideas were different from what I wrote now, partly due to the fact that my group in mind is my English Club/ AG and not a 3rd grade, partly due to the close look at the sentences I expect them to produce. I tend to be a little too fast and expect too much from my pupils. Therefore I have to prepare smaller steps. (DV 04.01.08) In this example of self-reflection regarding her teaching, Valerie gives an explanation as to why she altered her lesson plan. In this context, however, the reflection was directly linked to her work on an E-LINGO unit: she describes the time and effort she has put into her work on this unit and states the reasons that led to this. She writes that she has already spent considerable time working on a particular task because she has had to adapt the given material to suit the particular learner group she is working with (i.e. a mixed-level English Club with students from various grades). In a second instance of selfreflection in the above entry, Valerie takes a critical look at her teaching style. Again guided by the E-LINGO task, she critically assesses the language production goals of the lesson, which leads her to a general evaluation of the pace of her teaching and her expectations of the students’ capabilities. In a final step, she draws a personal conclusion from these various instances of selfreflection and outlines a plan for changing her lesson preparation. Let us now look at an example in which one of Valerie’s partners reacts to an entry of hers in the team-forum, in which Valerie reflects on the progress 142 of her work in relation to the time she has already spent working on her Master’s thesis. At one point during the fourth semester she reflects, “I have already done quite some work, actually. SO, why do I feel so much under time pressure? ” (T-FV 2009-03-08 10: 55: 19). In her reply to this team-forum entry, Valerie’s team partner, Kim, picks her up on this point and reacts to it. Hi Valerie, sorry for not replying... How are you proceeding with the thesis? I hope you feel more comfortable with it now! [...] I am still quite busy with organising and carrying out the interviews for my empirical part. The [...] federal school inspector showed to be interested in my work and we are in almost regular contact now. But he is perfect when it comes to empirical working and I, well, I’m not! : ) and I don’t have the time either : ) So I try to find a good way between what’s doable [...] and what is expected now. (T-FK 2009-03-21 16: 40: 15) Even though there is a considerable time gap between the original entry by Valerie and the reply, Kim still shows her concern and admiration for Valerie by responding to Valerie’s self-reflective comment. Furthermore, Kim goes on to describe the progress of her own work on the M.A. thesis, thus opening up her context and allowing Valerie insights into the highs and lows that her partner feels when working on a similar project. Kim concludes the description of her thesis work with what could be regarded as a piece of advice for Valerie. We have now looked at various excerpts from Valerie’s diary and teamforum entries and have examined several instances of self-description or selfevaluation. Even though she might not have intended these to be more than personal reminders of her decision-making and learning process, and even though none of these instances were specifically required by an E-LINGO task, they nevertheless provide valuable insights into Valerie’s sense of herself on various levels that might be fruitfully used by team partners. Valerie provides her readers with background information which can conceivably guide them in forming a favourable personal opinion about Valerie and in assessing her actions. If Valerie had not provided these details about her thoughts and background reasoning in her self-reflective comments, she may have come across as being an extremely self-critical person (cf. DV 06.02.09) who changes her plans for no good reason (DV 24.01.09; DV 04.01.08). Moreover, not only is valuable information that might otherwise have remained ‘invisible’ conveyed, but instances of self-reflection like the ones above may also provide an opportunity for group members to enter into 143 a discussion about the assumptions and conclusions underlying a person’s decisions, and thus to engage in an exchange that can help challenge false beliefs about the premature decisions of one group member (for example, is it really true that prospective teachers who do not have an A grade will not get a job? Was it the right decision to cancel the talk about vocabulary learning with the second English Club group? ). As the last data excerpt has shown, instances of self-reflection can also lead cooperative partners to show empathy and provide an insight into the challenges and successes of their own work. Both factors may act in support of mutual understanding and reinforcing positive team bonds (cf. 2.3.1). 6.1.3 Reflection on the personal learning process An examination of the data also revealed a further manifestation of the presentation of self that may have a supportive influence on the cooperative dealings, and which was realised by all the participants in the study: their reflection on their personal learning process. On the one hand, it is hardly surprising that all the student diaries show examples of reflection on the learning process, since this is precisely one of the central functions of the diary, i.e. to collect personal “thoughts, ideas, reflections and feelings during the course” (cf. S1M0U1T3). Thus, within the E-LINGO context, the diary assumes the role of “a written documentation” (ibid.) of students’ personal development during the programme, with the ultimate aim of helping them in the compilation of their learning portfolio at the end of the course (cf. 4.2.4.4). However, on the other hand, the following examples will illustrate that such statements can additionally convey valuable information and in this way may support the cooperative dealings of a virtual group. The development of an ability to reflect on one’s own learning process and on ways of becoming a more professional teacher depends first and foremost on the existence of opportunities to critically evaluate one’s own practices and experiences (cf. 4.1). The fact that the E-LINGO programme was successful in providing such opportunities, is, for example, illustrated by some of Gerrit’s entries. As I have used slts [short literary texts] since the beginning of teaching English, it was a good chance to reflect my practical work. (DG 28.10.08) In the excerpts above and below, we can see that the E-LINGO unit he is working on (S3M6U9: “Texts and types of texts II short literary texts”; cf. 4.2.2) has initiated a process of self-reflection concerning his long-standing teaching practices. During his reflection process, Gerrit realises that there is one aspect of teaching short literary texts, the importance of which has be- 144 come obvious to him through his studies with E-LINGO, and which he had previously overlooked in his own teaching: Most relevant for me was the structure of [the] introduction. The three step procedure is vital and I realised that I often had neglected the warm-up phase which really is of importance. (DG 28.10.08) On the other hand, he also finds a confirmation of his own teaching practices through his reflection: The teaching techniques for new words were not new to me and I was confirmed to let the students induce their meaning from the context which I practise as often as possible. (DG 28.10.08) As a result of this, Gerrit is led to share a particular teaching experience with a short literary text with his readers. Very motivating for both pupil and teacher is the combination of a storybook and slt [short literary text]. The last of that kind I introduced was Eric Carle’s “Today is Monday”. Here a song recycles and consolidates the new words and phrases from the book. As there is not too much text, the pupils soon catch the tune and the lyrics and it is a wonderful opportunity using those during an opening routine talking about weekdays and what you can eat each day. (DG 28.10.08) As his comments in the above excerpt indicate, he obviously enjoys sharing successful examples from his wide-ranging teaching background and is fond of telling others (e.g. his team partners) about his experiences. However, this experience-sharing is not simply an anecdote: it is directly relevant to the unit that he and his partners are currently studying and, importantly, it has stemmed from a critical reflection of his own teaching practice that - in turn - originated during his work on the E-LINGO unit. The other participants also realised through a reflection of their learning process that their work on an E-LINGO unit has led them to the acquisition of new knowledge and/ or skills. Referring to S3M6U11 on “Cross-curricular teaching”, Jean states: It was interesting to learn that organisational skills and resourcefulness are two of the main factors which need to be considered when taking the crosscurricular approach to teaching EFL [English as a foreign language] to young learners. That was certainly proven during the TW [teamwork] with Cathy as well as the individual hand-in. Cathy and I designed a super [...] mind map with a number of great activities [...]. The support of the tandem work helped give me the confidence I suppose I needed to manage the individual mind map so well (a copy is attached). (DJ 19.01.09) 145 While the example we have just seen of Gerrit (above) was mainly a reflection of his own practices, Jean reflects on new facts she has learned, whilst placing them in the context of her cooperation with Cathy: The new theoretical input she has received through her work on a unit leads her to further reflect on and assess the teamwork with her partner in the light of this newly acquired information. Jean’s entry demonstrates how what started out as a reflection of her personal learning process turned into a message praising her partner and the joint work, not only sharing what Jean believes she has recently learnt (“...that organisational skills...”) and how she assesses this content (“It was interesting...”), but also, most importantly, which aspects of their teamwork she particularly valued and what she believed she was only capable of because of her partner’s support. Thus, with this reflection of her learning process, which, as in Gerrit’s case, was provoked by the materials provided to the students by the programme, Jean not only volunteers information about herself and her learning process, but also, if the entry is indeed read by Cathy, gives her partner precious hints and impulses for their future cooperation. Examination of the data also suggests that reflection of one’s personal learning may change the perception of the individual’s view of their professional standing. Not only does this process become evident to the writers themselves and the partners they communicate this to, it would seem to also have repercussions on the cooperation of individuals beyond their E-LINGO groups, i.e. in their dealings with colleagues and superiors in the local school context (cf. 4.3). We can observe expressions of this in comments by both Kim and Valerie. I liked most about this unit that I got a professional insight into this topic and have thus now arguments for discussions in this topic. Songs are probably the most popular “way of teaching E [English]” in Austria but sadly without building any supporting activities around it and (! ) without focusing on meaning at all. […] slt [short literary texts] are used a lot and teachers don’t really know why and HOW. I enjoyed to have a whole unit built around this topic to provide us with professional information to thus build up a professional opinion. (DK 15.11.08 10: 29) In Kim’s case, a change in the way she will present herself in her professional field and in the way she wishes to be viewed by others has been, like in Gerrit’s case, prompted by her work on Unit 9 (cf. above). The crucial point about this example is that it would seem to demonstrate that the way in which Kim views herself has changed: as she says, by reading relevant literature on short literary texts she now believes herself to be equipped with conclusive argu- 146 ments so that she will be able to enter into an expert discussion about the topic with her colleagues. In this way, her dealings with these colleagues may well change, elevating Kim to a more professional level (which does not necessarily make things easier), and possibly even making her an agent for change beyond her local school community in her promotion of a more reflective use of short literary texts, in particular songs, in the early foreign language classroom. In Valerie’s case, the learning experience stemmed not from a unit she was working on, but from a different component of the E-LINGO programme, i.e. the compulsory participation in a course for language teaching professionals in an English-speaking country for non-native speakers of English (cf. 4.2.3). In school my headmistress showed me today that she wants to try out the methodological [ideas] [...] I showed them in Fachkonferenz 44 . (DV 14.05.08; emphasis added) Since that presentation they speak to me on a different level and often in English. (DV 14.05.08) Tomorrow one of the teachers wants to have a look at the flashcards I have drawn this weekend. It’s a strange feeling that they ask me for my materials and ideas on their subject ([...] [since I am] not a regular teacher). (DV 14.05.08) Having returned from her course in England, Valerie becomes aware of changes in the way she teaches her English Club lessons (“Now I have been back from the ELC course in Brighton some days and have noticed a different approach to my English AG 45 in school.”; DV 30.04.08). Furthermore, as she relates, she has presented her experiences from the course in England to the teachers of her school at a meeting of the language teaching staff. This resulted in her colleagues and even the headmistress rethinking Valerie’s standing in the teaching staff and granting her privileged status, as she describes in the above examples. Thus, as we have seen, a further facet of the personal learning and decision-making process has been illustrated by the students’ reflections on their learning process. These examples suggest that they found ample opportunities within the E-LINGO programme to reflect on their own learning. The content of these reflections was partly concerned with the teaching practices of the participants themselves, but also went beyond the individuals to convey significant information about how teamwork was perceived and thus which future directions the cooperation process could take. Furthermore, an exami- 44 Fachkonferenz = meeting of the language teaching staff 45 English AG = English Club 147 nation of the participants’ reflection on their learning processes also showed evidence of them giving important impulses to shape future cooperation beyond the E-LINGO programme in their personal teaching contexts. 6.1.4 Personal efforts to improve performance A further area in which the focus group participants shared information about their personal learning processes that could be of value to cooperative partners concerned their efforts to improve their performance in areas they were experiencing difficulty with. That self-improvement in this sense can take place in very different and even opposing ways was most evident in the cases of Kim and Valerie. To begin with, a data source by Kim will be cited. When I got my first essay back corrected, I was very happy to see [...] that my written language is ok (though I need to work on it to improve...). I’m glad to get a detailed feedback from my tutor also to see how my language competence is graded from an objective point of view. The feedback [...] did affect me, as I want to improve and try to find ways to get rid of the mistakes I make. I like that. (DK 18.11.2007 17: 46) One way in which Kim notices an area she needs to improve on is through feedback on her work provided by her E-LINGO tutor. Having examined the corrections of her first graded essay, Kim realises that her language competence, whilst being fairly advanced, needs to be improved. The excerpt repeatedly illustrates Kim’s gratefulness for the (language) feedback she receives. Furthermore, it reflects her determination to make a start on her personal improvement campaign, and at the same time also indicates her realisation that it will be predominantly her personal efforts that will be required to achieve this (“though I need to...”). One way in which Kim took action to advance her language skills has already been hinted at: she created a list of her common mistakes and of useful words and phrases to improve the quality of her writing (cf. DK 18.11.07 15: 49 above). Another strategy employed by her was the use of reference books, as the following comment illustrates. It also highlights once more her appreciation of tutor feedback as a channel for personal development. Oh... and one more thing for today... I got myself the Penguin Guide to Punctuation some time ago to understand the rules for commas. I always thought they are not that popular and strict in English, until [...] [my tutor] suggested to work on that issue as I get them wrong quite frequently. (DK 03.05.08 17: 43) Later in the same entry, Kim writes: 148 I was amazed and frustrated as there are so many rules and exceptions and words where you use a comma, others where you MUST NOT use one. Anyway, after all I think I’ve got an overview now, the book is always next to me when I’m writing and I copied the summary of the summary of the chapter “comma” [...] [and] stuck it to my wall in front of the PC! I also had to get myself a proper grammar guide [...] mainly to look the “ ' ” up. As in “it’s” and “its tail”, “children’s”, “but cars’”... It’s easy once you know the rule(s). (DK 03.05.08 17: 43) As the excerpt shows, after presenting initial obstacles that challenged her dedication, Kim articulates first feelings of satisfaction regarding her extra efforts to improve her English writing (“...after all I think...”, “It’s easy once you know...”, see below). Also noteworthy is the fact that she does not restrict herself to a description of the various strategies she has employed to enhance her personal development and the successes she can already observe: she also attaches a document to this diary entry - a scanned page of the book on comma rules she had described as being helpful to her, including handwritten notes and her markings on the page. Whether this was done to prove her point that she was indeed working hard on her self-improvement or possibly to share her newly gained knowledge with her team partners for their own personal gain, cannot be determined with certainty. The analysis of Kim’s case gives us a comparatively clear-cut and dynamic example of self-improvement: a participant is advised of the need for personal development in a particular area (e.g. by tutor comments). He/ she then makes a conscious effort to improve his/ her performance in the designated area and is ultimately rewarded for this as the efforts prove successful. Not only does the participant demonstrate successful learning strategies to him/ herself, the tutor and the team members who acknowledge this entry: significantly, at the same time, he/ she is also placing new or enhanced skills at the disposal of the group, who can then have recourse to and profit from the combined knowledge of the team members (in Kim’s case, her contribution of new knowledge in the form of how the apostrophe and the comma are used in standard English). The same is true for the descriptions of the group member’s learning process (e.g. which resource books the partner found helpful), which may support the work of the group in more than one way. It would seem that not all attempts at personal development take place in such an (ideal) linear fashion. Nevertheless, communicating such instances may have a supportive effect on group work. This can best be demonstrated by examining the case of Valerie, who is striving for improvement in a similar area to Kim, i.e. in her writing of English. 149 The next task was an essay on the use of puppets in the FL [foreign language] classroom. I had big troubles with that one because I had too much to write. I has been in contact with several publishers of course books, had my various experiences in mind and only 3000 words as a limit. (DV 05.07.08) In the example above, Valerie’s comments reveal how she has been struggling with a word limit for an essay she had to hand in. In the first excerpt, Valerie relates how difficult she finds it to stick to the word limit, listing various areas she would like to develop in her essay (course books, diverse personal experience). Like Kim, Valerie also makes a determined effort to improve her academic writing, as the following comments from the same diary entry reveal. When I had finished my first versions I noticed that I [...] [would] write pages over pages. So I tried to shorten it, but then the result were 4000 words. I had not noticed that, but [the tutor] sent me back my essay and told me to shorten. That was very hard for now I had to take out even more. I had [had] several people to read through my essay and tell me where to shorten already for the 4000 word version. This problem bothered me so much that I could not sleep and decided to work a night shift on crossing out more. (DV 05.07.08) As can be seen, Valerie repeatedly attempts to shorten the essay and also asks “several people” (DV 05.07.08) for support. However, as her comments reflect, despite her best efforts, she failed to be successful. Instead, she found herself facing an additional challenge. The statement above reveals how emotionally draining this situation was for her, having no idea how to proceed in order to improve her performance (“That was very hard...”, “...bothered me so much...”, “...work a night shift”). She then goes on as follows. With a bleeding heart I could finally hand in an essay within the word limit that was totally fleshless in my view. But I will keep the former essay for my portfolio. (DV 05.07.08) Having finally achieved her aim (i.e. an essay that conformed to the word limit), Valerie’s comments reveal that she found this very unrewarding. We read that she does not feel as though she has improved at all, but that she believes that her attempts at improving the quality of her work have actually spoiled it. In fact, the result of all her efforts has even caused her emotional distress. A diary entry some weeks later takes up this point. I have handed in several other tasks by now but my language grade does not improve. When I read the comments I notice that [the tutor] often does not understand what I mean. But I cannot use more words to explain further. [...] I have bought several books for language improvement. When I do the exercises on grammar I do ok. I read English literature [...]. So I really see no way out of this. One of the non-graded hand-ins was commented with “brilliant”, 150 but is brilliant what I wrote or just the fact that I have not used more words than allowed? (DV 28.07.08) As this excerpt reveals, the issue has not been resolved, but persists and is entangled with other difficulties, presenting Valerie with a whole range of multi-layered challenges she needs to respond to in order to improve. It may be reasonable to assume that this situation had a strong influence on her group work, too, and prevented her from fully engaging in the cooperation. This issue will be discussed in more detail in section 7.2. Even though her entries demonstrate a tendency to try to be positive (“I do ok”), she does not really succeed. Here, she also finds herself being assailed by a feeling of helplessness at not knowing what else she can try to do to improve her performance (“does not improve”, “see no way out of this”). On top of all this, the entry also reveals the failure of the tutor feedback provided to be a source of inspiration and encouragement for Valerie (“but is brilliant...? ”). Thus, one of the things this comparison of data samples taken from Valerie’s and Kim’s entries seems to show is that personal improvement may take the form of a very linear development (in which personal efforts lead to the desired improvements, as in Kim’s case), but that it may also take the form of a complex process in which personal efforts might even lead to a feeling of undeserved helplessness. However, more importantly, both cases have provided examples of the students sharing information that can be processed by team partners and others and used as a source of support for each other and for the cooperative work within the group, as both Valerie and Kim document their personal efforts to improve their performance in areas of personal weakness that might have otherwise gone unnoticed by team partners and tutors. This is particularly obvious in Valerie’s case, as even though she made serious efforts to improve her writing, these may not have been discernible in the products she handed in. Thus, her hard work and effort (e.g. in re-writing, asking others for help, doing language exercises) and her emotional involvement (e.g. her having sleepless nights) would have been invisible (i.e. to all intents and purposes non-existent) to others, had she not included them as an entry in her diary. What is more, her efforts might have even been misinterpreted as complacency (cf. her essay, which initially increased in length after her attempts to shorten it). Needless to say, there is a vast difference between being aware of the efforts a person is making to improve a given situation or to solve a problem (even if no change is actually evident in any of their actions or products), and assuming a person is complacent about their work (because you cannot see any sign of improvement). 151 6.1.5 (External) acknowledgement of personal commitment In many cases, the recognition, acknowledgment and support of others played a major role in students’ reflection of their own learning (cf. 6.1.3). Interestingly, these reports of endorsement of the participants’ efforts cited a variety of sources, both inside and outside of E-LINGO, and were not only reported to come from their team partners. The following section deals with the various sources of acknowledgement of personal efforts that were commented on in the participants’ entries. Section 7.3 will show that team partners, even though not always cited in the self-reflective comments of the students, nevertheless did play an influential role in reassuring and praising the efforts of their partners. All of the participants reported numerous instances where they recognised an acknowledgement of their work in tutor comments and feedback. Kim’s diary entry below is one example of this. I am very proud of the outcome (grade) of my project. For the preparation I received a 1,5 46 (1 47 in content with full score! ! ) and even the presentation, where I’ve been quite nervous, went well. [...]. [Both my tutors] said that I did a very good job, [...] (DK 14.07.08 08: 34) As the example reflects, recognition of their work was not only perceived by the students in the feedback and corrections given by tutors in hand-ins and essays, but also in feedback on research project presentations, and it was by no means limited to written feedback (“...said that I...”; DK 14.07.08 08: 34). The fact that grades were, naturally, also a key source of satisfaction and confirmation of personal efforts also becomes evident in Kim’s entry. Valerie’s enthusiastic comments on the subject also demonstrate this on various occasions. I have been reading English very much the last weeks [...]. And the result is great: I have received 1,5. Content 1 and language 2 48 on the essay on SLT [short literary texts]! Hooray! (DV 11.11.08) In the excerpt above, Valerie even makes an explicit connection between the efforts she has made and the acknowledgement she has received from her tutors (in the form of grades). Acknowledgement in the form of tutor feedback may, in conjunction with self-reflection, also lead to an awareness of how to improve and pave the way for further improvement. This is illustrated in the next example: 46 1,5 = grade A 47 1 = grade A+ 48 2 = grade A- 152 It was so exciting to receive the corrected hand-ins from [my tutor]! I’m very glad that I seem to know how to work the tasks out and am motivated to work on my mistakes in phrases and grammar. I just started to make a table showing the minor mistakes I make [...] and one with useful new words and phrases to make my writing more professional and “wissenschaftlich” 49 . (DK 18.11.07 15: 49) Various later diary entries by this participant go on to prove that this initial comment on developing personal language competence was indeed not simply a one-off resolution in a euphoric moment during the first semester. On the contrary, as discussed above, the participant continued to mention these efforts throughout her studies and even attaches a self-compiled list of her common mistakes to one of her diary entries (cf. also 4.2.4.4). By reporting the acknowledgement of their work in tutor feedback, the participants were not only using the diary to note personal successes they could use for their portfolios, but were also giving their team partners an opportunity to become aware of these experiences. In this way, members of the group were presented with a possibility to gain insights into their partners’ learning and development process based on the comments received from the tutors. Interestingly, a further frequent source of acknowledgement cited by the participants was the children they teach, as exemplified by the entries below. School has started [...] again. English AG started, too. There were so many requests that I decided to divide the group [...]. And there have been requests for English AG in third grades and even in first grade! (DV 16.09.08) Thursday I asked my AG 50 pupils if they want [...] [me to cancel] next week’s lesson. I expected them to appreciate the idea of an hour less. But they complained and begged to have this lesson although I told them that I’m done with all I had planned. (DV 24.01.09) From the data we can infer that the recognition of personal efforts can take different forms. For example, one of its manifestations came in the form of pupils requesting more or extended English lessons with their teacher (DV 24.01.09), or in the form of pupils from other years asking to be part of a teacher’s English class (DV 16.09.08). The following excerpts may also be interpreted as evidence of the recognition of the participants’ efforts. Finally I also carried out my [action research] project. [...] I was surprised how quickly they [the pupils] pick up words and even whole sentences without any translation! [...] I told “Little Red Riding Hood” using real objects, a flip-up 49 wissenschaftlich = academic 50 AG = (English) Club 153 picture book and mime, gesture, word cards to make them understand and they did understand! [...] At the end of the story the majority of the group repeated the more frequent sentences, I’d only expect them to repeat single words... (DK 21.01.08 20: 02) They recognize the repetition of the scene in writing and creating the pages [of a hand-made storybook] [...] and so I only wrote the order of pictures [...] [on] the board and the pupils were able to write down the missing sentences by themselves. This was a task between copying and writing! At least this is something for my portfolio! I’m really proud of this piece of teaching and my pupils who did so well! (DV 31.01.09) As the excerpts reveal, the progress the pupils that were taught by the participants made and the competences they acquired was interpreted as recognition. The above quotes give an impression of this. When she observed the progress of the children in her group, one participant even valued it so highly that she made a note in her diary to remind herself to discuss this experience in her portfolio (DV 31.01.09). Needless to say, a precondition for finding examples of confirmation for one’s work in the pupils’ behaviour is that the participants have the necessary skills and competences to observe and assess the progress that the children make. It is not surprising then that, in this context of confirmation, the language reflection and documentation processes inherent in the CARPs (cf. 4.3.1) constituted a major tool and gave rise to a number of the participants’ comments (cf. above). As was the case with acknowledgement received through tutor feedback (cf. above), by voicing positive feelings like the ones mentioned above in the diary or team-forum, participants allowed their team to become aware of them. By revealing personal experiences, participants allowed their partners insights that might otherwise have remained concealed. It transpired that this seems to be true in exactly the same way when recognition and acknowledgement is received from other sources, as we shall see in the following. I also got the permission of the parents [...]. Two parents even asked me about it [my research project] on the street, they like the idea and that made me happy! : ) (DK 30.12.07 10: 38) Interestingly, another source of confirmation for their work that was mentioned by the participants was the children’s parents. Having moved to a new house, Kim noted in her diary that she has managed to find a class where she can carry out her first CARP. After having established first contacts with the teacher and the class, she asked the parents for permission to carry out the research project with their children. She related the ensuing endorsement on the part of the parents in her diary in the above entry. 154 Similarly, in one excerpt Cathy also states that the efforts she puts into her work as a teacher are rewarded by the feedback she receives from the children’s parents. The feedback from parents really gives me the motivation I need to continue working in this field and to apply myself to the reading and research involved in E-Lingo. (DC 21.10.08 09: 27) Cathy even goes on to say that the energy she needs to engage in the (often) strenuous work of researching her own practices that is part and parcel of the E-LINGO programme, also derives from this source of recognition. A further major source of confirmation that the students mentioned is the reactions or statements of colleagues or superiors in their field of work (cf. also 6.1.3). I had a very nice incident at school. The one teacher who is not so fond of having me as a coteacher in his classes (but gives me single students to work with instead) congratulated me to my success: the pupils he asked me to work with did a very good test, and he said that this is due to my pedagogic skills! Wow, that motivates me for sure! (DV 17.12.08) Valerie’s comments above and below reflect how the way she views herself and her motivation to continue on her chosen path changes as a colleague acknowledges her accomplishments in his class. To fully understand Valerie’s comments, it is important to remember that, at this point in time, she had neither a full-time nor a permanent teaching position at her school, but was employed as a ‘teaching assistant’, whose main function was to fill in for teachers on sick leave (cf. also 5.6.1). Valerie, who frequently documents her struggle with the English language requirements of the course, also mentions another course member outside her cooperative group as a source of recognition of her personal efforts and improvements. Jean, one of our native speakers, said she often thinks of me, because she has problems understanding the course sometimes and asks herself how I manage, having had the last English lessons 25 years ago. (DV 16.08.08) In her diary, Valerie describes how Jean, who is a native speaker of English (cf. 5.6.2), addressed her at one point during a face-to-face meeting, indirectly complimenting her on her language efforts and comforting her regarding the language aspects of E-LINGO. A noteworthy aspect of this incident in which Valerie receives both affirmation and reassurance is that it illustrates the central role played by the face-to-face meeting in the blended learning programme (cf. 4.2.4.1). While we have no information about whether the exchange between Valerie and Jean took place during a break or other informal situation at the face-to-face meeting, it can be assumed that the exchange 155 might not have occurred at all had the two people only been communicating virtually. The fact that participants can also find reassurance without any connection to ‘outside motivators’, but simply by becoming conscious of the knowledge and skills they already possess, is illustrated in the following two comments by Kim. I like the TBL [task-based language teaching] approach though it doesn’t feel so special for me, not so different from what I’ve learned before. [...] The stages are not so interesting to me as that is common sense and again pretty much what I’ve learnt before in sequencing lessons in general. (DK 03.05.08 17: 32; emphasis added) I always loved E [English] in primary, but will try to structure my lessons more from now on. Though I also realised that I apply quite a few techniques already without even knowing it... (DK 21.01.08 19: 48) As the second example demonstrates, recognition of her present situation (and thus of previous learning progress) is connected to ideas about how further learning should be structured. At first I thought the results are bad. Only few [pupils] did what I had expected. (DV 04.12.08) In a similar vein, Valerie reports her endorsement of and ensuing satisfaction with her personal achievements, simply as a result of the reflection process on her current research in her own classroom: having collected data for her next CARP, Valerie, in the excerpt above, initially reflects on her first impressions of the data she has gathered. Then I transcribed the reports and noticed that they did quite well. I evaluated different levels of language achievement. I expected that the Tuesday group would have more items on a lower level than the Thursday group. And these expectations [...] [were] confirmed by the analysis of the transcripts! (DV 04.12.08) As the above excerpt shows, she then states that a more detailed examination of the pupils’ language production has changed her view, resulting in a personal acknowledgement of and some pride in her data analysis and overall research skills. In a later diary entry in which Valerie refers to the same incident, it becomes clear that this was indeed a major source of reassurance to her. [I] feel quite satisfied, because [...] the results that I evaluated during the vacation are supporting my expectation. (DV 10.01.09) 156 It becomes evident that Valerie has continued with a detailed analysis of the data she has gathered and feels that her efforts have been worthwhile: she even feels satisfied with the current level of the skills and knowledge she has already acquired. Again, this feeling of recognition stems exclusively from a personal reflection of her own efforts. In examining the participants’ comments, we have seen that they sensed that their personal efforts were being recognised and acknowledged and that this recognition came from a variety of sources. Tutor feedback, the children in their classes and their parents, colleagues, other course members and a reflection of the skills and knowledge that they already possessed were identified as sources outside the cooperative group which gave the participants a sense of satisfaction and validation of their work. Support from within the cooperative group will be discussed in section 7.3. The approval that the participants experienced, as described in their diary entries, was either direct (for example through high marks) or indirect (for example through others expressing empathy, as in the case of Jean’s comments to Valerie at the face-toface session). Furthermore, it is possible to establish a link between such approval of personal efforts and a participant’s sense of motivation. The participants were provided with an outside perspective on their work, and in many cases this led them to view themselves in a new, more positive light. Importantly, many such manifestations of acknowledgement reported by the participants are in some way connected to their CARPs (cf. 4.3.1). For this reason, sharing such information so that it can be accessed by the cooperative partners (who are also partners in the CARPs) also has the potential to positively impact on the way the team members view their group as a whole, each other and their joint efforts. Volunteering information about ‘external’ approval that one has experienced may thus be one way in which the individual group members can convey goodwill, support and esteem to their partners, which, in turn, may prove a valuable source to further the establishment of positive interdependence (2.3.1) and accountability (2.3.2) in virtual space. 6.2 Personal goals, plans, expectations 6.2.1 Personal aims and plans An analysis of the data sources further revealed that participants frequently commented on their personal goals and plans in connection with the E- LINGO programme. A variety of such cases will be presented in this section. Hypotheses as to which influence such statements can or can have exercised on the development of the cooperative proceedings in virtual space are discussed. In the following, I will examine examples from each of the two focus 157 groups which illustrate this phenomenon. A discussion of the findings will address the key issues raised. Amongst the tasks given to the participants during the very first face-toface meeting (cf. 4.2.4.1) at the beginning of the first semester were two (S1M0U1T3 and S1M1T1S1; see also 6.1.1) which required the students to describe their personal goals and expectations. Open your diary (My E-LINGO) and write a few words about our first faceto-face meeting and your expectations for the next two years. Please remember that your team partners and your tutor can read your diary entry. (S1M0U1T3) Now make an entry in your diary to record your ideas and expectations at the start of this course. Here are some suggestions of things to reflect upon to get you started.  If you were to sketch a portrait of your professional development at the beginning of the course, which factors would you include? Where are you now? Where would you like to be at the end of the course?  What do you believe to be your strengths and/ or weaknesses?  What demands do you think the course will make on you? Which ones do you think you will find easy to cope with? Which ones do you think you may find difficult?  What are your learning goals for this M.A. course? […] (S1M1T1S1) In response to this, both Jean and Cathy from the tandem disclose their personal learning goals in their diaries and thus make them accessible to their partner and their tutors. At the end of the course, I’d like to be able to improve my observation and analysis skills in order to make my lessons more effective. I’d also like to be more confident when working with the media equipment. (DJ 15.10.07) I’d like to be able to improve my ability to observe constructively in the classroom. My real goal at the end of the course is to have confidence when I teach to be sure of my methods based on concrete research and to be able to draw from this experience when planning a lesson. When I have completed the course I would like to be confident in this field not to be perfect but professional. (DC 16.10.07) Besides these comparatively general learning goals, analysis of the data sources reveals that, on various occasions both participants make further relevant and even more specific remarks about their personal aims and the motivation for them in their diaries. Remarkably, the majority of these com- 158 ments are made without an elicitation to do so, for example in a task. The following two excerpts illustrate this. Time management will play a key role during the next 2 years - I’ll surely need some help from my family. (DJ 15.10.07) I find the time issue still my biggest challenge as I don’t want to neglect the needs of my children. (DC 29.11.07) These comments show the tandem partners signalling that they both identify their family (and in particular their children’s needs) as being high up amongst their top priorities. What the comments also reveal is that both partners view the time factor as being the single major obstacle in the way of their attempts to fulfil their personal aims: their personal goals of becoming more professional teachers through E-LINGO (cf. DC 16.10.07; DJ 15.10.07) clash with the fact that the amount of time at their disposal is limited (cf. Benitt & Legutke 2012), which, in turn, is partly due to their prioritising of family matters. Statements which give insight into personal aims and strategies can allow group members to become aware of each other’s goals, and, as in the example above, can help them to understand that each member is indeed struggling with similar challenges (i.e. in this case, time management), and for the same reasons (“children come first”; DJ 07.06.09). Since the partners in the tandem maintained regular face-to-face contact, we cannot know with any certainty that such an awareness was (exclusively) achieved as a result of their virtual communication on the subject of personal goals. Nevertheless, as the following comment below illustrates, Jean is well aware of the fact that her personal situation and her choice of priorities has an impact on her partner and the teamwork (“I wish...”). The intensive reflection [required for the portfolio] [...] seems almost impossible. With the 12 teaching hours a week, the young children, [...] etc., I really don’t think I’ll find the time to reflect intensively and do justice to the E-Lingo program. [...] It’s only been 5 weeks, but 5 very overwhelming weeks managing it all. [...] Cathy and I are still working well together. I wish I had more time for her, but I don’t. (DJ 23.11.07) Significantly, Jean does not simply state her lack of time available for group work as a fact, but provides background knowledge and a context that helps her partner understand her situation and personal dilemma and perhaps to elicit sympathy for her situation (i.e. the fact that she feels trapped between the wish to dedicate more time to E-LINGO and her team partner in order to 159 achieve her self-designated, course-related goals and the competing priorities of her private (and professional) life; cf. also 7.2). Analysis of a comment by Jean in her final diary entry proves that both partners were aware of their mutual private and professional priorities and limitations during their teamwork, and had designed the team interactions accordingly. There were, nevertheless, our private and working lives which differed and we were demanded to respect our partner’s ‘other life’ which, I believe, we mastered quite well. (DJ 07.06.09) As the excerpt shows, in retrospect, Jean judges this team development to have been a successful process (“which... we mastered quite well”). The statements of both Jean and Cathy about their personal goals indicate the significance that such comments can have as a means of assisting the cooperative dealings of a virtual group. In the case of the tandem, such statements not only granted the group members insights into their partners’ personal plans (for the course), but also offered them the possibility to become aware of similarities amongst them (see also 5.6.2). Since both Jean and Cathy may have realised in the course of their communication with each other that, for each of them, family matters take priority over work for E-LINGO, they could rest assured in this understanding and support each other, developing cooperation procedures that take these priorities and aims into account. In this context, it is possible for Jean to end a diary entry abruptly, without feeling guilty, by simply writing: I’ll have to continue my diary entry later mommy taxi is being requested to start duty again. (DJ 19.10.07) Because of the previous exchanges with her team partner, we can fairly safely infer that her action will be seen in a favourable light and that she can rely on their mutually agreed understanding that ‘kids come first’ (cf. DJ 07.06.09 above). The following section will now concentrate on the second focus group, the tridem, and the opportunities created by exchanges featuring their individual goals and plans. First let us look at their responses to the second E-LINGO task, S1M1T1S1 (cf. above), which required them to set out their personal aims for the course. Kim gives a very explicit response, in which she lists her general learning goals. 160 What are your learning goals for this M.A. course? - experience - know-how - more “Sattelfestigkeit” 51 and also (life) experience (DK 18.10.07) In a similar way, Gerrit expresses the personal goal he wants to achieve through E-LINGO at the beginning of the course, whilst also outlining his strategy for achieving it. So I hope to renew my knowledge and my skills for the advantage of my future pupils and I’m quite convinced that together with my group we will succeed. (DG 20.10.07; emphasis added) As already noted above, we can see that, for Gerrit, the cooperative group plays a major role in the process of accomplishing his personal learning objectives, as the above comment illustrates (see also 6.1.1. for a treatment of this data excerpt). Interestingly, as is the case with Jean and Cathy, analysis of the tridem’s data excerpts reveals that these participants also provide additional rich detail about their personal aims in statements that they make voluntarily, i.e. that they were not required to write as part of a task. Thus, the participants from both focus groups have volunteered more information than strictly necessary, detailing not only their individual plans, but also, for example, factors they perceive as potential challenges to the fulfilment of their plans (“Und das alles...” 52 ), as well as the ensuing changes to plans (“wird wohl nix” 53 ). The following comment by Kim provides us with a good example of this. Heute ist der zweite Tag der Präsenzphase 1 und ich habe das Gefühl, jetzt fängt die Arbeit richtig an. Tagebuch, Portfolio, Bücher lesen, Unterrichtsideen entwickeln, Klasse suchen, Plattform kennen lernen, ich bin verwirrt! Und das alles mit meinem normalen Alltag von 4 Jobs, Umzug und Privatleben zu vereinbaren wird auch noch einmal eine Herausforderung für sich, mal schauen… wollt’s ja eigentlich erst einmal locker angehen, das wird wohl nix. […] Hoffe, dass mir […] das schnelle Tippen einen kleinen Vorsprung (oder so) geben wird, um die ganze Arbeit rasch und trotzdem gut zu bewältigen. 54 (DK 13.10.07) 51 Sattelfestigkeit = a firm grasp of something 52 Und das alles... = And to arrange all that... 53 wird wohl nix = not going to work out 54 My translation: Today is the second day of face-to-face session 1 and I have the feeling that all the work is really going to start now. Diary, portfolio, reading books, coming up with ideas for lessons, finding a class, getting to know the platform, I’m confused! 161 Here we are also made aware of the fact that Kim has to balance the various challenges she faces (coordinating her private and professional lives, moving house and working in four different jobs) with the E-LINGO course (cf. also 7.2), and so she has decided to try to complete the required work as speedily as possible whilst hoping nevertheless to produce decent-quality results (“rasch und trotzdem gut” 55 ). Another member of Kim’s team, Gerrit, communicates a similar desire. All the team partners already know from their exchanges during the first faceto-face meeting that Gerrit is a full-time teacher at a German primary school (cf. 5.6.1). In the excerpt below he identifies the responsibilities connected with his position as a teacher as a barrier to engaging at length with all the required tasks and facets of the course (e.g. writing an electronic diary). It’s about time to start with entries in my diary again. Having documented my course hand-written in a portable diary ever since, I get down to it and publish as recommended. It’s a good chance as there are autumn holidays now and the burden of a class teacher is gone at the moment. Being a regular teacher you are committed to a responsible profession and time management does not always allow extra time for diary entries. (DG 28.10.08) As can be inferred from this comment, Gerrit’s productivity in the E-LINGO programme is restricted by his commitments to work at school, and, with more time available during the school holidays, he hopes to be able to dedicate himself more to his team and the tasks (cf. 7.2). Gerrit’s personal goal for his work with E-LINGO can therefore be interpreted as being similar to that of Kim’s (cf. above). Again we can see here that essential information beyond the actual message itself, which can have an impact on the group and their dealings with each other, is being made available to his team partners (e.g. about what he sees as his preferences in terms of time management for working on online and team tasks). This information may form the basis for mutual support among the team members, e.g. in planning group work processes to suit Gerrit’s favoured timeframe. It may also help shape realistic expectations within the group (e.g. regarding Gerrit’s contributions to a team prod- And to arrange all that within my normal everyday life of 4 jobs, moving house and private life will also be a challenge in itself, we’ll see... I had actually planned on taking it easy for a start, but that’s not going to work out. [...] I hope that [...] my typing skills will give me a small head-start (or something) to complete all the work quickly but still well. 55 rasch und trotzdem gut = quickly but still well 162 uct). Again, as in Kim’s case, this information is conveyed of Gerrit’s own accord and motivation, without incitement to do so by a task. The third tridem member, Valerie, also makes mention of her personal goals without being prompted to do so. An analysis of her comments reveals that her individual objectives and ambitions differ greatly from those of her two partners. The following data excerpt exemplifies this. I feel like getting nowhere with this course. I cannot improve my grades and my teaching has not changed very much so farat least I don’t see any big changes and there is nobody watching my lessons... [...] The next step is the CARP presentation and today I feel again as if I have no chance to get a good grade (means better than 2,5 56 ). (DV 28.07.08) As the above comment illustrates, Valerie’s chief aim in her work with E- LINGO is to achieve excellent grades in (all) her assignments: “a good grade (means better than 2,5)” (cf. DV 28.07.08 below), which, obviously, is in sharp contrast to Gerrit’s and Kim’s aim of mere ‘survival’ against a background of multiple non-E-LINGO obligations and responsibilities. Several of Valerie’s comments relate the reason for her ambition, i.e. her wish to be accepted as a regular primary school teacher by virtue of her studies with E-LINGO (e.g. DV 13.01.09). As we have already seen, Valerie believes excellent grades to be a major means of achieving this goal (DV 06.02.09; cf. 6.1.2), and, consequently, she feels disillusioned about her future when she feels she is not making enough progress (“feel like getting nowhere”; DV 28.07.08). Sunday evening a teacher from another primary school asked me why I do this and she could not believe that my only reason is to be affirmed as a teacher and allowed to teach on primary level. (DV 13.01.09) In spite of this, while clearly communicating her personal aims and giving a rationale for her ambitions and plans, Valerie’s entries also reflect her sympathy and understanding for the situation that her team partners are in. This can be seen, for example, in one of her diary entries after Gerrit announces that he will be leaving the E-LINGO cohort at the end of his third semester (cf. 5.6.1): And this course is really straining. [...] If I [...] [had] to work full-time every day, I might not have got so far. [...] I really feel sorry [for Gerrit] for I can image that this was a really hard decision, but I understand that he did even without knowing his reasons. I was close to this point myself several times... (DV 13.01.09) 56 2,5 = grade A- 163 The entry reveals Valerie’s understanding for the exigencies of Gerrit’s situation (“is really straining”, “I might not have...”); she voices empathy with him (“really feel sorry”, “I understand”) and does not challenge his decision. What is more, in the context of this reflection, she also informs her readers that she herself has toyed with the idea of quitting E-LINGO at more than one occasion (“I was close...”; cf. section 7.3 for further discussion of this comment). To sum up, as the analysis of the above data would seem to reveal, comments in which the participants share information about their personal aims and plans may assume the function of tools to support a group’s cooperative work. For one thing, these comments may present the participants with the chance to learn something about their team partners’ individual ambitions and goals. During group work dealings, it may give partners the necessary clarity to understand what each individual is/ was thinking and aiming at with his/ her remarks, judgements and reactions to individual steps as well as group work tasks, i.e. to interpret them as they are or were intended. Thus, for example, when they are aware of Valerie’s personal goal to achieve excellent grades, her team partners are more likely to sympathise with her and help her to achieve the grades she is aiming for, whereas to others Valerie might simply appear as being over-ambitious and too critical of herself (cf. also 6.1.2). Valerie’s case demonstrates a further way in which team exchanges on the subject of personal aims can provide fertile ground for group work: her comments reveal that, because of the individual goal she had set for herself, one person’s interpretation of a situation (e.g. a grade) can deviate from what most people (including group members) would assume to be universally valid (i.e. that a grade of 2,5 is not bad). Valerie’s comment, in turn, may present group members with an invitation to convey their own underlying assumptions (which invariably guide a person’s behaviour) to their partners, thus preventing the partners from automatically projecting their own ambitions and assumptions onto each other. As a result, participants are able to engage in a discussion that is grounded in a mutual understanding of each other’s aims and ambitions, resulting in decisions on how to proceed being taken by the whole team, designed to do justice to each member and to reconcile seemingly opposing goals. As discussed above, the tridem managed this challenge very successfully and reached a level of mutual agreement, support and even blind faith in the partners, based on knowledge of each other’s personal plans and goals (and the reasons and motivation for them). 6.2.2 Personal motivation The comments of the participants in which they refer to their personal motivation at a particular point in time provide us with a further source of infor- 164 mation in the domain of self-description that may be regarded as an aid to facilitating cooperation in a virtual environment. Examining the data from this angle, we find a variety of different occasions on which such comments were made. Consequently, the type of support for the teamwork that they can provide differs, as the following section will illustrate. One aspect which immediately becomes evident in the analysis is a connection between participants’ statements describing their motivation and those referring to acknowledgement of personal efforts (cf. 6.1.5). Thus, the question of whether or not the participants’ belief that their individual endeavours have been accorded proper recognition plays a central role in how and whether they experience (and relate to others) their feelings of motivation. This is, for example, expressed in the following comments made by Kim, who on various occasions establishes a clear link between her motivation (i.e. eagerness to engage in the programme) and a tutor-initiated recognition of her work in the form of grades (cf. 6.1.5). I attached one essay here, as I am quite proud that I got a 1,5 for doing it all besides working (hard). [The tutor] praised the content and said that my language is mostly very good this is a great source of motivation to spend my leisure time in front of the PC to work on E-Lingo! (DK 15.11.08 10: 29) The next hand-in [...] was also rated to be good and that did motivate me a lot. (DK 18.11.07 17: 46) That the opposite can also be true, i.e. that negative feedback and experiences can present an obstacle to motivation, can be observed in the following comments by Valerie. This semester has started and I’m a little anxious about receiving the comments on the tasks. I hope that I will keep up my motivation even if I get comments or bad grades I don’t appreciate. (DV 28.10.08) The CARP being not what I expected I feel very frustrated. I’m looking forward to my English Club (English AG) lessons in school but not to my studies anymore. (DV 31.01.08) It can be seen, in the first of the diary entries presented above (DV 28.10.08), tutor feedback and grades that are not in line with personal aspirations (cf. 6.2.1) are identified as forces countering motivation. At the same time, the excerpt demonstrates the participant’s awareness of this negative influence on her motivation and her resulting attempt to consciously control it. The second data source (DV 31.01.08) additionally highlights the fact that there is a connection between personal motivation and personal expectations (cf. 6.2.3). In the case presented above, Valerie’s expectations regarding the results of her 165 CARP were disappointed, resulting in a lack of motivation to continue her studies with E-LINGO. An analysis of the data also reveals that various participants feel positively motivated in spite of their awareness of the potential challenges they will need to face in their upcoming work. Thus, we can assume that their comments suggest that the underlying concept of motivation they refer to is not merely a shallow and transitory burst of enthusiasm or satisfaction, but a deep-rooted eagerness to progress professionally on the path that they have chosen. We can also safely assume that these students believe that true motivation can prevail, even if they are under no illusions about their personal worries, insecurities and fears. The following excerpts from Cathy and Jean are typical manifestations of this attitude: I’m looking forward to doing the CARP next week - my only worry is that the video camera will pack up! I’m not sure yet how to analyse and put everything together afterwards, but one step at a time. (DC 03.01.08 20: 24; emphasis added) My greatest fear still remains the workload, I hope I`ll be able to keep deadlines and make a success of the tasks which have been set. It is a lot of work and a lot to read and study but at the same time I chose this myself so it’s a positive challenge. (DJ 14.10.07; emphasis added) Finally, an analysis of the participants’ comments concerning their personal motivation also uncovered diary entries in which they were applying what could be described as a strategy of self-motivation in situations where they were experiencing feelings of unease and anxiety, as illustrated below. The apprehension of beginning the course alone at home this morning was rather intense. But after having gotten over the first hurdle of trying to open [the tutor’s] message, I certainly do feel better. Keep your cool, Jean, it’ll all work out. (DJ 15.10.07) I’m finding it difficult at times to put my thoughts into concise sentences, grasping for terms and at the moment I’m inclined to waffle on. Reading, rereading and editing my answers repeatedly takes up a lot of time. [...] I wonder what everyone else is up to and if they feel the time pressure like I do? Maybe someone is in chat later on today. (DC 17.10.07) Perceiving a personal lack of motivation, the participants undertook conscious steps to counteract this, as is reflected in the two excerpts from the data above. Participants’ differing reactions illustrate diverse ways in which they dealt with this problem, ranging from what could be called ‘giving a pep talk’ 166 (“Keep your cool...”; DJ 15.10.07) to taking action by politely eliciting sympathy or support from others (“I wonder... Maybe someone...”; DC 17.10.07). A summing up of the examination of the data sources with respect to participants’ statements about their personal motivation reveals a correlation between (tutor) recognition and motivation on the one hand and personal expectations and motivation on the other (cf. 6.1.5; 6.2.3). In one case, factors that diminished motivation were identified as related to internal (i.e. innerpersonal) and external causes (cf. also Dörnyei 2001 with respect to intrinsic and extrinsic sources of motivation). As far as the effect on teamwork is concerned, we find that knowledge of a person’s level of motivation can give the partners valuable insights into that person’s current frame of mind and into how they feel towards their studies (determination, enthusiasm), which, of course, has consequences for group dealings. Statements relating to motivation may furthermore allow the partners a window onto that person’s assessment of their current situation, including all the uncertainties and challenges they envisage, and also into the way in which this situation influenced an individual’s overall outlook on the future. It is through pieces of information like those illustrated in the excerpts above that the partners can receive valuable input as to where their contribution and support may be needed (cf. 6.3). It also seems likely that in the case of Cathy (cf. DC 03.01.08 20: 24 above), the positive attitude that she displays despite her insecurities (“I’m not sure... but one step at a time”; ibid.) stems partly from her knowledge that she will receive team support in precisely those areas since the data analysis tasks are part of the main group work component of the programme, the CARP. 6.2.3 Expectations The following section will discuss selected data in which participants reveal information about their expectations regarding their own work, the cooperative group and the partner(s). It will also examine data excerpts in which they refer to expectations that others have of them, e.g. demands made on them by E-LINGO coursework. One way in which valuable information for the successful functioning of cooperation processes within a virtual team can be conveyed to the individual partners is by discussion of the demands that the course makes on them. The following excerpt is a very good example of this. It refers to task S1M1T1S1 (cited above; cf. 6.1.1; 6.2.1). In response to this task requiring her to reflect on the demands she is presented with, Kim has produced the following list. What demands do you think the course will make on you? Which ones do you think you will find easy to cope with? Which ones do you think you may find difficult? 167 - computer skills should be fine (with the occasional problem coming up...) - time management might be difficult at the beginning, but is should also not be a problem - development of my English looking forward - teaching under new conditions and with various tasks am excited (DK 18.10.07) In a similar way, Jean discusses the demands put upon her, comparing what is expected of her in terms of work for the course and what she believes she will be able to fulfil (cf. 6.2.1 for further discussion of this data excerpt). The intensive reflection [required for the portfolio] [...] seems almost impossible. With the 12 teaching hours a week, the young children, [...] etc. I really don’t think I’ll find the time to reflect intensively and do justice to the E-Lingo program. (DJ 23.11.07) Through statements like these, the partners not only obtain a piece of factual information about the person, but they also gain specific insights into how that person perceives the whole programme (i.e. their motivation; cf. 6.2.2) and which personal strengths and weaknesses they attribute to themselves (cf. 6.1.1). For example, Kim’s partners (cf. DK 18.10.07 above) will have a different level of understanding for her struggling with time issues after having read the above statement. Conversely, her partners will be aware of the fact that they can turn to her for support if they face technical problems. Another data source pertaining to expectations, i.e. comments made by participants with respect to their personal expectations, was found to be potentially of importance to the cooperative partners. Most of these dealt with cases in which personal expectations had failed to be met. Jean, for example, relates her disappointment with the technical equipment after having recorded a CARP lesson. I expected the utterances picked up by the camera to have been clearer. Even though I told the children explicitly to use their quiet voices, and they spoke quietly, it was still too loud to tape the children’s production. (DJ 04.07.08) By way of a statement like the above, the cooperative partners can become aware of Jean’s disappointment with the results using the recording equipment. Additionally, we can detect an indirect plea to her partner not to criticise the condition of her footage. In the knowledge that Jean herself is disappointed with it, her team partner will be more likely to refrain from commenting on the poor quality of the video recording, but will instead assist 168 her in finding a solution to the problem, for example by selecting relevant passages to be transcribed. Finally, comments in which participants express their expectations towards their partners and the group as a whole are obviously of value for the cooperation process. Data excerpts taken from entries by Gerrit and Cathy are presented in the following to illustrate the type of gains that groups may take from such statements (cf. 6.1.1 and 6.2.1 for further discussion of Gerrit’s comment): So I hope to renew my knowledge and my skills for the advantage of my future pupils and I’m quite convinced that together with my group we will succeed. (DG 20.10.07) It is great that Jean and I came up with very similar ideas [...] As of yet there were no critical incidents, I think these will take place during the teaching of the classroom project itself. (DC 09.11.07) When Gerrit states at the beginning of the course that his aim is to gain new knowledge and skills through E-LINGO (cf. DG 20.10.07), and when he explicitly refers to his partners as a ‘tool’ to achieve this (“that together with my group...”), this gives the group a new direction and perspective that might otherwise not have been clear to his partners: in Gerrit’s statement, his team mates can see the vital role he assigns to them in his personal development process. Thus, they come to perceive themselves not simply as his fellow group members in the tasks to be completed, but as critical agents of change, assisting Gerrit to improve his theoretical knowledge and his practical skills. On the other hand, when Cathy’s tandem partner, Jean, reads her statement about possible critical incidents that she is expecting during the implementation of their CARP (cf. DC 09.11.07), this can provide a rich basis for discussing what kind of critical incidents Cathy was thinking of when she wrote her comment. The ensuing exchange has the potential to highlight (mutual) expectations among the partners with regard to their teamwork and the CARP, allowing them to become aware of areas of potential difficulty, but also of common aims and the potential of joint efforts. Through comments on personal expectations, cooperative partners can become aware of what the fellow group members expect of them. However, expectations that are put forward by an individual or a group may not be accepted unquestionably, but may lead to group discussions of each individual’s ability to fulfil these expectations. An ensuing correction of individual expectations, though possibly painful and disillusioning for the individual concerned, can function as a strong foundation for group work which may culminate in a shared team statement and which will promote team spirit. 169 6.3 Professional background and experiences A final source of information that belongs to the domain of self-description and which might be considered as a mechanism to support the cooperative proceedings of virtual teams can be found in participants’ comments about their professional background and experiences prior to their studies with E- LINGO. The following section will identify ways in which selected instances of such descriptions supported cooperation processes within the two focus groups. An analysis of the data in this respect corroborates that all participants mentioned aspects of their individual professional background and experiences in their diaries. Their responses to a sub-part of Task 1 in Module 1 (S1M1T1S1; cf. also 6.1.1; 6.1.3; 6.2.1), close to the beginning of their studies, proved particularly relevant in this context and will be treated in the following. The relevant part of the task is repeated here for ease of reference. Students are asked to make a diary entry and are given the following pointers: If you were to sketch a portrait of your professional development at the beginning of the course, which factors would you include? Where are you now? Where would you like to be at the end of the course? (S1M1T1S1) The ensuing data excerpt illustrates Cathy’s reaction to the task. Notes on task1 My professional development has been continuous from teaching kindergarten to primary education. My most challenging teaching experience so far was teaching handicapped children. Here I found that I had to adjust my lesson plans enormously to adapt to the individual needs of the children and their disabilities. In the years that I have been teaching I have been using the theory of trial and error and what works best for me in the classroom. At this stage I have found that I am often missing the theory to back up my practices. I have been working on my own, basing my practice and methods on personal experience alone. This is one of the reasons why I’m taking this step to further my professional development. (DC 16.10.07) Cathy’s entry suggests that the task has not simply guided her in recapitulating and communicating factual information about her professional career to her readers, but that she has gone through a process of reflection on her own teaching, taking into consideration what her methods were based on, and what this basis was lacking. Consequently, the partners can become aware of one reason why Cathy has decided to enrol in the E-LINGO course, as expressed in her last sentence. 170 The above excerpt from the data illustrates that, by providing a description of herself with regard to her professional background, Cathy is sharing factual knowledge about herself, and in the process of doing so opens up her personal teaching context to her team partner, communicating weaknesses she sees in her current practice and acquainting her readers with her personal wish to change through the course. Thus we find helpful information embedded in what at first sight seems to be a purely factual description, for example information about personal aims (cf. 6.2.1) and about designated areas of personal growth in which her partner’s support will be particularly valued (cf. 6.1.1). The excerpt may further be interpreted as an invitation to her partner to enter into a discussion and reflection of Jean’s own practices and the personal goals she wishes to achieve through the course and the teamwork. Similarly, in Jean’s response to the task (S1M1T1S1; cf. above) we find facts about herself and her professional background (which, of course, may also be of value to her partner, cf. Gerrit below), which then smoothly merge into a personal evaluation of her previous education (“very beneficial”), and which also include her awareness of areas in which she needs to develop further. My professional development was, from 1990-93 in [...] Canada, continual and always very beneficial. Since then I haven’t done much. [...] My only experience with “the little ones” was in my “Chatterbox” group, therefore I’ll need to delve into the field of prim. ed. [primary education] in order to successfully complete the course. (DJ 15.10.07) This excerpt, too, is an example of how important information about an individual can be conveyed to partners through a statement that has a description of a personal professional background as its starting point. Besides learning about a person’s education and training, group members can learn about the personal mindset of that individual, their professional education and how it is evaluated in retrospect, and also witness how they view their qualifications in the light of the new challenge of being an E-LINGO student. As we saw in the case with Cathy, the statement provides valuable pointers to the partners, showing them where someone sees the need for further development (“My only... I’ll need to...”). Jean feels so strongly about this that she regards it as a prerequisite for her to be able to successfully complete the programme. The data excerpt would thus seem to be not merely a case of self-description conveying information about a person’s background: it goes beyond that and may be understood as an (indirect) invitation to the partners, directing their attention to the areas where a person can and would like to profit from the fellow group members and vice versa. 171 The tasks themselves thus gain in significance as they encourage the individuals to reflect on and become aware of the expertise that they bring to the course and that they can contribute to group work, as the following example illustrates. In response to the task S1M1T1S1 (cf. above), Gerrit describes his professional background as his personal strength: My strength in this course, however, is still the experience of teaching English on elementary level. Coming from secondary school English I soon started to prefer teaching to primary school pupils for many reasons. (DG 20.10.07) By thus describing his personal development, Gerrit allows his partners an insight into his curriculum vitae in which he highlights the area of expertise which sets him apart from the other group members. He identifies areas in which the partners can particularly profit from his experience. Since the entry was written after the first face-to-face meeting, where the partners had already exchanged information about their professional backgrounds, it can be stated with certainty that Gerrit was aware of his role as the most experienced teaching professional in his group. His comment may thus be seen as going beyond a pure ‘getting-to-know-you’ statement, drawing the partners’ attention to one specific area in which to build positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1). Various claims have been made here about the cooperative potential of participants’ statements about their professional experiences. It has been suggested that descriptions of areas of personal expertise can contribute to the success of cooperation within a virtual group. That such claims can indeed be sustained, will be illustrated by evidence provided in the following excerpts from the data. If we look first at the tridem, a comment made by Kim at the first face-toface meeting shows that the group members had at this point already become aware each other’s different professional backgrounds. Ich war freudig überrascht davon, wie verschieden wir alle sind, vom Background her und auch vom Alter […] 57 (DK 13.10.07) This piece of information has been subsequently utilised by the group to support their cooperative dealings and has indeed been a major factor in the members’ sense of positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1), which became obvious in the following data excerpt, written by Valerie after Gerrit had left the team to continue his studies with a later E-LINGO cohort (cf. 5.6.1). My dear team partner Kim called today and we talked about an hour. We both feel like drowning in the amount of work. 57 My translation: I was pleasantly surprised how different we all are, in terms of our background and also our age. 172 [...] It would have been interesting to hear an experienced [...] old [hand at teaching] [...] like Gerrit on that... we really miss him. (DV 24.01.09; see 6.3 and 7.3 for further discussion of this data source) Diary entries made by the tandem also provide us with evidence of the cooperative potential of statements describing areas of personal professional expertise. The details of an exchange which took place on first meeting each other, dealing with their professional contexts and the benefits that these bring to the group, are captured in an entry by Cathy on the second day of the first face-to-face meeting. As for my partner, I was so thrilled when I met Jean because we are on the same wavelength, which is the most important factor for me when working as a team. Though we both work in completely different areas that is also an advantage as we’ll both have different perspectives on how to deal and complete the various tasks. (DC 14.10.07) The following entry, written more than a year later, reflects that, in retrospect, Cathy also sees her group’s exploitation of their different professional experiences (and, as a precondition to this, their mutual knowledge about them) as a major influence supporting the group’s work with E-LINGO and the partners’ individual professional development. The excerpt was taken from Cathy’s final diary entry in which she reflects on her teamwork with Jean in the past semesters: The fact that we both worked at different extremes of the educational system, i.e. Jean’s students were aged 17 up, whereas mine started at age 3, provided different perspectives on teaching approaches and methodology. Jean had also done formal teacher training for primary education in Canada and so she was able to source additional theory on relevant topics, where I could provide practical experience. (DC 19.05.09 12: 13) An analysis of comments made by Jean also substantiates this understanding. The following data excerpt reflects how she perceived her group’s success as being dependent on exchanges between herself and Cathy and support derived from their differing areas of expertise and teaching contexts, which emerged as a result of their mutual dissatisfaction with the results of their first CARP. Throughout S2 [semester 2] and S3 we learned to pull on our very different background teaching experiences (Cathy early learners, Jean intermediatesenior) and to share our thoughts more regularly. Unlike CARP 1, we compared the similarities and differences of our contexts of our CARP classes in detail, added new ideas and enjoyed the challenge of voicing our interpreta- 173 tions of various events in the different contexts in order to fully explore our research questions. (DJ 07.06.09) Interestingly, the fact that Jean is looking back over a time span of two semesters in this comment makes clear what has so far only been implicit, i.e. that support of teamwork through statements of self-description can be a lengthy process and that instant positive results cannot automatically be expected. Significantly, Jean herself refers to it as a learning process (“we learned to...”), highlighting also the necessity that conscious efforts be made by the partners (“pull on our different experiences”, “share more regularly”). As we have seen, it is possible to infer from this analysis of participants’ statements about their professional background and career (including their current teaching contexts) that there are several ways in which such statements have supported virtual cooperation. Firstly, they served as indicators for the partners as to areas in which one of the members is lacking in expertise, giving the team partners hints as to where their support would be particularly appreciated or even necessary. Secondly, the statements provided the partners with insights into the personal experiences that each individual member brought to the group and that the partners could have recourse to. The information shared in the data excerpts given here thus functioned as an important source of positive interdependence. Finally, an examination of the data suggested that support of CL through statements in which participants share information about themselves (e.g. with respect to their professional backgrounds and areas of expertise) may take time to develop and is dependent on the conscious efforts and willingness of the partners to share knowledge in order for the group to fulfil its true potential. 175 7 Surmounting digital invisibility in virtual teamwork As set out in detail in chapter 5, the purpose of this study is to understand the conditions under which virtual teamwork is carried out in selected groups of (prospective) foreign language teachers, working together in the context of their studies with a blended learning course. This chapter presents analyses of the data, focussing on one aspect of the cooperative dealings that appeared continuously throughout the data, i.e. practices employed by the participants to overcome the fact that they do not have (regular) face-to-face contact with their cooperative partners. It seeks to understand in which contexts and ways the members of the two focus groups (the tandem: Jean and Cathy, the tridem: Valerie, Kim and Gerrit; cf. 5.6) made use of diary and team-forum entries as a means of support for their fellow group members and for group work as a whole by addressing aspects of importance to the cooperation process that might have otherwise remained ‘invisible’, i.e. not noticeable to the partners. The purpose of analysing these data sources is threefold: a) The analysis provides opportunities to identify different strategies adopted by the participants to overcome the lack of access to face-toface contact in their virtual teamwork (cf. 7.1 to 7.5). b) It seeks to reveal how the participants’ comments can function as a means of supporting the central defining characteristics of CL in virtual teamwork, i.e. positive interdependence and accountability, dealt with in sections 2.3. and 3.2. c) Analysis of the data sources, in conjunction with the findings from chapters 6 and 8, provides a context in which more wide-ranging means to support the cooperative dealings of virtual teams (in foreign language teacher education) can be discussed (chapter 9). 7.1 Making one’s own context explicit In this section I will discuss and compare how the five participants of the focus groups implemented one set of behaviour as a means to share supportive aspects of their cooperative dealings, by revealing information that might have otherwise remained hidden. We have already seen in previous chapters that our participants are both students on a part-time vocational course, and, at the same time, (full-time) educators, wives and mothers (or husbands and fathers), active members of sports clubs, honorary committee members or new owners of a house. The following section will explore these ‘other lives’ 176 (DJ 07.06.09; cf. 6.2.1) of the participants and the way in which they affect the cooperative dealings of the groups. It will seek to identify the diverse means by which the participants shared information about these parts of their lives with their cooperative partners and will discuss ways in which ‘making one’s context explicit’ may be considered a strategy to overcome digital invisibility (cf. 3.3.2) in support of virtual cooperation. Previous data excerpts from diary and team-forum entries which we have looked at have already alluded to a variety of factors influencing E-LINGO coursework and, consequently, the cooperative dealings of the groups (cf. e.g. DK 13.10.07 or DG 28.10.08; both cited in 6.2.1). The following data excerpts show two consecutive diary entries by Gerrit. Looking at the dates at which these were published, it becomes evident that both entries are more than one year apart. It’s Saturday. Nine o’clock. At last I’m here to write in my diary. The last days were very busy so I have to apologize to my dragonflies 58 . But a teacher-parent congregation with fourth-graders must be prepared thoroughly. Their expectations, you know. But I wasn’t idle [in] any way. Lynn Cameron’s book arrived soon and was my steady companion in the breaks I could allow. (DG 20.10.07; emphasis added) It’s about time to start with entries in my diary again. Having documented my course hand-written in a portable diary ever since, I get down to it and publish as recommended. It’s a good chance as there are autumn holidays now and the burden of a class teacher is gone at the moment. Being a regular teacher you are committed to a responsible profession and time management does not always allow extra time for diary entries. (DG 28.10.08) In the case of Gerrit, the comments he made may be seen as fulfilling a function besides informing the readers of his diary about his competing priorities. By explaining in his electronic diary that he had not been able to make regular entries because of his responsibilities as a teacher, which he takes very seriously, and, by saying that he had nevertheless continuously kept a hand-written diary, Gerrit granted his partners insights that might have otherwise been concealed from them. If they had judged exclusively from what was visible to them on the learning platform (i.e. zero entries in Gerrit’s electronic diary for the preceding year! ), they may easily have come to the conclusion that Gerrit’s interest in the mutual reflection process was non-existent. By providing in- 58 “Dragonflies” is the group name that the tridem members gave their group (see also 8.1) 177 sights into his ‘non-electronic life’ through his comment (DG 28.10.08), Gerrit is able to counteract this perception. He expresses this, too, for example, when he explicitly points out what he has been working on during a period in which he made no entries on the learning platform, combined with a detailed description of the circumstances which had prevented him from contributing. In this way, Gerrit may be attempting to ward off misunderstandings and to reassure his readers that, even if he is not ‘visible’ in the virtual space, his actions have always been guided by the principles of positive interdependence and accountability (cf. 2.3.1; 2.3.2). As we have also seen in previous entries from several data sources, the professional careers of the participants, which they are pursuing parallel to E- LINGO, assume an influential role. In particular, the participants’ dependence on school holidays in order to successfully tackle their coursework becomes evident. Valerie describes the multifaceted nature and unpredictability of being in this situation very vividly. She also refers to the consequences this has for her E-LINGO work and thus the time she can spare for her team partners. School has started and I’m covered with work [...] [filling in] for one teacher in Sachunterricht 59 and doing all by myself, again. English AG started, too. There were so many requests that I decided to divide the group: [...] And there have been requests for English AG in third grades and even in first grade! [...] The last weeks in school kept me very busy with the assessment [...] of the new first-graders [...] We hope to get an answer on how long the teacher I’m [...] [filling in for] will be ill and start planning the next topics. So my mind is set to many other things but E-lingo [...] at the moment and I start fearing the days when I have to squeeze in the course-tasks into the workload from school. And I [will] have to [...] [cover] more lessons [in] the next weeks. Having [...] two days [of overtime] already not knowing when to [take time off to use them up] [...] (DV 16.09.08) In a similar way, Cathy indicates to her partner that the time she has had to dedicate to her professional commitments over a particular period has prevented her from engaging fully in the course. So it’s been a long time since my last entry. September and October have been my busiest in a long time. My language classes and school took quite an amount of time to organise this year due to the number of children wanting to take part in English lessons. (DC 21.10.08 09: 27) Similarly to Gerrit’s entry (above), Cathy makes clear that long periods of electronic inactivity are not to be equated with indifference or lack of interest, but are caused by her work commitments outside of E-LINGO. 59 Sachunterricht = General Studies 178 While Cathy’s entry explains in retrospect the effect her work as a language teaching professional has been having, the analysis of the data sources also revealed evidence of cases in which the participants communicated information about prospective future occurrences, both private and professional, which they feared could have a detrimental effect on their teamwork, thus once again allowing insights onto a key dimension of influence on the virtual group work that partners might otherwise remain unaware of. The following excerpt from Jean’s diary illustrates this. Wednesday, January 8, 2008 Happy New Year - Here we go again. What’s in store this year? How will I deal with all the adventures: a whole year of E-Lingo, a trip to Zamosc with the students of the [...] [vocational school], a visit from my parents and nephew in the summer including a trip to Austria, oh, là, là keep the perspective, enjoy the challenge of the good times to come. (DJ 09.01.08) Jean begins the New Year by outlining a plan for future arrangements in the private and professional domain that might affect her course work and the group work. Her description captures nicely the feeling of being torn between the burden of competing responsibilities on the one hand (“How will I deal...? ”) and positive excitement about mastering the challenges on the other (“enjoy the challenge...”). A positive outlook in the face of competing priorities in the areas of family life (“my 7-year-old”), professional teaching career (“get my lessons prepared”) and her E-LINGO work (“researching and writing”) is also expressed in the following data excerpt by Cathy. Reality sets in! Suddenly I find myself researching and writing until the early hours of the morning, whilst trying to get my lessons prepared. At the same time I’m trying [to] muster the energy and enthusiasm to complement my 7year-old on her latest invention. However the thrill of the course topics outweighs the workload. (DC 23.11.07; emphasis added) As both data sources reveal, sharing information about one’s context may not only serve the function of defending or justifying one’s reasons for missed opportunities for cooperation; it can also serve as a means of expressing enthusiasm and delight - which may even prove infectious. A link to ‘personal motivation’ and in particular to ‘self-motivation’ (cf. 6.2.2), which falls in the domain of ‘sharing information about personal goals, plans and expectations’ with partners (cf. 6.2) can evidently be inferred. It has been suggested above that the use of statements in which the participants describe their own personal context can be interpreted as one means to support virtual group work by way of overcoming what has been termed ‘digital invisibility’. The following data excerpts provide positive confirmation for 179 this hypothesis, as they confirm that the participants are not simply sharing the information about private and professional commitments for its own sake, but that they are doing this with the purpose of addressing their partners and managing the group work process. This can be clearly observed in the following entries made by Gerrit and Kim. Well, now concerning our task I think we should proceed step by step. Till Feb 4th we should agree on a list of five criteria for the evaluation of course materials. I will send this list till Jan 30th. Our Carp hand-in will be due on Feb 12th. I’m glad to have holidays from Feb 2nd to Feb 10th. So I’ll send you my analysis till Feb 7th. This will interfere with Fasching 60 here a lot. But I’ll be solid and think only of E-lingo. Hope it will work. (T-FG 2008-01-21 23: 53: 50) I will start preparing this Friday and will work hard Fri/ Sat. I’ll probably need more time, thus I’ll probably be late, but I cannot do more than work and study at the same time... You see, I’m quite relaxed. : ) Of course I try hard to work together with you 2 perfectly well and make sure you don’t feel any disadvantages... let me know if anything annoys you... (T-FK 2008-11-25 19: 39: 57) In the first example, Gerrit tells his partners about his school holidays, but makes it absolutely clear how he will use this time to contribute to their teamwork hand-in and make sure it is ready on time (“we should agree... So I’ll send...”). In the second example, Kim demonstrates her awareness of her partners’ needs as well as her own personal responsibilities in maintaining positive interdependence. She directly addresses her group members, asking them to inform her about any negative effects on the group’s positive interdependence that her non-E-LINGO work might have. The preceding sections have outlined actions of the participants that can be interpreted as fulfilling the function of overcoming the effects of ‘digital invisibility’ and have discussed the cooperative potential that such actions for those involved in virtual cooperation might have. The following paragraphs will provide insights into the effect that the use of such strategies had on the group members. I am aware that such instances can only illustrate or hint at the beneficial effects that behaviours such as ‘sharing information about one’s own context’ can have and that this can by no means be regarded as ‘proof’ of their necessity. Nevertheless, we have solid grounds to infer from the evidence presented in the following examples that such information was indeed received by the partners and exploited for the ensuing cooperation process. 60 Fasching = German carnival festivities 180 With regard to the tridem, an analysis of the data reveals that the partners are aware of each other’s contexts, and make direct reference to them in their communications. In the example below, Gerrit integrates previous diary comments made by his partners, Valerie and Kim, about their private (Kim) and occupational (Valerie) contexts into a message, the primary objective of which is to discuss the research question and hypotheses for CARP III. To fully understand the import of this message, it should be noted that Kim had previously indicated that she was not feeling well and Valerie had related her feelings of satisfaction with the first CARP arrangements in the classroom, the successes of her past teaching experiences and the joint work that the tridem had already done in preparation for the CARP. It is further important to note that the team had decided to address the topic of ‘routines’ as the focus of their CARP. Hi dragonflies! How are you? It’s good that you are in high spirits Valerie and thanks for your supportive comment on rq and hypos [research question and hypotheses]. I think it’s of great advantage that you don’t have to assess the students by giving them marks. I hope you are feeling fine again Kim. There seems to be real winter [in your place] [...] and catching a cold might be a routine (: -) for you around those times. Anyway thanks a lot for tips and good comments on my outline. [...] Here my comments: [...] (T-FG 2008-11-01 14: 08: 51) As the message illustrates, both dimensions (the group work and the private sphere outside E-LINGO) are tightly interwoven in Gerrit’s comments and are mentioned several times within the same sentence (“high spirits... comment on rq...”, “catching a cold... routine”). Thus, we can infer that this is not simply a message discussing the cooperative work of the group. In it, Gerrit consciously integrates his knowledge about his partners’ ‘other lives’ (cf. DJ 07.06.09 in 6.2.1), indicating that for him both dimensions are an integral part of the group’s work, influencing and shaping the team’s cooperation processes. Another means to combat digital invisibility was revealed by an examination of examples of data taken from the entries made by the members of the tandem. These samples lend support to the idea that information about one’s private and occupational context can be shared not only by the medium of electronic messages (such as posting entries in the team-forum), but also by way of non-electronic communication channels. Analysis reveals that the partners of the tandem communicated a wealth of information about their 181 mutual contexts through telephone conversations 61 and face-to-face communications. As an example of the former, a data excerpt in which Cathy makes explicit mention of a previous telephone call can be cited. CARP 2 was a huge success, it took the whole of the summer for this to sink in. Jean and I spoke on the phone and were both so relieved and happy that we nailed it! ! Jean’s parents came to visit the week after the presentation and she proudly presented our powerpoint presentation to them. (DC 21.10.08 09: 27) The excerpt further illustrates that Cathy is aware of her partner’s purely private matters (i.e. Jean’s parents coming to visit), and that she also understands how Jean feels about the preceding group work. What is more, the excerpt also tells us that an exchange must have occurred in which the partners compared their mutual impressions and realised that they both felt the same (“and were both...”); the ensuing awareness of their compatibility being one pillar of their positive interdependence (cf. 2.3.1). The following data sample refers to a further non-electronic communication channel by means of which the tandem partners shared information about their respective contexts. Cathy and Jean were fortunate enough to have occasional opportunities for face-to-face contact (cf. 5.6.2), and so it was only natural for them to make use of these meetings to share significant information that would not normally be visible in the electronic space. The following excerpt by Jean makes this clear: Cathy and I both prepared our working notes [...] for the Sat. Jan. 17th meeting [...] (at her place). We started off with a cup of coffee and, as usual, a talk about “raising children.” Of course, Cathy’s husband joined us and shared his ideas on the matter. As most parents, we too, need to exchange a few thoughts now and again about this most demanding part of our lives. I’ve attached Cathy’s comments about our day together (9: 00 am- 4: 00 pm): “That was good huh! ! We done good huh! ! But thank goodness we have some relaxing time to look forward to tonight, birthdays, dinners... Attached are the adjustments we discussed: [...] Thanks partner for your *cooperative skills* and positive bubbly personality. You make working together all the more fun. : -)” I appreciate Cathy’s comment, but of course, it takes two to make it work. We [are] both happy about the deadlines we’ve set, the data we collected and the conclusions we were able to come up with. (DJ 22.01.09) 61 I am aware that the distinction between electronic and non-electronic means of communication, with telephone conversations being part of non-electronic communications, might - with the increasing popularity of electronic telephoning media like Skype - not generally hold true. However, since the group decided on using telephone conversations, this distinction was made here. 182 The data excerpt exemplifies that during face-to-face meetings, information need not be explicitly communicated, but is naturally perceived as part of the surroundings (i.e. the fact that Cathy’s husband is present). In virtual teamwork that relies exclusively on electronic communication, this kind of information, which, as can be seen here, can have a uniting effect on the team partners (cf. 2.3), will remain invisible unless explicitly stated. Needless to say, a message written by one person (and consequently seen through the lens of their perception and conveyed without the aid of, for example, body language or signs of empathy) can never be a substitute for first-hand experiences perceived in all their detail and variety (cf. 3.3). Nevertheless, as the excerpt shows, a certain amount of information dealing with personal contexts must have been explicitly communicated, since it could not have become automatically visible (e.g. “some relaxing time...”). The extract further shows that the partners must have consciously communicated about their cooperation, and that they perceived each other’s strength as a support for group work (“That was good...”, “Thanks partner...”, “it takes two...”). As in the first excerpts, they had the opportunity to find out about shared similarities (“We are both...”). Finally, the excerpt illustrates how the partners exploited the available communication media to serve their cooperation processes (cf. also 7.5): Cathy’s comments that Jean refers to (“I’ve attached...”) are not part of the team’s platform communication and thus have presumably been exchanged via private email. The fact that it is quite natural for Jean to integrate these comments here into her diary entry supports the assumption that the team’s chosen communication media have an intrinsic value for her. In sum, an analysis of selected data samples has illustrated in which ways participants sought to bridge the gap between their actions in the virtual learning space (such as electronic diary entries, communication in the teamforum, private emails) and those that cannot be captured in their virtual presence. We have seen that the participants consciously conveyed information about their private and professional lives to their partners in order to foster feelings of positive interdependence and accountability among all the group members. By allowing their partners insights into areas that would otherwise have remained hidden, participants signalled that their absence from the virtual messaging channels did not automatically signify an unwillingness to collaborate with the group. However, we have also seen that insights into one’s own context are not always exclusively conveyed by electronic media, but might well indeed be supported by non-electronic or face-to-face communication among the group members, where possible. 183 7.2 Connections, interrelationships and dependences: private lives, professional careers and E-LINGO A careful study of Valerie’s diary entries gave rise to an examination of the data from a different angle. It transpired that the purpose of several of her entries was not exclusively to make her non-E-LINGO context explicit to her readers, and thus these data samples could not be categorised under the heading of section 7.1. In fact, in these entries, Valerie was doing more than simply describing her context, she was putting various contexts in relationship to each other, outlining connections and ways in which one determined the other, and in which decisions taken in one context were shown to have a major effect on others. This inspired a reassessment of the data with a new category for this strategy (the interconnectedness and holistic nature of the various private, professional and other contexts), the results of which will be set out in the following section. The first data example presented is an excerpt taken from an entry by Valerie. This is going to take more time than I have. I hardly get all the tasks done. I have to work ahead because there are very busy weeks ahead of me [...]. I have to improve my English. But I do not have the time to do this. The morning hours are busy with my school jobmany teachers [...] [have caught] a cold and I have to [fill in] a lot (today our car broke down and I had to walk 45 minutes to get there). In the afternoon I have my [...] [private tuition] students or my PE groups. I cannot give up these. If I do not give the PE [...] [lessons], my licence will run out and this is one of the reasons why I have the job at school. If I quit more [...] [private tuition] students, I will not have enough money for the books for this course... And in the evening I have to do my housekeeping [...] (DV 14.11.07) In her comment, Valerie conclusively demonstrates that she is in thrall to various kinds of conflicting responsibilities (and emotions), and that these indeed influence each other and are interdependent. We can see that Valerie is thus able to communicate that it is not easy for her to make changes in any one area, for example improving her performance, although, as becomes evident, she is well aware of the unfavourable influences she is exposed to and of the ways in which she should seek to control them. This is apparent in her comment that she knows she needs to make more time for E-LINGO (“more time than...”), for example by reducing the number of private lessons she gives. However, she is also aware of the fact that this would result in a loss of the income she so badly needs to pay for the course (“If I quit...”). 184 Valerie’s comment captures vividly what is true for all university students and perhaps particularly for students of further education courses, i.e. that participants are not a ‘blank sheet of paper’ (Lortie 1975), isolated from the outside world in an ivory tower with no history with or connections and obligations to the world outside their studies. This is all the more true for a parttime course structured in the format of blended learning, like E-LINGO, where participants have the opportunity to study from their homes within their own time frame, while still being able to do their regular jobs. If there is to be successful cooperation within a group in such a situation, it is vital that group members give regular updates on their private and professional contexts and their interconnectedness. In the following entry, written about six weeks after the one above, Valerie does exactly this: I made up my mind not to give up this course even if I have to face these difficultiesincluding the money (right now I’m waiting to have enough money on my account to pay the fees for the course and the GB courseboth are due this month and I do not have the money for one of them right now). (DV 27.12.07) An analysis of the data samples shows yet another manifestation of the holistic nature of various constraints. This is the participants’ necessity to comply with external requirements. The following excerpts, again taken from Valerie’s entries, make plain that there is further pressure that Valerie has to acknowledge besides “[t]he triple stress of studying, working and” her private life (DV 17.12.08). This added dimension, as she explains to her partners on various occasions, is not something which she has imposed upon herself, but is a requirement imposed upon her: the need to attain excellent grades in her studies in order to be granted a full-time position as a teacher at a state school. We are already familiar with this aspect of Valerie’s motivation (cf. for example section 6.2.2), but this entry sums everything up nicely - Valerie’s wish to dedicate more time to work on the course in conflict with the other constraints she is struggling with. I need somebody [...] listening to my ideascorrecting my intonation etc...! Maybe I really have to cope with it the way it is now (trying not to think about teacher students receiving a job only if their final grade is 1,3 62 or better...) This weighs heavy on my mind, because I love to teachand especially to teach English. (DV 16.09.08) The excerpt also clearly illustrates how strongly this clash of conflicting responsibilities is affecting her performance in these areas, and also her frame of mind and outlook for the future. Not surprisingly, analysis of the data re- 62 1,3 = grade A 185 vealed that such interrelationships between private life, career, the expectations of others and coursework do have repercussions on the cooperative work of the participants. A typical example of this as it occurs in the data is the negative effect of the constraints imposed by the respective academic calendars (cf. Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003) on the teamwork process. Reading the following extract, it is important to note that Valerie does not generally complain about group work, restricting herself to referring to challenges regarding time management. Working in our team is difficult, like it always was, concerning time management. While I have vacation and would like to get on with the CARP task, the other two are very busy in school and cannot work on it now. I have made several suggestions for topics but have problems finding supporting literature. [...] I hope we get to a point [...]. I planned the next couple of weeks in school (Monday school starts again) and would like to do that for my two English AGs as well, but [I] can’t without knowing how much time to spare for CARP, and what vocab to establish. (DV 23.10.08) What we see in this excerpt is that, on the one hand, negative influences originating in the work schedules of the partners are at work here. On the other hand, it provides a first insight into the mutual dependence of the team partners, which is closely linked to their accountability (cf. 2.3.2): in order for one partner - let alone the group - to succeed (i.e. conduct a successful CARP), the combined efforts of all the members (for example, agreeing on a common CARP research question) are indispensable. By giving the partners information about her personal working context (“I have vacation”) before asking for a team decision, Valerie makes her subliminal conflict of interest visible. In this way, she is able to set the context in which her request is to be interpreted, warding off wrong interpretations of her as being impatient or as unnecessarily pressurising her partners. In the following excerpt, Jean also relates why, in retrospect, she was not always able to live up to her partner’s expectations. There were, nevertheless, our private and working lives which differed and we were demanded to respect our partner’s ‘other life’ which, I believe, we mastered quite well. Due to my teaching obligations, ½ time teaching position, my 2 G8 63 children and my husband, I was unable to work as quickly as Cathy and regretted having to have put her in the waiting position. I greatly appreciated during this time knowing that I had complete support from my tutor when he said “children come first.” (DJ 07.06.09) 63 G8 = a ruling brought in to allow certain German schools to teach the curriculum to A-Levels (Abitur) in eight instead of nine years 186 As in Valerie’s case, Jean mentions the external demands upon herself and also outlines their holistic nature and how, in their entirety, they have affected her contribution to the collaboration of the group (“I was unable...”). In this way, Jean’s partner, Cathy, can become aware of the complex interaction between the different ‘work spaces’ she is operating in, which allows her to recognise Jean’s quandary. She becomes aware of the fact that Jean’s seemingly unfavourable group behaviour is not fuelled by a negative attitude towards the group, but simply a result of the demands that her various responsibilities exercise on her (cf. 6.2.1 for additional treatment of this data source). Jean herself stresses this by highlighting the regret she felt for the unfortunate group work situation. Additionally, she refers to the encouragement of tutor support, which reveals the importance of this link - understanding that the tutor is aware of her conflicting responsibilities and that he supports her decision to prioritise them. Closely connected to this feeling of dependence on external authorities is another area of influence on the teamwork that was, perhaps surprisingly, mentioned frequently in the data samples: the group’s dependence on tutor feedback. Tutor feedback is in this case not to be defined in terms of grades, as above (cf. 6.1.4; 6.2.2), but is to be understood as the answers of the tutor in reply to the participants’ questions and concerns and as tutor approval of teamwork plans, especially with respect to the CARP. Evidence from data taken from postings in the tridem’s team-forum will serve to illustrate this point. The exchange was initiated while the team was anxiously waiting for a message from their tutor stating whether their CARP plans had been approved. The first of the original eight messages is written by Valerie, stating explicitly in what ways and why the delayed response will affect her duties at school the next day: in view of the lack of tutor feedback for the CARP, Valerie is unsure if she can carry out her lessons as planned and therefore asks her partners for help. Hi dragonflies, [...] But we did not get an answer from [the tutor] yet. So- Do you think he approved [of] our idea? I definitely have to decide tomorrownext lesson is on Tuesday and if I want to copy material like I planned to, I have to do this on Monday. [...] I’m waiting for your opinion what to do. (T-FV 2008-11-22 14: 25: 04) The first reply from Valerie’s team partner, Kim, appears on the platform hardly an hour after the original message was posted and the third team member, Gerrit, replies on the next day. Kim makes a suggestion as to how to proceed and both partners provide Valerie with words of encouragement and 187 sympathy, highlighting the fact that they share her feelings. Kim’s message additionally gives evidence of her empathy for Valerie, as when she presents various options she has thought of concerning ways in which Valerie could react to the tutor feedback. Dear Valerie, I am also getting nervous about [our tutor] not replying... [...] I thought I wait with the planning until he replies, but how long can I wait...? ? [...] I would say you start with your lesson and I’m sure that [he] does like our idea generally. If he wants us to change details, you can still do it, or write in the outline why you did what you did then everything should be fine. Don’t worry too much I’d say. (T-FK 2008-11-22 15: 20: 32) Dear dragonflies, How are you? First of all, we are not to blame for any delay concerning CARP and I feel for Valerie who is doing a great job [...] and gets into time pressure now. I also don’t like to work under time pressure [...]. (T-FG 2008-11-23 10: 12: 45) Having finally received the tutor’s feedback, both Valerie and Kim express their concerns and nervousness at the tutor’s comments: while Kim gives no reasons for this, Valerie makes clear that she disagrees with some of the suggestions made by their tutor. As if to make sure that her partners understand the difficulty of her situation due to the conflicting demands made upon her by her private, professional and E-LINGO lives, Valerie concludes by informing them that she will not be online that evening because she is receiving guests and that, additionally, she has just received a phone call asking her to cover six lessons the following day (T-FV 2008-11-23 18: 41: 04). In this context, a peculiar notion of the issue of virtual presence (cf. 3.3.2) can be observed. While in face-to-face groups, participants generally set apart specific times during which they meet and work together, Valerie’s entry reflects that in virtual cooperation, there might be a tacit expectation that the team partners are electronically ‘present’, and thus available for group work, as often as they can be. This is an issue which requires further research. Gerrit’s reply to the messages by his partners concerning the tutor feedback is presented below. 188 Dear Valerie, dear Kim! You really seem to be quite upset the way things are going. And we wanted to play it cool and easy this time. Well, really, what happened? [The tutor] wrote some minor comments to our CARP. That’s his job and he can’t and shouldn’t do without. [...] Everything he said is still ok with our plan. (T-FG 2008-11-23 21: 21: 52) In Gerrit’s reply, we see him attempting to comfort his partners. He takes their anxiety seriously, but explains why, in his opinion, there is no need to worry. He shares with them his interpretation of their tutor’s comments and puts them in a different light in an effort to reunite the team and restore the shared goals. For one thing, the exchange above demonstrates once again the previously mentioned challenge presented by the mismatched academic calendars causing disruption of the teamwork process. For another, the extracts are remarkable in that they contain various examples of the participants communicating their respective contexts to each other as one means to overcome digital invisibility (cf. 7.1) and by showing interdependences between decisions they (have to) make in various areas. They are also remarkable in that they provide proof for the assumption that such exchanges can be seen to operate as agents of support in virtual cooperation, since the communication between the team partners leads in the present case to an exchange about various aspects of CL, making explicit the existence of positive interdependence and accountability among the team members. So far in this section we have identified various ways in which competing priorities in the participants’ private and working lives have influenced each other and the resulting teamwork. A major conclusion to be drawn from these insights is illustrated in one Jean’s diary entries. As we can surmise from previous entries, Jean frequently struggled with technical issues during her coursework. In her very first diary entry she pointed out that media competence, coupled with research-related concerns, was not her strongest point: Some difficulties might be gathering the “right” information to support my arguments (finding it, sorting it). At the end of the course, I’d like to be able to improve my observation and analysis skills in order to make my lessons more effective. I’d also like to be more confident when working with the media equipment. (DJ 15.10.07) A data sample written towards the end of her studies reveals the central role that clarification and resolution of such dependences should occupy. 189 CARP 3: Short Literary Texts- Children’s Rhymes I was able to design ‘on my own’ part of the CARP 3 powerpoint presentation on Thurs. Jan. 15 and sent it to Cathy for her feedback [...]. I used the theory from the ‘Medienpädagogik’ 64 workshop which I attended back in December and managed to set up 4 pages and to move pictures from the stored area to the pages for the PPP [powerpoint presentation] and the handout. Now that the research aspect of the CARPs is clearer, I feel ready to move on to mastering the technical IT aspect of E-LINGO. (DJ 22.01.09; emphasis added) In the entry above, Jean reviews the team’s group work on the last CARP, and in particular her own successful individual attempts at creating slides for the team presentation. Crucially, in the ensuing reflection of this event, she makes clear that unresolved and more urgent commitments (in this case related to the research components of the programme) had kept her from improving her technical skills (“Now that...”). Hence, we can conclude that not all the various demands imposed on the participants are equal in status, but should rather be ranked at different levels of urgency, with more fundamental necessities being prioritised whilst slightly more marginal matters can be addressed later. We can assume that competing needs were subjected to a similar order of precedence in Valerie’s case, although this is not quite so clearly expressed as with Jean. We have already seen that Valerie was struggling with language issues (cf. e.g. 6.1.4). However, the above excerpts have also shown us that she was simultaneously trying very hard to cater for a multitude of interdependent, competing claims on her time and energy in order to create enough space for her daily coursework. From an analysis of all her entries we can infer that in her case, too, an order of precedence for these competing needs existed: only after she had been able to identify her time issues as a barrier to further progress with the course and resolve to deal with them, could Valerie finally find herself in a position to dedicate herself to working on the language issues she was facing. The following data excerpts and the order in which they were published in Valerie’s diary also suggest this interpretation. I learned something very difficult these days: To say NO. I had to quit two [...] [private tuition] students and said no to a couple of other activitieseven though that means a loss in money. I need all the time I have to get this course done. It takes a lot more time than I thought it would. (DV 12.11.07) My last essay was corrected by [both tutors] with the same result: contents good to very good, language not - sums up to 2,5. I have to get used to that grade. (DV 27.12.07) 64 Medienpädagogik = Media Education 190 I notice how much time this is going to take. I fear I have to cut down many of my other activities. (DV 26.10.08) This semester went much better than the ones before. This is stressed by [my tutor’s] comments, too. Maybe I really did not know so much in the beginning and did learn much more than I thought. (DV 06.02.09) The data analysis presented in this section has highlighted the holistic nature and interconnectedness between various aspects of the participants’ private lives, professional careers and their group work. It has demonstrated how such interdependences came about, and it has shown the influences that this had on teamwork (the effect that specific media-related dependences had on cooperation within the two focus groups and strategies to counteract these will be treated in a separate section; cf. 7.5). One important conclusion that can be drawn from this is that a person’s actions, in particular those carried out in virtual teamwork, might not always appear to conform to the principles of CL (cf. 2.3). However, as our data has also shown, this type of behaviour is frequently not a matter of personal choice, but is forced on a group member by external factors (such as school authorities or mismatched academic calendars). Thus, we may conclude that one means to overcome this form of digital invisibility in virtual teamwork is explaining these interdependences, the reasons for them and the consequences resulting from them, explicitly to all the partners in a group. 7.3 Communicating views on the partners and the group The following section will address another behaviour utilised by the partners that can help virtual teams to overcome aspects of their digital invisibility. Data analysis identified diverse ways in which the participants communicated, in particular, their positive feelings and views about the group as a whole, the individual members and cooperation within the team. As we shall see, these functioned as a means to prove or reconfirm to the team partners the existence of positive interdependence and accountability - key knowledge that is relevant to ensure the functioning of CL, but that might not have been evident to the partners in the online learning environment. In contrast to previous sections, the following section will therefore address the explicit and direct manifestation of features of positive interdependence and accountability and will attempt to categorise them. An examination of the data that showed participants explicitly expressing positive CL feelings revealed a first category, i.e. expressions of thankfulness or praise of accomplishments of the team or of one of the partners. In many cases this was accompanied by statements expressing pride in the partners, 191 the cooperative work or the group work product, as in the following examples. CARP 3 a huge success, it was such a thrill to nail this one. Thanks Jean. We did it, we stayed focussed. (DC 19.05.09 12: 11) My very dear dragonflies, thank you for this term. I really think we are a gorgeous team (T-FV 2008-12- 21 13: 56: 04) In writing these messages, the participants were not simply conveying positive feelings that can motivate their partners and that acknowledge the efforts they have made; they were also underlining which central role each partner had for the success of the team as a whole. In this way, comments conveying praise and thankfulness may be viewed as reminders to the team members of what the group is capable of if the partners all pull together and utilise their individual strengths, which might thus lift the team’s spirit and concentrate their efforts to achieve the shared goal. One way in which Cathy and Valerie express this is by way of short, enthusiastic outbursts at a team success, as the examples above illustrate (cf. also DC 21.10.08 09: 27 and DJ 22.01.09; both cited in 7.1). For Jean and Kim, one important way of voicing praise and gratefulness is to make reference to the positive nature of the group’s working styles. I have to say that I cannot imagine to work in a better tridem than mine. We work together so well, every opinion is considered and included in our decisions, there is no “fighting” and everybody has his/ her specialities that he/ she uses to create a satisfying and good product. Coming up with a rq [research question] this semester was really great. As I said above, it all went so smoothly and even when somebody is short on time, the others keep on working it out to assist the stressed member... (DK 15.11.2008 10: 34) Maintaining continual contact is easy with Cathy and I consider this one of my strong points. Our discussions are, in most cases, very fruitful and enable both of us to think further or spark new questions or concerns about the research project. For example, our collaborative discussions while deciding on the direction of the research question were motivating and encouraging to continue the project. We often provide each other with references to literature and module units while planning the RQ [research question] and the hypotheses. We are able to openly question each other’s suggestions which in turn help widen and deepen the exploration of the RQ field. The tandem work during the CAR [classroom action research] is a valuable tool for teacher-researchers. (DJ 28.05.08) 192 In both comments above we can see that Kim and Jean are explicitly stressing the profound consequences that such positive interdependence and accountability has on the processes and outcome of the cooperation (e.g. “create a satisfying...”, “enable both of us...”, “help widen and deepen...”). In addition, Kim’s entry makes explicit mention of the heterogeneity of her team (cf. 2.3.6) and, importantly, in conjunction with this the equality of the contributions of each member of the team as a basis on which the team’s positive interdependence is built (“everybody has...”, “there is no...”). Interestingly, as the examples also illustrate, such statements (and the preliminary reflection of the cooperation which goes with them) are made by participants with or without them being prompted to do so by a task. In the case of Kim’s diary entry, it was made without her mentioning a requirement to comment on group work. It might be assumed that the entry resulted from her enthusiasm about the team (work), and that she wrote it down in order to remember it and share it with her readers. Jean’s comment, by contrast, was made in response to a task guiding the participants in their preparations for CARP II, part of which requires them to make individual notes in their diaries on aspects of the CARP that they personally expect to find easy (S2M3U1T1). Besides remarks about teamwork processes, illustrated by the above comments, examination of the data also revealed another way in which participants highlight the existence of positive interdependence to their partners, i.e. by stressing the similarities between each other. The following two examples demonstrate this. As for my partner, I was so thrilled when I met Jean because we are on the same wavelength, which is the most important factor for me when working as a team. Though we both work in completely different areas, that is also an advantage as we’ll both have different perspectives on how to deal and complete the various tasks. (DC 14.10.07) Hi Jean, as promised the combined copy of our views and thoughts on “time as a determining factor” (including the Answer Key from this step) great minds think alike! ! ! (T-FC 2008-12-16 18: 46: 53; emphasis added) Both statements highlight the role that the compatibility of the partners plays in the success of their joint efforts (cf. 2.3.6). The dates on which the entries were made indicate that it is possible to make such statements at any stage of the group work, irrespective of the partners’ knowledge of each other (the diary entry was made shortly after Jean and Cathy had just met, the teamforum entry in semester 3). In both cases, strong positive group feelings are communicated, which, it can be assumed, might not otherwise have been evident to this extent to the cooperative partners. The statements may thus be 193 viewed as one aspect of the participants’ attempts to support their group work by overcoming digital invisibility, and, in this way, supporting feelings of positive interdependence and accountability in virtual space. The former excerpt further illustrates Cathy’s understanding of the positive role that heterogeneity of group members can play in determining positive interdependence (cf. also 6.3 for further treatment of this excerpt). On other occasions, the group-related feelings of an individual member, which might have otherwise gone unnoticed, were expressed even more specifically, with respect to the individual areas of expertise of the other members. Examples of this include, for example, making explicit mention of the beneficial effects of a member’s professional expertise, his/ her contributions to team work, research skills and working habits, as well as any other talents which have gradually been discovered. The following excerpts are an illustration of the variety of forms that such statements can take. It would have been interesting to hear an experienced [...] old [hand at teaching] [...] like Gerrit on that... we really miss him. Now there are several team tasks to do, the opportunities to recognise his contributions and abilities occur often. Half an hour ago I received the invitation for the last face2face meeting in mid February. [...] Right now I feel like I might burst into tears if I have to announce that Gerrit left usgosh that sound like he’s dead ... (DV 24.01.09; cf. 6.3 for further discussion of this data source) Cathy is doing the CARP 3 with her kindergarten children this week and next. I’ve planned my filming dates for Wed. Dec 10 and Thurs. Dec. 11. I’m quite happy that Cathy is going to film for me - she definitely knows what to watch for. (DJ 11.11.08) Hi Jean, thanks for your speedy responses always, I think we’re well on track. (T-FC 2007-10-19 20: 47: 06) Hi Cathy, I just printed out your works of art super idea and fantastic pictures. I didn’t know that you were so artistically talented. [...] Talk to you soon, very soon. PS I’m not much of a drawer. It’s obvious from the pictures. (T-FJ 2008-06-06 18: 21: 30) The data samples demonstrate that assessments of the partner’s characteristics ranged from displaying gratefulness, appreciation and personal affection to pleasant surprise. By making explicit which of their partner’s traits and actions they valued as being supportive of teamwork, the participants are clearly 194 accentuating their partners’ indispensable role in the team’s positive interdependence. The importance of heterogeneity among group members as one characteristic of productive CL groups (cf. 2.3.6; 3.2) becomes once again evident, because, as a consequence of reading such statements, it is to be expected that the addressees will naturally undertake every effort to cultivate the strengths they have been attributed with, and draw on them as often as possible to support the virtual teamwork, as a result of which the work for their group will benefit even further. Another type of strategy applied by the participants was found in comments in which they pointed to the usefulness of (past and prospective) team exchanges for the cooperation process. As in the examples above, such comments allowed group members to voice existing positive attitudes about their team, their partners and their cooperative dealings with each other: again, these are crucial pieces of information that may have remained hidden from their partners in the virtual environment if the participants had not used their diaries to make these explicit. Data excerpts taken from diary entries by Cathy, Valerie and Gerrit will be examined in the following to illustrate the ways in which groups can profit from such statements. The evaluation is a complicated process and I’m glad to have a partner to discuss with. It is a really challenging experience and not as straightforward as I thought it would be. (DC 18.01.08) If we look at the above excerpt from one of Cathy’s entries, we find evidence that the mere prospect of an exchange with a team partner can already positively influence a group member’s outlook on their virtual teamwork. In the comment above, Cathy addresses the nature of the action research component of the course, which, for most participants is particularly challenging (cf. 4.3.1). Having outlined which steps she has already undertaken, Cathy expresses her relief that she does not have to tackle data analysis by herself, but in cooperation with her team partner. The next comment is taken from an entry by Valerie. In it, we can recognise various additional ways in which team partner support can come into effect. My dear team partner Kim called today and we talked about an hour. We both feel like drowning in the amount of work. It would be so good to talk to each other more often about difficult situations in teaching. The few things/ events we exchanged already proved that the sight from outside is different than the inside sight. (DV 24.01.09) Knowing what we do about the relationship between the tridem partners, the excerpt confirms how much Valerie enjoys and appreciates spending time talking to Kim (“...about an hour”). On a professional level, one issue the ex- 195 change brought to light was the fact that both felt they were in a similar situation (“We both feel...”), a keystone of team cohesion. Additionally, it allowed them to express mutual support for each other, resulting in some of the professional challenges faced by the participants appearing in a different light (“the sight from outside...”), a phenomenon seen as supporting CL (cf. 2.3). In fact, the sense of being the recipient of (professional) assistance and encouragement that Valerie experiences in her exchange with Kim is so strong that, as she informs her partner, she would love to experience it more frequently (“It would be so good...”). A key advantage often associated with (face-toface) CL, i.e. a potential change of perspective coming into operation after gaining insights into the partner’s points of view, would thus seem to be in play here. Finally, an analysis of one of Gerrit’s entries provides us with an example of the positive and supportive effect that comments by the team partners can have on an individual who is struggling with issues related to the virtual cooperation process. Dear dragonflies! Let me drop a line at the end of the day. We had winter arriving in my area with loads of snow to be cleared from the pavements. But fresh air makes your brains clear and so I wrote down rq [research question] with hypotheses backed by literature and indicators. All the lot, sent ......and it had disappeared in the black hole of the universe. In the first moment you want to skip everything for frustration but then your mails arrived and I calmed down a little. (T-FG 2008-10-30 23: 15: 16) The excerpt also shows that technical problems (cf. 7.5) can be a further area in which an exchange among the partners can have a beneficial effect: in the penultimate sentence, Gerrit describes how all the efforts he had put into the group work were in vain as the message he had just sent to his team partners was deleted by the system. Immediately afterwards, however, he informs his partners, who at this point knew nothing about Gerrit’s teamwork contribution, that their comments (on a different topic) have succeeded in raising his spirits again (for a treatment of specific media-related ways to overcome digital invisibility, cf. 7.5). The entry also illustrates what has been discussed as another strategy to surmount the drawbacks of virtual in contrast to face-toface cooperation, i.e. participants making explicit reference to events happening in their (private) contexts, which have an effect on their virtual actions, but are not visible to others in the virtual learning environment (cf. 7.1 above). Gerrit’s detailed description of the events which had led to the computer incident illustrates the extent to which it must have frustrated him: it is 196 not just a mere addition of interesting factual knowledge. Hence, his partners can become more aware of the subjective importance of their comments for him than they would otherwise have been, if they had only been party to the final sentence of Gerrit’s message. To conclude this section on team-related strategies, we will look at a key data sample taken from the tridem’s entries. As we saw in chapter 5.6.1, one of the tridem members, Gerrit, left the group close to the end of the course for personal reasons. The following excerpt sums up nicely the issues which have been addressed in this section. Yesterday I received a very bad news: Gerrit our tridem mate quits E-lingo. So close to the end. Now we are growing less and less people going through this hazard. [...] And this course is really straining. I read some of my former entries and noticed that this is one of my first statements: this course is going to take much more time (and effort) than I had expected it to do. If I [...] [had] to work full time every day, I might not have got so far. Gerrit quitting before we present our last CARP is bad. I really feel sorry for I can image that this was a really hard decision, but I understand that he did even without knowing his reasons. I was close to this point myself several times... (DV 13.01.09) The excerpt illustrates how, upon learning that Gerrit has left the course, Valerie describes her initial sentiments of shock and grief, but then goes on to explain that even in this negative situation, which is made even worse by the fact that the group’s joint CARP presentation is due shortly, feelings of understanding are predominant. It is a very good example of positive feelings being communicated in virtual space, the existence of which might otherwise not have been revealed to the partners (cf. also 6.2.1 for further treatment of this data excerpt). On the one hand, it corroborates the hypothesis that “the triple stress” (DV 17.12.08) of having to reconcile private, working and studying lives does really exist and does strongly influence the cooperative dealings of the group (cf. 7.2), but at the same time it clearly shows the existence of deep empathy with the member of her team. Even though Gerrit’s behaviour may have been interpreted by others as running contrary to individual accountability and as letting his partners down so soon before their presentation, no words of reproach or criticism are used by Valerie. On the contrary, she describes how perfectly she can understand Gerrit and his decision and that she even feels sorry for him. Crucially, she expresses all these positive group feelings without being familiar with the reasons behind Gerrit’s decision (“even without...”). In this way, we get a strong sense of the trust that is prevalent among the team members, communicating this to Gerrit as well as to her remaining team member Kim. 197 In seeking to understand which means members of a virtual team employ to overcome the challenges of virtual cooperation, this section has presented analyses of specific strategies that the participants used in order to explicitly confirm to their partners the existence of positive CL feelings and to confirm the beneficial effects of positive interdependence and accountability among the members. In particular, it was possible to distinguish between the following categories: comments communicating thankfulness and pride in the team to the partners, statements stressing the positive effects of homogeneity and heterogeneity among and compatibility of the members (including the supportive effects of drawing on the specific skills and expertise of the various group members), and remarks outlining the usefulness of team exchanges. Participants’ perception of the fruitfulness of their cooperative dealings, combined with a realisation of the productive potential of the group’s composition (cf. 5.6.1), may thus be assumed to play a central role in how they experience and can consequently voice the existence of positive interdependence. To conclude this section, it needs to be said that such techniques cannot be (and most probably were not) brought about exclusively by the use of electronic communication channels. However, as this section has discussed, they formed an important part of the virtual dealings of the cooperative groups. The value of such strategies might thus be assumed to be greater in computermediated cooperation than in cooperation that takes place in face-to-face contexts. When participants voice the subjective importance they attach to the team and individual members in electronic messages, this has the potential to (additionally) highlight positive aspects that unite the team and that might otherwise not have been visible to the team members. In this way, they can spur the team spirit further and extend the basis for future mutual support and, connected with this, team productivity. 7.4 Communicating work-related processes As has been outlined above, the present chapter seeks to understand how and in which ways the members of two virtual teams utilised diary and teamforum entries in the course of their virtual cooperation with the result of counteracting the lack of (regular) face-to-face contact with their partners. This section presents results of the data analysis that can be grouped as making aspects of work-related processes explicit, which might not have otherwise been noticeable. A discussion of the findings addresses the means used by the participants to make visible key elements of both the individual and the group work process and suggests how these influenced the cooperative dealings of the team in the virtual learning environment. Generally, examination of the 198 data reflected that such a function can be performed by statements referring to work that has been completed, that is in progress and that has still to be done. The following examples reflect this. Examination of the data revealed a multitude of instances in which participants make explicit references to previous and prospective steps of their individual working process. The vast majority of these were not simply statements about what they were working on or had just completed, but additionally provided some sort of contextual background information for these utterances. In this way, participants shared insights, not only into the progress of individual work, but also, for example, into the conditions under which their work was being carried out or reasons for failure to appear online at certain times. Insights like these can have a positive influence on the partners’ perception of the group work, as the data will also show. The first data excerpt is taken from an entry by Cathy. I have just completed my two week practicum and it was a great experience. The fourteen days fitted quite well into the little break we had in March and April. The weekend will be spent writing up the experiences and insights I have gained and then it’s straight back to the course for S2 [Semester 2], which has just appeared on the platform. (DC 05.04.08) On a factual level, Cathy’s comment tells her readers what she has been occupied with in the last weeks (an internship at a German primary school, a compulsory course component for English native speakers; cf. 4.2.3) and what her plans are for the following days. The comment is also able to bridge the digital gap of not being able to share regular face-to-face contact with her partner, hence avoiding a lack of insight into the respective (working) contexts. By communicating information about her internship, Cathy’s comment provides an explanation for her (possible) absence from group work with her partner during the past weeks. In this way, after having read the entry, Jean may be assured that positive CL characteristics are still present, even though it may have looked as if Cathy had been neglecting her obligations. By stating when she expects to be able to work on the platform tasks, Cathy communicates additional information that can be of value to the teamwork process: owing to this transparency, Jean may be able to plan her own work accordingly because she knows when Cathy will (not) be working on the tasks, when first results might be expected, when a team exchange might be appropriate and, importantly, why Cathy might not have been in touch earlier. In the following excerpt from the data we can observe another way in which sharing information about work-related processes with partners can be beneficial for teamwork. This time we are looking at an individual task that a participant is working on alone. 199 I just started to work on this platform at home and feel like a ball of wool [...] with all confusing, mixed up, tangly, but exciting and positive thoughts and ideas with some red ends sticking out to hold on to, to develop and straighten till, at the end of this course, there is the so-called “roter Faden” 65 , that stands for clarity and a well-balanced know-how and experience in one special field. : ) (DK 18.10.07) Here, Kim informs her readers about a task she has just commenced. By doing so, she shares information about how she is coping with this job. This is important knowledge which can play a key role in informing her partners about areas in which they share similarities and also about those in which one team member may be more skilled or knowledgeable and might therefore be able to offer support to the others (cf. 2.3.1). In the case of Kim, this might, for example, be with regard to ways that have helped fellow group members to become aware of a ‘common thread’ in the unit. Additionally, the comment allows the other team members to draw conclusions about Kim’s view of the task at hand and, consequently, of the way in which it is carried out. Besides such statements referring to work in progress, the analysis also revealed that participants’ comments about completed individual work can convey helpful information with regard to the cooperation process. The following data excerpt by Valerie highlights this. I just did the next task planning the first lesson about “Toys”. I have been working on that now several days. My first ideas were different from what I wrote now, partly due to the fact the my group in mind is my English Club/ AG and not a 3rd grade, partly due to the close look at the sentences I expect them to produce. I tend to be a little too fast and expect too much from my pupils. Therefore I have to prepare smaller steps. This is what I did here. Though this means a lot a spare material (like a fill-the-gap task) I already developed during this task. Maybe I can use it at some other time... (DV 04.01.08) In her message describing her work on a task she has just finished, Valerie includes a reflection on the process that led to her results. Doing so, she communicates details of thoughts that crossed her mind while working on the task, how she arrived at a change of perspective and why the lesson plan she had originally envisaged needed changing. In addition, she adds details about how long it took her to complete the task. These details may be constructively used by team partners (and tutors alike) because they provide a background to the product of Valerie’s efforts (in this case a lesson plan) that is not evident in the result itself. In this case, for example, Valerie’s comments make 65 roter Faden = common thread 200 plain the fact that Valerie viewed her work as ‘task in progress’, although others may have seen it differently. It illustrates that her lesson plan, though apparently ‘definite’ and ‘static’ when read by others, was by no means uncontested within Valerie’s own perspective. She informs her readers that she toyed with various ideas, discarding some and adopting others. In this way, her comment opens a window to the writer’s way of thinking, creating additional opportunities for empathy and group exchanges and, ultimately, mutual understanding and support. Further entries referred to the individual working process with respect to tasks that are still to be done. To illustrate this, a statement in which Kim describes her plans on how to tackle the next steps and a deadline she has set for herself (and also sets out her reasoning for this), can be cited here. OK, that’s it for now, have to go on with the tasks want to finish it all in 10 days... before I leave to Bali and GB... (DK 14.07.08 08: 57) By reading about the demands that Kim makes on herself, her partners receive insights into her work that can be of use for their own working processes. For example, if they know when a partner plans to work on or finish a particular task, the group can plan the cooperative process accordingly. This statement about Kim’s individual timetable, even though no team task is mentioned, can thus be seen as a vehicle to convey information of importance for the group work that can be used by the partners to enhance the cooperation process. As group work is dependent to a large extent on each member’s contributions, and as the part each member plays in turn influences group work as a whole, it is crucial that the partners are well informed about the rationale to each other’s actions. One way to achieve this can be by communicating information about one’s individual working process to the partners, as outlined above. A further type of comment that can support the group work of virtual teams as identified in the data was observable in samples in which participants commented on work-related processes with direct reference to teamwork processes. Since one major area of group work in E-LINGO is the CARP (cf. 4.3.1), samples were taken from this area. Generally, the functions illustrated by statements about the individual working process also apply to group work, but there are additional functions that can be assumed by the latter. In the following, an examination of such samples will highlight diverse ways in which such statements can act as a support to fellow group members and teamwork in general, because elements of importance to the virtual cooperation process are communicated through them that might else not be evident to the partners. 201 Similar to comments above (e.g. DV 04.01.08), the first data excerpt makes reference to the time-planning aspects of working on a task. Here, however, an explicit reference is made to the team task (CARP). I have been working on my next unit for English AG all Whit weekend. The problem is that this has to include our CARP. And we are still working on our Research Question... I hope we can decide on it today or tomorrow, for I have to prepare more material. (DV 14.05.08) In the above entry, Valerie’s personal progress (“I have been working...”) is put in relation to the fact that the group still has to produce a product in the form of an outline for a CARP (including research question, hypotheses, indicators etc.). Valerie’s dependence on these results is also made clear, as is an explanation for the urgency of the matter (cf. also 7.2). By reading this comment, group members gain diverse insights that would otherwise presumably have remained concealed from them. Among these is an awareness of the effects that the individual work of each partner will have on the others (in this case, they would realise that Valerie might not be able to conclude her CARP task at all or, at least, not in the way she and the team had planned). Additionally, an awareness of the time restrictions that govern the group’s work as seen from the writer’s point of view can be conveyed. These insights have the potential to enhance group work, allowing the partners to react to the needs of an individual member. The next sample, a team-forum exchange from the tridem, will now give substance to claims about the cooperation-enhancing potential of participants’ comments about the group work process. The starting point for this exchange is another statement by Valerie in which she sets out her personal schedule for the CARP as well as other factors that her work is affected by. In the following sample, Valerie’s original message, in which she sets out the timeframe for her share of the CARP work, comes first, followed by, one week later, her appeal to her team partners. This is followed by the reactions of her team mates. I have planned my lessons actually. On Dec 4th I will tell my version of Gingerbread Man and see if the children join in with the chorus [...] On Dec 11th I will tell the story 2nd time and they shall join in with their dialogue. [...] On Dec 18th I want to decide whether we will present this at the school’s Christmas [...] [festivities. These] will be on [...] Dec 21st. So actually I`m pretty far with that. I`m looking for literature now. (T-FV 2007-11-12 12: 38: 23) Hi dragonflies, we got our hand-in on CARP back. 202 I will have to start on Dec 4th with my CARP, so I will have to hand in the next paper early. [The tutor] mailed me that he approves of my idea and that I can [...] start that day due to school schedule [...]. I have some questions about the lesson plan and our RQuestion [Research Question]. What do you think about the lesson plan stages in respect to my idea: [...] Please tell me Valerie (T-FV 2007-11-19 15: 15: 24) Hi Valerie! I`m fine and busy at the same time. And I want to tell you something... I am really struggling to hand in the tasks within deadlines and am sometimes even 1 or 2 days late. Therefore I cannot think about the next tasks yet like the lesson plan - I didn’t seriously start working on it... [...] So I have to say sorry, but I can’t help you with your questions, as I just don’t know anything about that task yet... I hope you understand me and don’t think I’m being “unhelpful”, or rude... [...] If I know about a topic, yet I am certainly happy to help you we are a good team! : ) OK Valerie, let me know what you think Alles Liebe 66 , Kim (T-FK 2007-11-19 20: 00: 47) HI VALERIE! Have just returned from weekly volleyball training [...] But of course you are most important and so I’ll answer your lines right away. Wow! You are really far ahead. I usually push everything aside if the deadline isn’t tomorrow (like Kim does). [...] As far as the carp question is concerned I think [...] So... All the best for you and your carp lessons. Liebe Grüße 67 Gerrit (T-FG 2007-11-19 23: 11: 31 Attachment) Valerie’s comment plays a pivotal role for the subsequent cooperation of the team, as it gives rise to an exchange among all three group members about personal working styles. Importantly, these are not simply set out as personal preferences; each member sets his/ her explanation in a context that highlights that member’s positive feelings and accountability towards the group, thus stressing the team’s positive interdependence. One of the messages the partners may discern from this exchange is that central principles of CL guide each member’s actions and thoughts, even though not all the answers are satisfactory for each member. Without this transparency, such an understand- 66 Alles Liebe = Much love (as a farewell) 67 Liebe Grüße = Love (as a farewell) 203 ing, and an awareness of the existence of positive interdependence, would not have been possible. In a similar vein, a data excerpt from an entry by the tandem can also be cited here. In it, Jean relates in retrospect what she has been working on. At the same time, she is communicating valuable group work-related information to her partner. The Easter break began with the U5 [Unit 5] task readings in order to get ready for our CARP2 [...]. (Cathy had already begun sending me her brainstorming on the RQ2 [Research Question 2] two weeks earlier, however, I was still booked with meetings and lessons at the vocational school until the break started.) (DJ 02.05.08) In this message, Jean shows that her delayed response is not to be interpreted as a lack of individual accountability, but that it was due to her professional commitments outside of E-LINGO (“...at the vocational school”). Moreover, the entry expresses that Jean is aware of her partner’s needs, having put Cathy in the waiting position. Participants’ comments like the ones above may therefore help minimize the potentially negative effects that, for example, a delay in submitting individual work can have on the group work. They have the potential to change the members’ perception of the team and of each other. Another example of how statements about the group work process can have a beneficial effect on the teamwork is presented in the following excerpt. We are underway, the signposts are up, language acquisition this way, storytelling that way, learning and teaching words straight ahead, Carp turn left. Got in contact with my local school where I would have the possibility to do my project in third grade. Interesting to hear the issues raised by the teacher, I included them in my thoughts on a relevant CARP question. Hope to discuss with Jean next week and come up with a common interest. It will be a challenge to prepare but I’m sure it gets easier if the question and aim are clear and I have a direction for my thoughts and ideas. (DC 02.11.07) Similarly to Kim’s entry above (DK 14.07.08 08: 57), this data excerpt, too, may function as a means of shaping the partners’ expectations. Additionally, the entry conveys Cathy’s hopes and wishes as well as her concerns about the forthcoming teamwork. Thus, on the one hand, it explains the steps Cathy has already undertaken for the CARP (“Got in contact...”), information that might not have been accessible to her partner since the organisation was carried out outside the virtual learning environment and therefore left no electronic trace on the platform. On the other hand, the entry also signals to Jean that Cathy is hoping to hold a team discussion the following week (“Hope to... and come up...”), and conveys her apprehension about the work (“It will 204 be...”). The entry can thus be seen as another example in which participants’ comments on the working process open up the possibility for the team members to see beyond the actions of an individual as they are manifested within the virtual learning environment, granting them insights into their partner’s minds, background and (working) contexts. In sum, examination of the data has shown that participants shared information on diverse aspects of their individual and group work processes with the partners. Various examples, combined with a discussion of their cooperative potential, have been set out. A common characteristic found in all the statements was that participants convey information that can be used by their partners to aid the virtual cooperation process within the team whilst describing the way they organise their work. Even fairly short comments may prove helpful to the team partners. This examination has given us several interesting insight into this process, a selection of which will now follow: as CL is a joint working process, the statements may first and foremost give fellow group members insights into the status of each other’s work, in many cases coupled with information about the conditions under which the author is working. Frequently, they throw light upon the various commitments of the team members and on other external factors (cf. 7.1; 7.2), and reveal the underlying expectations the participants have and demands they make on themselves and each other. In addition, some entries permit the team an insight into how one of the members arrived at their results, describing the reflection processes involved and how they had weighed different arguments. We can also infer the value of such statements in terms of exchanges that may develop and which address the ways in which teamwork is organised by the group. Yet other statements may have an innate (cooperative) potential to defuse a potential clash between the partners, for example if one of the team members has to decline an appeal for help because they currently find themselves at a critical stage in their own work. Thus, we find that making comments about group or individual work may be a fruitful opportunity to provide the partners with a means to overcome the lack of insight into each other’s lives and private, professional and study contexts, which is an inherent obstacle in virtual cooperation. 7.5 Specific media-dependent strategies to overcome digital invisibility In the following section I will seek to set out how participants adopted actions which are specifically media-related in the course of their virtual teamwork and how these may be used to refer to elements of positive interdependence 205 and accountability to the partners. Since virtual cooperation crucially relies on the use of electronic communication channels, this section will review the data in this respect. The examination will not include aspects related to participants’ face-to-face exchanges in conjunction with their online activities, as these, which are by definition a part of blended learning (cf. 4.2.3), will be discussed in section 8.5. The following section will begin by discussing the relationship between the technical and the cooperative aspects inherent in virtual teamwork as reflected in the data. An analysis of the data samples in which the participants address mediarelated aspects of the cooperation shows us that group members are aware of the influence of such issues on cooperation. We find numerous examples which prove that the success of the participants’ cooperative dealings is in many ways dependent on computer-mediated technology and a clear connection between both areas could be identified. Thus, we may conclude that the participants’ attitude towards media-related issues can be seen as one additional aspect of the topic of interrelationships that shape virtual cooperation, as discussed above (cf. 7.2). We have already seen one manifestation of this that is mentioned repeatedly in the data samples and which has been alluded to above - the dependence of the participants on the functioning of recording media in order to collect data for their CARPs (cf. DC 03.01.08 20: 24 in section 6.3). We can infer that the technological component of the joint project may be seen as an obstacle to the group’s progress, as voiced by the participants themselves (e.g. if the video camera “pack[s] up”; DC 03.01.08 20: 24). A more profound manifestation of the team’s dependence on technology is illustrated in Jean’s comment below. The technical part of this whole project was really starting to get on my nerves. I’m feeling better now, but when my hard drive “crashed” on Mon. Nov. 5. the hassle started: whatta runaround. Back and forth to I-Maxx and then the service man here on Wed. Nov. 7 (the workers let him in since I arrived a couple of minutes late, needless to say, it was a bit chaotic around here). I needed the computer for 7.30 pm for the chat mission accomplished. I then had a sound problem with the DVD-E-Lingo on Sun. Nov. 11 and drove over to the Fachschule 68 to use the computer there. Back in October it had taken me 2 weeks just to get into the CHAT (our anti-virus was working against our second anti-virus. So we deleted one anti-virus). I must say I’ve certainly had my share of technical mishaps. (DJ 20.11.07 14: 07) This data sample was selected because it describes representatively and very vividly the situation the participants find themselves in. Before they can even start thinking about virtual cooperation, each individual group member has to 68 Fachschule = the vocational school where Jean teaches 206 face the challenge of setting up his/ her individual computer environment for the teamwork to come. From this particular example we can infer that this constitutes an additional burden resting on the team members, in particular at the outset of the cooperation, to be overcome alongside their struggle to get to know each other, get to grips with the course and to establish ways of working together. Hence, first encounters of the participants with technological aspects of the course as described above can influence teamwork even before the participants have had a chance to address positive interdependence. Thus it presents a barrier to the establishment of defining characteristics of CL (cf. 2.3) even before the real outset of cooperation. In the diary entry above, written in the first week, Jean looks back on the process she had to go through before being able to engage fully in the course and the group work. This entry also provides us with a perfect example of how the struggle to engage with the technology is interlinked with the unforeseen challenges thrown up by daily life and private and professional commitments (cf. 7.1; 7.2; cf. also DJ 15.12.07 below). That technical aspects can also exert a huge influence on the outcome of group exchanges, becomes evident in an entry made by Cathy. Specifically, she draws our attention to the fact that technical aspects in the form of inexperience with using online communication can present a barrier to progressing as a team. Neither of us had used an online forum or chat before and for the first few weeks of the course we used the old-fashioned phone as a means of communication on team tasks. However, we soon replaced this with the platform. Initial attempts sometimes led to confusion [...]. Progress was sometimes slowed down as a result and again the phone was our backup support. (DC 19.05.09 12: 13; emphasis added) In this excerpt, it is interesting to note that the team’s initial solution to their lack of experience was not to try and master the challenge of computermediated communication, but to resort to alternative (non-electronic) exchanges instead. However, this state of affairs changed as the participants gained more CMC experience, so that regular chat meetings between the team members became a productive team routine. Significantly, the technical challenges did not result in a discontinuation of teamwork, as reported in Belz (2003), as the partners succeeded in finding alternative forms of communication and cooperation (although these were not always within the online environment). Besides highlighting the influence that the technical side of online networking can have on group work, this analysis of the data also identified a variety of strategies that may be pursued to support a group’s virtual team- 207 work. The first of these can be described as a media-specific offshoot of the above described behaviour of making one’s context explicit (cf. 7.1). Participants also referred to the interconnectedness of their various contexts, outlining their personal dependency on factors outside their control (cf. 7.2). We see good examples of this happening in a number of Gerrit’s media-related comments to his partners: at the outset of the teamwork, Gerrit is not able to use his home computer, and so he regularly updates his partners on his methods of accessing the online learning environment, as he has to use the computers available at his school. The following two entries provide an insight into the situation he has to cope with. [...] Now a 6th grade has [...] [entered] the computer room, I have to finish. (T-FG 2007-11-21 12: 02: 16) At school again and preparing the next week, I take the chance to answer. [...] (T-FG 2008-01-06 11: 52: 48) We can see that Gerrit is informing his partners about the efforts he is making to remain in touch and to keep the cooperation going. The first data excerpt also explains to his team partners why he has to break off his electronic message at this particular moment (presumably leaving some of his partners’ questions unanswered), and assuring them that it was not his fault that he could not continue, and neither was it due to other team-related issues, but that it was because of external factors outside of his control. Another aspect which has proved equally important to team members is knowledge of changes to each other’s media-specific working habits. It is important that group members keep each other informed about changes to schedules for working within the online learning environment or other personal media-related contexts, as the technology involved can change very fast. The data indicate various manifestations of the use of such a strategy. It can be seen as a means of sustaining the group’s communication and cooperation processes, of enabling the partners to make use of new communication opportunities. It helps them to adjust to new working conditions or to assist an individual member in case of difficulties. We find this for example at work in the case of Gerrit, as the following two data samples illustrate. By the way the world has reached [Gerrit’s home town] and from January 14th there will be broadband provided. So no more time wasting drives to school extra. Hip Hip Hooray! ! (T-FG 2008-01-05 11: 59: 37) [...] I can work now from home and will be more present than ever  (T-FG 2008-01-17 15: 43: 19) 208 By the way, there’s been a change in plans. We won’t be going to Traunreut until Tuesday afternoon. In any case, we’ll continue working on the forum, before getting it out before Feb. 4th. (T-FJ 2008-01-30 22: 58: 25) The second excerpt in particular shows that for Gerrit, the change in his ability to access the online learning environment has direct relevance for the work of the team. He makes direct reference to the positive effect that his changed situation will have on the team. The third data excerpt is cited here (T-FJ 2008-01-30 22: 58: 25) to demonstrate the implementation of this practice in the context of a participant’s deviation from an agreed working routine. Analysis of the data samples made it possible to identify yet another central feature in the participants’ virtual dealings that can act in support of their teamwork, which involves participants making direct reference to mediarelated issues in their work. Participants informed their partners of the reasons why they had to finish a diary entry or a message at a particular moment, thus passing on further helpful information (cf. also T-FG 2007-11-21 12: 02: 16 above and DJ 19.10.07 in 6.2.1). An abrupt ending to a message can have a negative effect on a group’s sense of positive interdependence, but an explanation of the underlying reasons can reaffirm this trust. It makes clear that the individual’s action has nothing to do with negative group feelings or intentions but is simply a result of factors over which the individual has no control. The following examples portray different representative examples of how this form of online behaviour was used. Kim terminates an entry because of time pressure (cf. also 7.1; 7.2; 7.4) and Jean is not able to send a message for technical reasons. I’m proud that I’m finishing this Unit earlier than necessary, because I was doubting if I can handle E-Lingo beside hopping from one school to the other! And this is why I will stop to write now, as I want to continue with the next (and last! ) step. (DK 03.05.08 17: 32) I just spent 45 min. writing, I pushed publish and now it’s all gone. No time right now, the lesson planning assignment is due on Monday. (DJ 15.12.07) The importance of such messages is also highlighted by the following data sample. It contains an exchange among the tridem members that stemmed from Gerrit telling his partners the reason why he had to stop writing. [...] now 29 little stories are waiting for me to be read and evaluated. But for this I move to the balcony and sit in the sun. Have a nice day Gerrit (T-FG 2008-11-01 14: 08: 51) 209 Gerrit, have you got 29 kids in your class? In Austria we started to separate classes with the 25th student, since about 2 years, or so. It must be very exhausting to have 29! ? (T-FK 2008-11-02 12: 33: 43) Yes, it’s true. There are 29 3rd graders waiting eagerly every day to absorb all the wisdom of the world compiled by Mr West 69 . He succeeds to do so more or less and he doesn’t want to do without a single one of them. We can even have a class of 31 in our elementary schools, which is a crying shame for a rich country as Baden-Württemberg. [...] Of course sometimes I’m done up with my 29 but then I recreate at E-lingo again. That’s why I’m here saying thanks to Kim for sorting it out so well and thanking Valerie for bearing with us. (T-FG 2008-11-05 18: 57: 48) In his explanation, Gerrit also conveyed information about the context of his professional work (cf. 7.1). The data demonstrate that the partners welcomed and appreciated such messages: they happily reply to them and use them as a means to get to know each other and each member’s (working) conditions better. In the ensuing exchange, reproduced above, additional helpful information that could aid future cooperative work is thus exchanged. The excerpt reveals that a strategy aimed at trying to compensate certain aspects of digital invisibility can additionally function as an opener for an exchange touching on the area of intercultural communication (cf. Kramsch & Thorne 2002; Belz & Müller-Hartmann 2003; Belz 2007). Another type of media-dependent behaviour that can facilitate virtual cooperation was evident in instances where participants purposely used the digital media as an opportunity to provide mutual assistance. This assistance is closely connected to team exchanges that result in positive interdependence and accountability being communicated to the fellow group members (cf. 7.3). The mutual media-specific support reflected in the data often takes the form of more ‘computerate’ members supporting their partners in mediarelated issues (cf. Vygotsky’s ‘zone of proximal development’, outlined in 2.1.2.2). We also see specific support mechanisms being installed during longer times of digital absences to aid the remaining group member(s). This latter strategy goes beyond mere announcements of digital absences (cf. 7.1), as additional help is offered, undertaking additional active steps beyond informing the partners. We have already seen examples of this first area of mutual media-specific support in diverse data samples above (cf. e.g. DJ 22.01.09 in 7.2; DJ 11.11.08 and DK 15.11.08 10: 34 in 7.3). A further example can be cited with reference 69 Gerrit’s surname; a pseudonym 210 to Gerrit’s comment above, in which he mentions his frustration with digital media when his message to his partners “had disappeared in the black hole of the universe” (T-FG 2008-10-30 23: 15: 16 in 7.3). In reply to this, his team mate, Kim, tells him how she always copies and pastes messages before sending them, after several of hers had also ‘disappeared’ (T-FK 2008-11-01 11: 07: 18). To further illustrate this important feature, one more example is presented below. Hi team, I did read Kim’s diary, but not yours yet, Gerrit. But I’m very happy that I got that far. My children won’t believe it me and a PC that far without their help, just yours, Kim. (T-FV 2007-10-13 15: 48: 48) The excerpt above is a comment made by Valerie at the first face-to-face meeting. It shows that support mechanisms among team members can already be put in place to assist cooperation just after a team is formed, as soon as the partners have become aware of their mutual compatibility and are willing to use their different areas of expertise in support of the group work. With respect to messages aimed at bridging times of digital absences, an examination of Cathy’s comments has proved particularly insightful. Hi Jean, as you know I’ll be gone over Pfingsten 70 , so as not to keep you waiting on my thoughts for the teamwork, please find them attached. Don’t put yourself under pressure to reply immediately. If we don’t discuss our views before I go on the 11th May we can do so after on the 22nd. Cathy (T-FC 2008-04-30 09: 19: 40) On various occasions, Cathy’s comments demonstrate that she has given thought to the possible negative effects of her absences on the work of the team. In order to show her sense of individual accountability, she voices these concerns to her partner, offering at the same time her thoughts on how to overcome them. In the example above, Cathy communicates to Jean that she has worked ahead so as not to slow Jean down while she is waiting for Cathy to return. The underlying message is that she is aware of Jean’s dependence on her, but assures Jean that she can rely on her, Cathy, in good conscience, as she will do what she can to support Jean and to make sure that the mutual dependence does not play out to the disadvantage of her partner (cf. 2.3.1). Specifically, Cathy’s support frequently takes on the form of uploads of tasks that she has done in advance. The data source above is a good example of this. Gerrit’s message (DG 20.10.07; discussed in section 7.1), in which he de- 70 Pfingsten = Pentecost 211 scribes what he has been doing during his absence, can also be interpreted as an example of this practice. Another instance of the connection between cooperation and technology is reflected in the data with respect to participants’ strategies for embracing the digital media, customising them and making a habit of using them in ways that meet the particular needs of the situation and task and that suit all the members’ preferences. The examples below illustrate this. Diary writing progress: It’s becoming clear how to write the diary in a more effective way: pull out quotes and information that have an impact on my theories and approaches to teaching, then use the information as a confirmation, as an expansion of my thoughts or as resources for a later date. (DJ 18.02.08 22: 50) The data source above demonstrates how Jean embraced the process of diarywriting, and how she describes the function that this medium has assumed for her. If her partner knows about Jean’s routine, she can exploit this knowledge for her own work and to the advantage of the cooperation (for example in this case, by collecting quotes for the joint CARP in the form of diary entries herself or by having recourse to Jean’s entries). Another participant, Valerie, assigned a different function to her diary. One of the things she used it for was to shed light on her way of working (cf. 7.4). To allow her team to profit from this, she invites her partners in a teamforum message to make use of the team-view function of the diary (cf. 4.2.4.5) and to read an entry of hers, as can be seen below. Hi dragonflies, that is one of the team tasks. I hope you understand what I mean. [...] When can we chat? ? How are your CARPs doing? Mine was graded 2,5 look at my diary if you’re interested in it. Valerie (T-FV 2007-12-14 17: 00: 48) Hence, for Valerie, making diary entries is neither a chore, nor merely a means of personal reflection; she uses it as a tool to support the cooperative endeavours of her team. Her comment additionally illustrates one way in which the group has made the team-forum their own, by using it to negotiate dates for a joint chat. One digital medium is thus used to refer the partners to other media, assigning to each a specific role and highlighting their interconnectedness and mutual support function in assisting the team’s virtual cooperation. (In this group, these functions might be summarised as follows: team forum - team exchanges, links to other media; diary - personal reflection, for example on teamwork; chat - selective team exchanges). The data sample can be viewed as an example of communicating work-related processes (cf. 7.4) by 212 means of digital media, linking different communication channels purposefully according to team preferences. Other connections between electronic and non-electronic communication channels and examples of participants making the digital media their own could be identified in the data. Selected examples are presented in the following two excerpts. Hi Cathy, please check your email, I have a question for you regarding the Cameron book. Let me know if you find it. (T-FJ 2007-10-28 09: 43: 50) As I mentioned on the chat, I’ll work [on] it on the weekend and I believe we’ll have to combine the ideas. As usual, the weekend is packed, the best time for me would be Sunday evening. I suggest a phone call - I feel that it would be more effective with this assignment. What do you think? I’m on to finish up my lesson planning now and I’ll wait for your response. (T-FJ 2007-12-15 09: 30: 12; cf. also 7.1; 7.4) The excerpts above also demonstrate the participants’ use of other techniques (cf. 7.1; 7.2; 7.4) and their use of one medium to refer their readers to others. The second sample in particular supports the notion that participants not only customise the available digital media to suit their own purposes and work rhythm. The data confirm that this process is actually a team endeavour, with members consciously weighing up the purpose of the communication, the nature of the task to be completed and other factors, by negotiating the appropriate use of communication channels in the team. Accordingly, we may infer that there is for the focus teams no hard and fast rule as to when a particular medium must or should be used for team communication. An analysis of the data also identified an area in which cooperation was shaped by the digital media, in contrast to above, where participants used the media to suit their needs. This area concerns media-specific defaults versus participants’ personal wishes. I’m going to keep it short today since I already experienced being “kicked out” of the diary before Christmas. I talked to Cathy about it and she mentioned that the reason could have been that I stayed on too long. (DJ 09.01.08) It became evident during data analysis that on various occasions technical features prevented the participants from using a certain medium as they would have liked (presumably the one which they would have expected to best support cooperation), or in the way that medium was intended to be used. One prime example of this is the case of Jean, above, who at one point refrains from making a detailed diary entry (even though she might have 213 wanted to), owing to the fact that she had abruptly been disconnected from the diary at an earlier date while making an entry. The analysis of the data samples provides insights into a multitude of areas that participants would presumably have liked to change in different media, in particular with reference to the diary. Some of these preset defaults could easily be overcome by the participants, allowing them to personalise the medium to suit their personal needs, while for others this was technically not possible. A case in point for the former is the fact that some participants would have greatly profited from being able to set up different sub-headings within a diary entry, possibly in conjunction with an option to add a separate date for each sub-heading and options for formatting entries. Such an enhanced diary function would have catered for the fact that participants generally dealt with a variety of topics in one entry and at times used one entry to recapitulate the events of various weeks. To overcome this limitation of the diary, Kim starts a new entry for each new topic she addresses (which sometimes results in her making up to 4 entries per day), while Jean subdivides her entries by manually inserting captions and creating paragraphs using blank lines. A limitation of the diary was also noted with respect to its upload capacity. While from a technical point of view it is understandable that the size of attachments that can be uploaded is limited, this was identified by one participant as an obstacle to the group’s progress. […] I attached the graded outline and lesson plan the 1,5! I had to delete the pictures out of the outline otherwise it would have been more than 2 MB... (DK 14.07.08 08: 34) The topic of the above entry by Kim is the team’s preparation for CARP II, a crucial step in the teamwork. The upload data capacity being limited to 2 MB, Kim is not able to share her lesson plan preparations for the joint project, including her tutor’s comments and photographic material, with her partners. Data examination also identified perceived shortcomings of the teamforum, as described by the participants. These refer for the most part to the linear branch structure and the automatically created headings typical of forum entries (cf. 4.2.4.5) that participants did not find easy to navigate. Two of the strategies that participants used to overcome this situation are illustrated below. They demonstrate how they found it necessary to make additional efforts (manually re-naming headings, creating new messages) to make the team-forum a profitable tool for their cooperative work. PS Could we try to keep the subject lines abbreviated? I find it easier to find the assignments when it’s not so wordy. Thanks. (T-FJ 2008-06-06 19: 12: 55) 214 Hi Jean, this is the same as the last draft we had, but I’m sending it again to make it easier to find and refer to on the forum for any final changes. I find that I get a little lost in the re.re.re! take care (T-FC 2008-05-07 09: 50: 07) That technical issues not only have an effect on teamwork, but that they can additionally affect a person’s mood, was already alluded to in Jean’s entry above (DJ 20.11.07 14: 07) and others. The following entry by Gerrit is cited here because it demonstrates this perfectly, highlighting the fact that the effect on virtual cooperation is not insubstantial. Here we go again. My four new mails don’t make up for the vanished one though. It’s really funny sometimes how electronic media can influence your spirits. But I try to escape and often succeed. (T-FG 2008-10-31 10: 34: 58) Gerrit wrote the above team-forum entry shortly after telling his partners that the message he had been about to send had “disappeared” (cf. T-FG 2008-10- 30 23: 15: 16; discussed in 7.3). The excerpt shows us how Gerrit may attempt to overcome this by trying to avoid using the medium at all (“try to escape...”), which, taken to the extreme, means avoiding communication opportunities with his partners altogether. The data sample therefore hints at the worst case scenario that problems caused by electronic media and access to the network can have for the cooperation process. This section has discussed diverse ways in which participants adopted media-dependent techniques to overcome possible limitations of virtual teamwork. In doing so, various interrelationships between the technological and the group work aspects of virtual cooperation were identified. Ways in which technical aspects can affect group work were discussed. Data examples were chosen to illustrate that such obstacles can slow down group proceedings, requiring participants to find alternative forms of communication in order to continue with their group work, but that they also have the innate potential to promote mutual support among the group members. Examples of this type of mutual support were given in which more computer-literate participants helped their partners and in which participants attempted to actively bridge periods of longer digital absence. However, it became clear that, in order for these beneficial mechanisms to take effect, certain technical preconditions need to be met. The considerable challenges that this can pose for individual members, as reflected in the data, were outlined. Participants’ comments explaining why a certain electronic posting had been terminated at a particular time were identified as one media-dependent behaviour adopted by the participants to communicate the existence of indi- 215 vidual accountability and positive interdependence to their partners. This behaviour is particularly important, as there would otherwise have been no visible trace of this for the other team members. Participants’ meta-comments served to bridge this gap. A further means to convey the message of positive interdependence and accountability was reflected in the data samples in which participants commented on their personal media-specific ways of working, on the conditions under which they were conducting their online work, and on functions they had assigned to a particular medium. We saw how communicating this knowledge to each other may provide partners with insights that they can exploit for their own work and in support of group work. Furthermore, we saw the ways in which the cooperative groups personalised the media, taking advantage of different (digital and non-digital) communication channels, interconnecting them and establishing a working and communication routine in order to provide them with an optimal way of carrying out individual tasks and to suit their own personal preferences. The limitations of certain media, as perceived by the participants, were also discussed. These identified ways in which digital media can be further enhanced to optimise their cooperative potential. 217 8 Relating findings to existing CL and telecollaboration research Having discussed the online messages of the participants of two virtual groups in terms of presentation of self (cf. chapter 6) and surmounting digital invisibility (cf. chapter 7), and the ways in which positive interdependence and accountability may be achieved through these, this chapter will discuss the data with respect to additional elements of cooperation as outlined by CL researchers as characteristics of productive groups (cf. 2.3 and 3.2). It will focus on selected cases insofar as the data were sufficient to allow insights. The present chapter will illuminate findings from CL and telecollaboration research by applying them to the virtual cooperation of the two focus groups and by establishing correlations between the data sources and previous sections. The research findings presented here will address the use of group names (8.1), the influence of group size (8.2) and group composition (8.4) on the cooperation of the focus group participants, the distribution of roles among the team members (8.3), the effects resulting from group reflection (8.6) and the ways in which the participants dealt with the task-related and the social dimensions of the group work (8.7). This chapter will also discuss the need for face-to-face interaction among the group members, which lies at the heart of much of the early CL literature (8.5). The findings presented in this section were selected as a basis for a discussion of requirements and recommendations for face-to-face CL and their usefulness for virtual teams, using the example of blended learning in teacher education. In each of the following sections a summary of the main findings from CL and telecollaboration research (treated in detail in sections 2.3 and 3.2) will be followed by a review of data excerpts, the majority of which have already been discussed in chapters 6 and 7. To avoid redundancies, I have refrained from replicating data excerpts presented and discussed in detail in previous sections. Frequent cross-references will be made for audit purposes. 8.1 Group name As outlined in chapters 2.3.3 and 3.2, “[g]roup unity is heightened when group members develop a group identity” (Jacobs 2006: 41). In face-to-face and computer-mediated cooperation, group names have been identified as one way for teams, in particular long-term teams, to build a group identity 218 (e.g. Johnson & Johnson 2008a; Jacobs 2006: 35). In virtual cooperation, the development of a team identity is seen as one possible means of encouraging social presence among group members, alongside self-disclosure (cf. 3.3; Johnson & Johnson 2008a). Although team names can be used as one means to promote positive interdependence (cf. Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 28), Wee & Jacobs (2006: 118) explicitly state that in their virtual context they were not perceived as an obligatory component for the group work, neither by the students nor the teacher. This understanding was also reflected in the present research. Data analysis revealed that only one of the two focus groups, the tridem, made use of a team name. The course design mirrors this, too. At the first face-to-face meeting (cf. 4.2.4.1), group members are invited to decide on a team name, but this is not compulsory. The tridem decided to adopt the group name “Dragonflies”. As far as the reasons for calling their group after a small flying insect, none were given in the virtual learning environment nor were any metacomments provided by the participants. However, they told their tutor that Gerrit had a pond in his garden where he had dragonflies, of which he was very fond (personal communication with tutor). An examination of the data illustrates that the team name was used throughout the whole of the cooperation (cf. 4.2.2) by all three members and the tutors. As one prime function, it was used as a form of address for the group (cf. for example the first use of the group name in the team-forum when Valerie commences a message with “dear dragonflies”; T-FV 2007-10- 21 13: 59: 55; cf. also 2.3.3), with individual addresses co-existing when a message is directed at only one member. Participants also adopted variations of the team name by adding affectionate details and making the team address reflect their feelings towards the group (e.g. “My dear dragonflies [...]”; T-FV 2008-10-31 19: 48: 34). Another function of the group name was in metacomments about the team, e.g. in reflections on the learning process (cf. e.g. DG 20.10.07 in 7.1; cf. also 8.6). Additionally, it was used to label team documents exchanged between the partners or sent to the tutors (e.g. “S1_M1_T3_S3_ dragonflies.doc” in T-FK 2007-11-12 21: 41: 28; cf. Coelho 1992: 139 in 2.3.3). The group name ceased to be used by Valerie and Kim after Gerrit had left the team. The change in the team membership gave rise to a critical incident regarding group name usage. The remaining team members stopped using it as a form of address and replaced it by “Dear Valerie” or “Dear Kim”. Yet, it continued to be used in team documents that all three members had contributed to. The impact caused by Gerrit’s leaving the team on usage of the group name can clearly be seen in the following data excerpt. 219 Dear Valerie, it’s so strange not to write “dragonflies” anymore... Something is missing a big part actually! But what can we do, we need to move on and try to get everything done! [...] (T-FK 2009-01-17 10: 00: 17) The excerpt illustrates that for Kim, using the team name is inextricably bound up with the composition of the team as it was when the name was originally invented. With respect to the tridem, data analysis confirmed the role a group name may assume to promote positive interdependence among members of a virtual team, and that its use can vary as to its different functions. As the group name was employed consciously and meaningfully by the tridem members, it unquestionably fulfilled a unifying and identifying function for them. It showed each writer’s attachment and sense of belonging to the group and to the notion of the “dragonflies” as a shared identity. The data supports the notion of a team name being used to highlight the fact that the team as a whole is concerned, and not the individual members. 8.2 Group size We saw in chapters 2.3.4 and 3.2 that there are no hard and fast rules as to how large cooperative or telecollaborative groups should be. The general recommendation for face-to-face teams is around four to five members (e.g. Jacobs 2006: 32; Foote et al. 2004: 100), with a maximum of six (e.g. Olsen & Kagan 1992: 14). For some telecollaborative groups, Genet (2010: 410) noted a preference of the participants for exchanges in groups of four to five. Whilst understandings of what constitutes an ‘ideal’ group size differ, there is agreement among researchers that one of the factors which affect the salience of positive interdependence is the size of the group (Kagan 1985: 83). Additionally, it has been put forward that both positive interdependence and accountability are dependent on group size (cf. e.g. Ghaith & Kawtharani 2006 in 2.3.4). In the E-LINGO programme, virtual teams operate exclusively with two or three members (cf. 4.3.2). Since a tandem and a tridem were the focus groups for the present study (cf. 5.3), potential influences of different group sizes on virtual cooperation can be discussed. A review of the data showed that both sizes allowed the participants to establish key characteristics of CL (cf. 2.3) within their team and to successfully complete the virtual teamwork. Howev- 220 er, there was a significant difference in the way the participants viewed the size of their group, as remarked in section 5.6.1. Whilst the tandem members, who did not know each other before coming to E-LINGO, but who shared a mutual acquaintance, developed an instant liking for their group, the tridem members initially felt themselves to be at a major disadvantage, and feared their group would be doomed to failure because of its size and the fact that they lived a long way apart from each other (EVKG 29.02.08). Yet, this negative evaluation might simply have resulted from the given situation at the face-to-face meeting, which allowed participants to directly compare their group to the others in the cohort and to see that nearly all the other groups consisted of members living so close to each other as to allow at least occasional face-to-face contact (cf. section 2.1.1). This might be explained by research cited in Miller & Harrington (1995: 211), which reported that the salience of group characteristics might be exaggerated by group members, leading to biased assumptions about the presence of positive characteristics in other groups, but not their own (cf. 2.3.6). These initial negative perceptions of the tridem members changed as they got used to working with each other and shared team successes (cf. Dörnyei & Murphey 2003: 22; Johnson & Johnson 2008a: 411; Green & Green 2005: 39ff.). Data analysis further reveals that the group size has the potential to influence the quality of the group work results, but it also shows that ‘smaller’ does not automatically mean ‘better’, especially if a larger group (the tridem) has to downsize (for example, if it - permanently or temporarily - loses one of its members) and has to operate on a smaller basis (as a tandem). The completeness of the group influenced its ability to perform successfully and the existence of positive interdependence and accountability as well as the relationship among the members might be assumed to have a greater bearing on cooperation than did group size. The following excerpt illustrates one member’s perception that, once central CL characteristics have been established, the group can no longer be considered a ‘group’ but is only ‘leftovers’ if one member is missing (“or what’s left of it...”). In a way I am looking forward to the time when my studies are over, as the constant funny feeling in my stomach will disappear. But at the same time I feel already sad about losing my group (or what’s left of it since Gerrit had to leave us) and losing this Beschäftigung 71 . It always made me/ makes me feel special and proud. (DK 10.02.09) The present research has confirmed the relevance of tandems and tridems for virtual cooperation. It adds to the existing literature by illustrating that partic - 71 Beschäftigung = occupation i 221 pants’ assessment of the size of their group can vary in the course of their joint work, for example as they get to know and appreciate each other (cf. also chapter 6). An interconnection can hence be assumed to exist between a functioning social and working relationship among the members on the one hand, and their perception of the group size on the other (cf. 8.7). Based on this data, the hypothesis was put forward that the relationship among the members and the experiences they had with each other are more significant than the size of the group. In this way, teamwork routines and mutual appreciation of the team members can compensate for them conceivably having to make more effort to coordinate their work, owing to the group having more members. 8.3 Group member roles CL research has pointed out the value of a distribution of roles between team members in achieving positive interdependence through role interdependence (cf. e.g. Jacobs 2006: 41; Ghaith & Kawtharani 2006: 81; Jones & Taylor 2006: 111; cf. section 2.3.5). A distinction between formal (i.e. pre-assigned) and informal (naturally emerging) roles (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003) was presented and the value of formal roles (e.g. Johnson & Johnson 1995: 181) was pointed out (cf. 2.3.5). One practical description of a CL project asserted the interconnection between roles, motivation and reflection (cf. 8.6; Roth 2009: 31). For teacher education, the importance of experiencing CL from the learner perspective (Sapon-Shevin 2004: 6), which may include adopting different roles, was addressed (cf. 2.3.5). An examination of the data supports the importance attributed to team member roles. A variety of references are made by the tridem members to different roles that they assumed and which helped to improve group work. They reflect how, in particular, the various skills and characteristics of group members (cf. 8.4) were exploited so that the partners could profit from each other. Although the data does not provide us with an explicit indication of role assignments being in operation in the tandem, they might nevertheless have existed, with or without the participants being aware of them. While some scholars point out the value of rotating roles (e.g. Jacobs 2006: 41; cf. 2.3.5), the data samples of this study show that each tridem member appears to have taken on a permanent role, based not only on personality traits and skills, as outlined in the literature (cf. Jacobs et al. 2002: 70), but also on experience and context factors such as work schedules. These data samples can make a valuable contribution to CL research as they suggest that among a virtual team of adults, roles did not need be prescribed or assigned, nor were 222 they the product of conscious team actions, but that they can emerge naturally among the group members in the course of their joint work. We can thus infer that informal roles, too, can have a positive influence on the productivity of (virtual) CL groups. The precise roles adopted by the tridem members are nicely described in the following entry in which Valerie reviews the final faceto-face meeting: Kim and I had a very nice weekend [...]. We noticed that our relationship is really something special. Though due to experience and age there are times when I advise her about teaching and family affairs. [...] And we noticed that our tridem and later tandem just matched each other so well. All of us have different functions and we all work together smoothly. I’m the one for brainstorming input and keeping the time schedule [...]. Kim is the technician and Gerrit was the one for settling down to realistic aims and tasks. (DV 16.02.09) The study can further support the notion of the value of reflection (cf. 8.6) in combination with roles. Evidence found in the data indicates that all the tridem members were aware of their mutual roles and communicated with each other about them. The above excerpt (DV 16.02.09) can provide a significant insight to existing research as it reveals that the performance of different roles was in fact not limited to on-task activities, but also permeated into the private and professional sphere (“...about teaching and family affairs”; cf. also 8.7). This is echoed by Johnson & Johnson (2004: 792), who state that, as one consequence of CL, cooperators provide each other with personal and academic social support. If we examine the background that led to the assumption of roles in the tridem, the data reveal a strong connection to the individual strengths of the participants that they communicated at the beginning of the course (cf. e.g. DG 20.10.07 in 6.3 and DK 18.10.07 in 6.2.3), as well as a link to characteristics of heterogeneity (cf. 8.4). A further insight revealed by the data is that a particular role can also be assigned to a group as a unit. This becomes apparent when Gerrit ascribes a vital function to his cooperative group by informing the partners of his (implicit) expectations of them, thus focussing not on individual members, but on the group as a whole (cf. DG 20.10.07 in 6.1.1; 6.2.1; 6.2.3). Finally, data analysis revealed that role assignments may also place a group at a disadvantage in areas beyond those stated by previous research (cf. 2.3.5), namely when one member leaves the team or is temporarily unavailable. In this way, one ‘expert’ role that the team had relied on is no longer available (cf. for example Valerie’s scenario of Gerrit being dead, DV 24.01.09 in 7.3). 223 In conclusion, the data reflected the assumption that team member roles are not limited to face-to-face CL, but can also emerge in teams that predominantly cooperate in virtual space. The value of a role distribution highlighted in the literature was confirmed with respect to the tridem, whose members were able to provide and experience positive interdependence and accountability through the adoption of different roles. Examination of the data also indicated possible extensions of existing role theories, for example in terms of specific responsibilities being in operation beyond a team’s working processes, and affecting in the private and professional relationships of the participants. 8.4 Group composition Group composition in traditional and virtual teams (cf. for example Johnson & Johnson 2004) has already been dealt with in the discussion of the literature (2.3.6 and 3.2). Heterogeneous ability grouping was hypothesised to result in the largest benefit for technology-supported CL (ibid. 2008a). The issue of self-selected versus teacher-assigned grouping was discussed, with various CL-specific and general educational advantages pointing to a preference for teacher-assigned groups (e.g. Miller & Harrington 1995: 213; Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 25) resp. course leader-assigned teams in teacher education (e.g. Foote et al. 2004: 100). The value of pre-assigned groups was also examined in terms of team members’ heterogeneity that can work in favour of teamwork (e.g. Roth 2009: 32; cf. also 2.1.2.2 with respect to Vygotsky’s strategy of heterogeneous grouping; Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 22). Yet, heterogeneity based solely on academic proficiency is contentious (Jacobs 2006: 33), and many researchers recommend defining heterogeneity as a variety of factors, such as social class, culture, gender (Johnson & Johnson 2004), age (Foote et al. 2004: 105), personal experience and subject specialisation (ibid.: 100). A range of preconditions for the positive impact of heterogeneity on cooperation were outlined, among them the existence of frequent exchanges between the partners (cf. Johnson & Johnson 2004) and the rewarding nature of team successes serving as a “gelling agent” (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003: 22) for groups. Composition of the E-LINGO groups follows mainstream CL practices in that groups are assigned by the course leaders and are made up to be as heterogeneous as possible, in particular as far as language proficiency, computer skills and teaching experience are concerned (cf. e.g. Jacobs 2006: 32). At the same time, homogeneity was achieved by assigning participants who live close to each other to one group whenever possible (cf. 4.3.2). Multiple data ex- 224 cerpts support the notion that it was these factors of heterogeneity which promoted mutual support and positive interdependence between team members, leading to in-depth discussions and considerations that ultimately resulted in team successes (cf. for example DJ 28.05.08 in 7.2). One very good example of this that also illustrates the potential of pre-assigned teams is the tridem: whilst at the outset of the course, members were dissatisfied with the size and composition of their group (cf. 8.2) and thus would not have selfselected such a constellation for their team of choice, subsequent development shows a series of learning experiences that were cherished by the group and that came about precisely because of its size and composition (cf. e.g. DK 15.11.08 10: 34 and DV 24.01.09 in 7.3). It is conceivable that, had members been allowed to work exclusively in groups of their own choice, they might never have discovered their ability to cooperate almost exclusively in virtual space and, most importantly, in a group of three (cf. also Miller & Harrington 1995: 213). The data thus confirm the positive effects of heterogeneity grouping based on a variety of (demographic) factors, personality traits (cf. e.g. DJ 22.01.09 in 7.1) and factors of particular relevance for the field of teacher education (cf. Foote et al. 2004: 100). The notion that this strategy might, in some cases, prove to be successful even if it goes against student preferences is supported by Jacobs & McCafferty (2006: 25). An analysis of the data clearly shows that participants consciously exploited the heterogeneity of their group by helping their partners to overcome weaknesses (cf. 8.3), by outlining areas in which they could be of help to others (e.g. DG 28.10.08 in 6.1.3), by volunteering new material, insights and skills (cf. e.g. DJ 19.01.09: “What’s new on the bookshelf? [...] new internet sites”) and by exploiting their partners’ strengths for individual growth (cf. e.g. DJ 22.01.09 in 7.2; DV 24.01.09 in 7.3; cf. also 2.1.2.2). The data also reflect the participants’ awareness of the effort (for example in terms of keeping up a level of intense cooperation and long working hours) necessary to achieve positive heterogeneity gains in virtual cooperation (cf. e.g. DK 10.02.09 in 8.2; DJ 12.05.08). Furthermore, the value of homogeneity characteristics was also attested. As we have seen in 8.2, the tridem’s initial negative perception of itself was not solely due to its size, but also to a possible lack of initially perceived homogeneity among its members. In the data samples, participants explicitly highlighted aspects of sameness that had a powerful influence on their cooperation. Thus, based on the data, it may be inferred that combining heterogeneity (in terms of professional experience) and homogeneity factors (in terms of personality traits) might be a successful formula for the composition for virtual teams. The following excerpt exemplifies this: 225 We immediately struck an affinity with one another, including sense of humour, family and teaching experiences. I was so thrilled to have Jean as my tandem partner, because we are on the same wavelength, this would be an important factor for the team tasks which lay ahead. The fact that we both worked at different extremes of the educational system [...] provided different perspectives on teaching approaches and methodology. Jean had also done formal teacher training for primary education in Canada and so she was able to source additional theory on relevant topics, where I could provide practical experience. (DC 19.05.09 12: 13; emphasis added) These data may represent a useful addition to the literature as they provide evidence that heterogeneity can, in some cases, be an obstacle to cooperation, as is the case when differences are perceived to be too great to be bridged or the effort required to bridge those differences as being too great. The following entry reflects this. Again it proved to be a bit of a challenge to find a topic that works with all of our different settings, as we are the “typical distance learning course group” very different ages, we life far apart (even in different countries), we have one or another technical “barrier” to overcome and we only have 1 proper, regular teacher. (DK 03.05.08 17: 20) It should be noted, however, that the entry appears to focus solely on the differences among the team members. Had the writer looked at past team successes and homogeneity factors, this might have mitigated the perceived negative effects of heterogeneity. Data excerpts generally corroborated the efficacy of pre-assigned heterogeneous groups. They supported the notion of mutual growth resulting from heterogeneity grouping and showed that opportunities for communication and conscious efforts are required for this to be successful. These efforts include the group members’ awareness of the heterogeneity factors in the team, a willingness to present one’s own skills, knowledge and experience to the group and put them at the partners’ disposal and a readiness to learn from other group members. Yet, the data also showed that situations occur in which heterogeneity was identified as a factor which delayed the progress of the group and, in some instances, as an obstacle to participants profiting from their homogeneity. This issue in particular requires further research. 8.5 Face-to-face contact and CL revisited In the survey of the literature (cf. 3.3), it became evident that traditional CL definitions envisaged face-to-face interaction as a prerequisite for cooperation (e.g. Meyer 1977a). With the increased availability of CMC, this view 226 changed, leading, for example, Johnson & Johnson to first purport “promotive (face-to-face) interaction” (1990: 30) and later simply “promotive interaction” (2008a: 407) as a basic component of CL. As was already emphasised in the traditional CL literature, the quality, frequency and content of interaction may be assumed to have a greater bearing on the cooperative dealings than the medium in which these are carried out (Sharan et al. 1985: 315; Sharan & Sharan 1976), together with the cooperative efforts of the partners (Johnson & Johnson 2008a) and their consideration for the affective domain (Dörnyei 1997: 485f.; cf. also Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 28). The benefits of virtual interaction were highlighted as well as areas in which these might not be able to measure up to face-to-face exchanges (cf. 3.3.2). Even in cases where faceto-face and virtual cooperation are absolutely feasible, the communication format is assumed to affect a group’s style of interaction and work flow (Johnson & Johnson 2004). This leads Johnson & Johnson (2004; 2008a) to advocate the use of blended learning programmes for educational purposes so as to promote virtual and face-to-face experiences of CL. Finally, a new dimension in the issue of ‘presence’ has emerged in the literature on computer-mediated CL, as the inactivity of a participant within the virtual learning environment may be equated with total absence (Palloff & Pratt 2007: 49). A review of the data has shown that constant physical contact is not a requirement for cooperation to occur. Yet, it has also revealed the special quality inherent in face-to-face interaction: the participants of both groups wrote about the significance of situations where they could meet and communicate face-to-face on their cooperation, noting their ‘richness’ (Johnson & Johnson 2004) and that they could not have been substituted by electronic means (e.g. DV 16.02.09 in 8.3; DJ 22.01.09 in 7.1; DC 14.10.07 in 6.3 and 7.3). Data analysis revealed that both groups made use of opportunities to increase in-person contact in a variety of ways. These include additional face-to-face meetings where possible, extending the time spent with group members at the programme’s face-to-face sessions (e.g. by travelling together and/ or staying in the same accommodation), and also the use of communication media that transport paraverbal cues (e.g. the telephone) and which thus resemble faceto-face exchanges more than chats or diary and forum entries. A scrutiny of the data also provides evidence that group work is influenced by the way in which the members communicate. The following comparison illustrates this: while the tridem members developed their CARPs exclusively through online exchanges and occasional telephone calls, the tandem members had the opportunity to add several face-to-face meetings to their working and communication routine. If we look at the presentation planning meetings that the group had for their CARP II, as related in Jean’s diary (DJ 28.07.08; DJ 29.08.08), it becomes evident that the tandem members shared about 18 227 hours of in-person contact for the preparation of their presentation alone. During these face-to-face exchanges, they most presumably talked about social as well as task-related matters (cf. 8.7). It can be assumed that the number of contact hours they spent on discussing the presentation allowed the group members to come up with much more focussed and in-depth results than might have been possible through online exchanges alone. The quality of their group work product may thus be explained by the fact that the tandem had and used the opportunity for face-to-face contact to create the product. To exchange the same amount of information that was exchanged during these approximately 18 hours of face-to-face contact through online exchanges alone, it may be assumed, would have assumed much more time and effort, if not been impossible at all. The case of the tandem members shows the merit of face-to-face contact in virtual teamwork and thus may hint at the value of blended learning scenarios. Various other data sources confirm this, but the data also provides proof of the positive effects that a well-planned and well-implemented initial face-to-face session can have on motivation and expectations of the participants, absorbing them as part of a dynamic and cooperative (online) community of practice. This sentiment is captured by Cathy’s second diary entry: The first encounter with the E-Lingo programme was very positive for me. The people organising the course are all very experienced. It really came across how dedicated they are to the course and I’m sure they will support us throughout. The atmosphere was very positive and I felt comfortable. [...] I really came away from the f2f [face-to-face session] thinking how glad I am that I made the choice to take part in this. It feels as if you are a part of a new wave of change within the language teaching system and feeling the ripples first hand. (DC 14.10.07) The data samples also provide further indication of the value of the face-toface sessions, as these sessions allow instructors to bring every participant up to a similar level of knowledge (cf. DG 20.10.07 in 6.1.1; DC 16.10.07). They allow group members to gain in-depth knowledge of their partners’ strengths, weaknesses and professional backgrounds (cf. 8.3; 8.4), and increase their enjoyment of and motivation to continue with the course (e.g. DC 09.11.07; DV 16.08.08). They allow innerand inter-group exchanges (cf. e.g. DV 16.02.09 in 8.3; DV 16.08.08 in 6.1.5) and exchanges between participants and tutors that can positively influence participants’ future perceptions of themselves or the course (DV 16.02.09 in 6.1.2). On the other hand, certain challenges in connection with blended learning also became evident. These pertained in particular to the face-to-face sessions and included participants feeling overburdened with the amount of input they 228 had to cope with (DG 13.10.07; DC 13.10.07), negative influences on their motivation resulting from feedback and grades awarded at the face-to-face session (e.g. DC 04.03.08), the (unfulfilled) wish to have more time to discuss key content-related areas of the course and to prepare more effectively for their online (team) work at the face-to-face meetings (e.g. DJ 27.02.09 Attachment), and the participants’ desire to have more opportunities for indepth exchanges with fellow students on personal points of interest (DJ 04.12.08). In conclusion, the analysis of these data samples has pointed out one aspect which should be given further consideration. This concerns the influence that a participant’s individual assessment of the necessity for face-to-face interaction has on the virtual teamwork: the data show that for one tandem member, Cathy, initial doubts accompanied group work because she had not experienced virtual teamwork before and both partners had only had limited experience using CMC. This led to Cathy’s reservations towards cooperation “with very little f2f [face-to-face] contact” (DC 19.05.09 12: 13), let alone without such contact between face-to-face sessions (as was true for the tridem). On a different occasion, she voiced her opinion that “meet[ing] up on a daily basis” (DC 29.05.08 12: 33) is a prerequisite to achieving cohesive group work results and that it is a challenge to achieve such results “within the time limits of an arranged visit” (ibid.). It may be assumed that this opinion influenced Cathy’s personal view and possibly her efforts regarding the feasibility of virtual cooperation. Yet, the data also record a change in her perception of the situation, as she and her partner gained more experience with virtual teamwork (DC 19.05.09 12: 13). 8.6 Reflection on the group work, meta-comments on CL The topic of reflection has already been treated explicitly (e.g. in 6.1.3) and implicitly in many instances above. The examples presented detailed insights into various dimensions in which reflective processes took place. This section will treat the topic of group work reflection from a more universal point of view, namely as a key characteristic of CL. It will compare data insights with the CL literature in this respect. A research review (cf. 2.3.7 and 3.2) has revealed that group work reflection or “group processing” (Johnson & Johnson 2004) is listed as being an essential characteristic of CL. Applied regularly, it is believed to improve cooperation processes and the functioning of the group (ibid.; Jacobs & McCafferty 2006: 28). In the context of teacher education, collaborative analysis resulting from group processing was also seen as preparing student teachers 229 for more comprehensive analyses required in their later careers (Foote et al. 2004: 101). Group processing includes reflection on various aspects of the group work, such as its goal-directedness, inter-member relationships and identifying helpful and unhelpful behaviour (Johnson & Johnson 2004). Huber & Eppler (1990: 169) report a study in which group work reflection specifically involved the exchange of experiences, perceptions and evaluations, leading to a generalisation of experiences to establish rules for future cooperation. For teacher education, Rolheiser & Anderson (2004: 25) strongly advocate the use of professional learning portfolios as tools for reflection. They also point out that teacher candidates, although not obliged to do so, included a variety of CL-related instances in their reflections (ibid.). Foote et al. (2004: 103) refer to the specific value of virtual forms of group processing as an add-on to faceto-face instructions. The importance of group work reflection for virtual teams was validated by the data: the members of both focus groups were found to engage in group processing of some sort throughout their teamwork. The data also support Rolheiser & Anderson’s (2004: 25; cf. above) observation that, even though participants’ comments were self-directed, they recurrently centred around a reflection on their team work. The explanation for this given by Rolheiser & Anderson (ibid.), i.e. the programme’s strong emphasis on CL and the resultant multitude of CL experiences that participants have, can also be assumed to hold true for the present study. Also in support of the literature, it can be noted that participants engaged in group processing activities with and without being prompted to do so by a task (cf. e.g. DJ 28.05.08 in 7.3), and at all stages of the cooperation processes. In particular, the electronic diaries proved valuable tools to initiate such reflection (cf. Foote et al. 2004: 103). Interestingly, the group presentations that were sent to the participants after each face-to-face session on DVD were also regarded as valuable tools for reflection by the participants (DJ 13.05.08 17: 17). As far as the intensity in which the focus group participants engaged in group processing is concerned, the data reflect far more instances of group processing by the tandem members. In contrast to the tridem, tandem member comments also include a large number of meta-comments on CL - a dimension of reflection that is not given central prominence in the literature. Furthermore, as discussed above, the tandem partners chose to make CL the explicit topic of one of their CARPs. This might be connected to the group members’ background, as both had previously experienced cooperative teamwork and both shared a vision of a more cooperative foreign language classroom (DC 09.07.08 09: 05). We can assume that participants’ awareness of their mutual positive experiences with and attitudes towards CL might 230 have led to this difference in group work reflection between both focus groups (cf. also 8.4 with respect to homogeneity factors). The data corroborated that reflection on teamwork processes is not only possible in virtual groups, but that it may also lead to a more effective group performance. Various excerpts revealed that reflection facilitated joint learning and individual as well as team progress (e.g. DJ 07.06.09 in 6.3; DJ 28.05.08 in 7.3). Selected examples of gains reported by the participants include ease of communication and cooperation procedures (DJ 11.11.08), increased feelings of confidence in group work (DC 29.04.08), an improved ability to cope with course requirements (DJ 12.05.08) and excellent feedback and grades for group work results (DJ 29.08.08). Yet, although they recognised the necessity for it, participants felt that time constraints can present a barrier to engagement in intensive reflection processes (cf. DJ 23.11.07 in 6.2.1). The data revealed a variety of areas on wh ch participants reflected n their group work. These include, as outlined in the literature (cf. 2.3.7), an analysis of group work processes and the development of the group, as well as the actions of team members and the positive or negative consequences of these. Interestingly, outside influences were also believed to affect group work. Positive influences were noted, for example, with respect to the availability of tutor feedback to assess individual performance and interim group work results. A further dimension frequently addressed pertained to individual working procedures (cf. 7.4), both past and future. In conclusion, a diary entry by Jean, in which she reflects in retrospect on the teamwork, presents us with important insights (cf. 6.3 and 7.2 for further discussion of this entry): The development of our team work was phenomenal. Looking back at Semester 1, it is quite obvious that ‘I’ in our working habits was far too prominent for what was expected in the TW [teamwork]. This, fortunately, evolved into a ‘we’ and Cathy and I started becoming a real team. (DJ 07.06.09) The excerpt reveals that even those groups whose members share an initial liking of each other and the group (cf. 8.4) have to pass through different phases and must gradually adjust and optimise their teamwork. Thus, we may infer that a functioning social relationship between members of a group (cf. 8.7) does not necessarily guarantee that the group will be free from problems, nor is it a guarantee for effective cooperation, at least if the partners have no history of joint group work experience, as was the case with the tandem. i i 231 8.7 Social and task-related relationships within a group Studies carried out in the field of small group research have already identified challenges faced by groups in establishing an equilibrium between social and task-related behaviours (Hare 1976). This is echoed in the language education and CL literature: Senior (2006) and also Dörnyei & Murphey (2003) refer to pedagogic and social processes being in operation in a language classroom. Whereas in most CL sources both areas are addressed (for example by referring to a group’s on-task behaviour and the social growth of its members), Dörnyei & Murphey, among others, connect these by stating that the two central needs of every group are “to accomplish tasks and to maintain good relationships” (2003: 114), and by referring to the risk of groups being too cohesive and neglecting task-orientation (ibid.: 70ff.). Accordingly, amongst the informal roles (cf. 2.3.5), they identify task and social roles that members take on (ibid.: 114; cf. also Johnson & Johnson 2004: 792 in 8.3). Hesse et al. (1997: 255f.) and others see challenges of telecollaborative groups in addressing task-related aspects as well as in the social needs of participants. This is linked to the issue of social presence in virtual cooperation (ibid.: 262ff.; cf. also 3.3.2). Setting up a group that functions well both socially and task-wise was also a recurring theme in the data analysis. It showed that both task-related and personal relationship factors played a central role for the cooperation of the participants. Group members gave both these issues careful attention and both were perceived as essential components of a functioning group. Thus, we may assume that this dimensions, postulated for face-to-face cooperation, is equally valid in the case of virtual teams, and may even assume a more central role in computer-mediated cooperation, due to issues related to social presence and digital invisibility, as discussed above. The existence of social and task roles was also corroborated by the data. Examples of this from the tridem (cf. 8.3) can be found in the following comments: DV 16.02.09 in 8.3 and DV 24.01.09 in 7.3. Interestingly, participants refer most frequently to task roles in these comments, yet the data do not allow sufficient insights to discuss this issue further. For the members of the focus groups, the electronic diary provided a particularly valuable tool to connect goal-oriented and social behaviour. It allowed participants, as part of a task or of their own accord, to communicate personal comments as well as work-related issues pertaining to the programme or the CARPs to their partners (e.g. DJ 22.01.09 in 7.1; 7.2). Often, this was achieved within one entry and at times even within one sentence. While such entries also occurred in the team-forum (e.g. T-FK 2009-03-21 232 16: 40: 15), it might be assumed that particular features of the diary (cf. 4.2.4.4) may have made it such an attractive medium for such comments. Various data excerpts presented in the previous chapters have illustrated the significance that participants attached to the exchange of social and taskrelated information. In particular, excerpts in sections 7.1 and 7.2 have illustrated how social exchanges were carried out in the focus groups, whereas the sections 6.2 and 7.4 addressed mainly task-oriented matters. The data illustrated that both aspects of group life (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003: 73) are inseparable and strongly influence each other. Challenges reported by the participants relating to this context were predominantly caused, not by group processes, but by difficulties in establishing a balance between their individual commitments - a dimension that would benefit from further research. Significantly, the data excerpts demonstrated that volunteering social and taskrelated information may not have been a process which necessarily occurred naturally, but which was applied as a means by the members of the virtual groups in order to overcome the limitations associated with digital invisibility. 233 9 Summary of results and prospects for further research This study set out to investigate the cooperative dealings of prospective foreign language teachers in the virtual space of blended learning. It was concerned with gaining insights into the manner in which the participants in a particular teacher education programme managed the virtual cooperation process in their teams. For this, the concepts of positive interdependence and accountability, which are central to the theory of Cooperative Learning (CL), proved valuable. Using a grounded theory approach to data analysis, I looked at the efforts the participants undertook to facilitate, support and enhance their online group work - as evidenced in their online learning diary and team-forum entries. Data analysis revealed that cooperation in virtual environments is possible and is governed by several components of the CL approach. Analysis also illustrated that participants applied a range of techniques unique to the field of electronic cooperation and the channels of asynchronous CMC which enabled them to further their online group work. Following Resta & Laferrière’s (2007: 74) call for further research to “help refine our knowledge about what technology supported collaborative learning shares with face-to-face collaborative learning and what is unique to each environment”, major research findings will be summarised and discussed in this chapter. In this way, suggestions for a conceptualisation of ‘CL in virtual space’ that focuses on “how we can help teachers develop more supportive online collaborative learning environments” and “how we can further distinguish the ways in which students can achieve positive benefits [...] not possible in face-to-face environments” (An & Kim 2007: 15) will be presented. 9.1 Summary of major findings The following section (9.1.1) will focus on the techniques used by the participants that were exclusive to the virtual environment. It will illustrate central ways in which these may be seen as having a beneficial effect on the group work. Section 9.1.2 will then focus on how elements identified in CL research can further assist the fostering of cooperation in virtual space. 234 9.1.1 Shaping and managing the virtual cooperation process Before discussing the different types of participants’ online activities identified in this research, it should be stated that certain conditions are required for these activities to take effect. First and foremost, they depend on the provision of asynchronous CMC channels that allow for group communication and (self-)reflection, and on participants’ willingness to make active use of them, which not only includes posting entries, but also reading their partners’ contributions and relating them to the group work processes. Furthermore, all the statements were provided by participants of their own accord, based on their readiness to make certain types of information accessible to their partners. They were not applied in their own right or because of some obligation, but because they fulfilled a function for the participants; they assisted them in positively structuring the electronic group work. We should also note that the ensuing exchange of information was by no means exclusive to the channels of CMC. It is likely that such information was also communicated nonelectronically and electronically through channels not analysed in this study. The research presented in chapter 6 has identified the presentation of self as one key means applied by the participants in the course of their virtual teamwork. The value of volunteering information about oneself has also been hinted at in other studies. In the context of CL, Miller & Harrington for example refer to the significance of “the exchange of intimate information [...] [for] the formation of close relationships” (ibid.: 216). In a similar way, Johnson & Johnson (1995: 192) note: The more group members are provided with information about the level of productivity and helpfulness of each member, the more individually accountable each member will be and the better members will be able to provide support and assistance to each other. In the context of electronic cooperation, Tsui & Ki (2002: 37) report “users’ self-perceptions and self-presentation [...] [as] very important psychological dimensions” for trainee teachers’ participation in an electronic community. Swan (2002), Johnson & Johnson (2008a) and others highlight the value of self-disclosure to promote social presence in electronic communication and collaboration. They see it as one way “of making up for the lack of gestures, facial expressions, and/ or intonation” (Swan 2002: 37) and of “projecting personal presence into online discourse through linguistic constructions” (ibid.: 39). Many studies either refer to the concept of self-disclosure globally or point to the importance of individual facets of it. By contrast, the data in the present study has suggested an understanding of self-disclosure as a key facet of virtu- 235 al cooperation. Moreover, it has identified a number of aspects of the presentation of self on which virtual cooperators may want to focus their attention: the first broad area was the sharing of information about the personal learning and decision-making process. This dimension is also mentioned by Dourish & Bellotti (1992: 107; cf. also Dooly 2007: 216), who note that for computer-mediated collaboration to occur, partners need “an understanding of the activities of the others, which provides a context for [...] [their] own activity”. Miller & Harrington (1995: 223) echo this and, regarding the joint working process, they also state that “[f]rustration with the task, interest in a task, liking or disliking of different task components, [...] and personal experiences [...] are [...] relevant topics of self-disclosure”. Additional dimensions identified by the present study that have not received prominent treatment in prior literature were: the sharing of personal efforts that a member has undertaken to improve a given situation; the acknowledgement that a member has received; the sharing of personal goals, plans and expectations, of information about one’s personal professional background and of instances of selfevaluation. In addition to self-disclosure, the sharing of information used to overcome ‘digital invisibility’ has been identified (cf. chapter 7). While partners in faceto-face contexts have recourse to a multitude of channels through which they can retrieve information about each other (e.g. facial expressions, paralinguistic features such as accent, small-talk during breaks, interaction in other shared contexts), many of these channels are not available for virtual teamwork. The participants of this study used several ways to compensate this through an explicit focus on areas that were ‘invisible’ to the partners in electronic cooperation, but that nevertheless might affect the group work. These may be seen as means of opening a window into the writer’s mind, with the potential to establish identification and empathy. In this way, even though no tangible change in the group work procedures might be noted, it may be assumed that use of such messages might positively influence the members’ perception of the group and the group work. For example, participants made aspects of their private and professional lives evident to their team partners and indicated the way in which these commitments influenced each other and the group work. Topics addressed were: competing priorities associated with requirements of their professional lives, family affairs, and the wish to dedicate more time to E-LINGO, coupled with the urge to receive top grades so as to improve career prospects. Selected techniques applied by the participants that might be of help to other members of virtual groups were: regularly informing their team partners about relevant professional and private matters and their influence on the group work; announcing times of virtual non-presence; volunteering details about personal 236 working style and time frame and describing and explaining the personal context (e.g. what does it mean if a person says he/ she is a ‘class teacher’). It is feasible to assume that use of these techniques might enable group members to develop realistic expectations of their team partners and to view ways in which their partners can be supported. It may also allow them to recognise the possibility that a lack of virtual presence might not be synonymous with a lack of care and interest in the group. A further way to overcome digital invisibility was identified in participants’ communication of positive views and attitudes towards their partners and the group’s work. This was realised by expressing gratitude, pride and praise for the group (work); articulating positive assessments of group exchanges and working styles and stressing perceived similarities and member characteristics that may contribute to group unity. Participants thus expressed positive aspects of the group work process that might not have otherwise surfaced. Such comments may be assumed to have the effect of, for example, increasing awareness of personal actions or traits that are particularly valued by the partner and may contribute to the understanding that the partner cares about the group’s work - even though ‘visible’ actions on the platform might not always reflect this. This may in turn positively influence the way in which potential challenges or criticism are received and dealt with by a group member. An additional sub-strategy involved the sharing of insights into the personal work-related context of the cooperation. Concrete behaviours that the participants applied, and that may be of help to other virtual group members, include the volunteering of information about areas that are currently being worked on, have just been finished or which are about to start, details of preliminary work that has been undertaken (but might not result in visible electronic actions) and the presentation of a personal outlook on work-related matters, such as the challenges that might be encountered. Information like this may enable group members to adjust their own schedules or their expectations regarding their team partners’ work. It presents members with an opportunity to interpret the results of their team partners’ work according to the context and circumstances in which it was produced and may help guard against uninformed judgements of the partners and their work. Such messages make ‘invisible’ aspects of the working process visible, and thus they may present group members with an opportunity to react to them and to become aware of facets of accountability that their partner may possess, but which might not (yet) have become electronically ‘visible’. A final sub-set focussed on participants’ use of technical possibilities to support teamwork or to make it more effective. Issues addressed in this area included the realisation of and communication about areas in which joint 237 work depended on CMC media and, if need be, the consideration of alternatives for interaction. Participants also made their own media-specific contexts accessible to their team partners (e.g. internet access or difficulties experienced when using a certain medium). Media-specific reasons for digital invisibility or unsatisfactory group work behaviour (e.g. being ‘kicked out’ of the chat; being disconnected from the online diary after having written a long entry; not being able to upload an attachment due to size limitations) were communicated, thus averting the assumption that negative group feelings must have been the reason for such actions. Participants further used digital media to support their online work by ‘exploiting’ the media to suit their preferences and needs. To give an example, the online diary was used by at least one participant as a ‘digital filing cabinet’ for documents, where entries were created for the sole purpose of uploading files, without any message or accompanying diary text. Knowledge of all of the above types of information may enable partners to become aware of important facets of group work that might otherwise not have been known to them. Judgements based solely on the face value of online ‘actions’ in the learning environment may thus be substituted by a richer, multi-faceted picture of the fellow group members that includes elements of self-description as well as an insight into the constraints that limit a partner’s freedom of action. In this way, even though some of the messages centre around the ‘self’ and one’s ‘own context’, they may not necessarily neglect or overlook the partners and their needs, but may instead be seen as one way to manifest positive interdependence and accountability. The above techniques used by the participants have not been outlined in their entirety by previous research. Several aspects have nevertheless been reflected in other works. In the field of teacher education, Karen Johnson (2009: 25) calls for “the recognition of teachers’ informal social and professional networks, including their own classrooms, [because they] function as powerful sites for professional learning”. Swan (2002: 39) found that participants “made up for the lack of affective communication channels by employing more immediacy behaviours in those channels that are available to them”; and in the context of CL Johnson & Johnson (1995: 192) note that social loafing can be avoided by “making it clear how much effort each member is contributing”. Finally, Green & Green (2005: 40) note that in order to work together we not only need to make time, but also to arrange locations that make group meetings satisfying. The strategies applied by the participants have demonstrated that these spaces may well be asynchronous CMC channels like an online diary or a team-forum. Yet, as discussed later, they also indicate that face-to-face meetings should be included if possible. 238 9.1.2 CL in virtual cooperation In chapter 8, the central elements of CL and their use within electronic contexts were explored. From a CL perspective, all of the previously outlined types of behaviour may have the potential to support the establishment of positive interdependence, the most central characteristic of CL, in virtual space. This study has therefore provided some answers to Johnson & Johnson’s (1995: 195) indirect call that “little research has focused on delineating the nature of positive interdependence”. It has attempted to outline elements that constitute the nature of positive interdependence in electronic group work. In a similar way, the value of accountability, another important characteristic of CL, has been shown, thus confirming its validity for virtual cooperation. For face-to-face teams, it has been found that “[t]he personal responsibility felt by members [...] to work toward mutual benefit provides a motivation for continuing cooperation indefinitely, even if the original group goals are attained” (ibid.: 192). This could be confirmed for at least one of the focus groups of the study, which continued to use the team-forum for mutual support even after the official teamwork had ended. A further element of CL that has been discussed was the use of group names. It could be observed that while one focus group made frequent use of a group name, the other did away with it completely. Based on the vital function that it assumed for one of the virtual teams, its validity and usefulness for some virtual groups might be posited. In terms of group size, the study has highlighted the influence that the quality of group member relationships had on their perceptions of the size of their group. It suggested that such personal assessments of group size may be more significant in terms of group acceptance and productivity than actual group size. It further illustrated that members’ assessments of group size were not fixed, but that they varied and interrelated with the group work experiences that members had. The study further underscored the value of naturally emerging group member roles (Dörnyei & Murphey 2003) in one focus group. It could confirm findings from CL research (ibid.: 111) which state that these informal roles are likely to persist by showing that in the particular team they remained constant for the whole cooperation. The study further showed that such roles were not only based on participants’ personal strengths (cf. Jacobs et al. 2002: 70) and areas of heterogeneity among the partners, but also on contextual factors related to a member’s working environment. It illustrated that role assignments in this team did not exclusively pertain to task-related matters, but also permeated into the social domain. Yet, data analysis also illustrated that a division of roles may not exclusively act to the advantage of the group, for example, if a member resigns from the team. 239 In line with the CL literature (cf. e.g. Miller & Harrington 1995; Coelho 1992), the study highlighted the value of pre-assigned teams in the context of electronic cooperation. On the other hand, it also illustrated the existence of a productive self-selected team. Whereas CL theory tends to posit the merit of heterogeneity among partners, this study pointed to the usefulness of combining homogeneity and heterogeneity in composing virtual teams (cf. also Johnson & Johnson 2004). It further showed that, similar to their perceptions of group size, participants’ perceptions of group composition were fluid, depending on their experiences of homogeneity and heterogeneity and the influence of these on virtual group work. As Green & Green (2005: 40) explain: dealing with conflicts in group work is a learning process. Based on the data, it can be speculated that given sufficient time and positive group member attitudes, different group composition scenarios may be feasible in virtual CL and lead to the establishment of a productive group. Given the question of whether face-to-face contact is necessary for cooperation to take place, this study has demonstrated the significance of face-toface exchanges between cooperative partners. It has illustrated dimensions that may not be compensated for by the electronic environment, which lead partners to make every effort to increase group time spent face-to-face by arranging in-person meetings where possible or by extending the time spent together at the programme’s scheduled face-to-face meetings. The positive effect that blended learning settings with their inbuilt face-to-face sessions may have on virtual cooperation is thus alluded to. However, the case of the tridem also showed that virtual cooperation with next to no additional opportunities for face-to-face contact is possible and by no means a less-than-ideal state. The merit of engaging in group work reflection could be postulated for the focus groups in this study. The data highlighted in particular that the provision of an online diary in virtual (blended learning) contexts for language teacher education, coupled with tasks that regularly encouraged participants to make an entry, were strong facilitators and initiators of personal and group work reflection. The study also confirmed the facilitating function of another asynchronous medium for group processing - the team-forum. Finally, it validated the observation made in face-to-face cooperation (e.g. Hare 1976) that both social and task-related aspects of group work are inseparably intertwined with each other and have a bearing on each other. This study has outlined multiple topics that electronic collaborators may want to address in their quest to establish a socially and task-wise well-functioning team. In particular, several strategies aimed at surmounting digital invisibility (cf. 9.1.1) may be of key importance in this context. 240 9.2 Where to go from here: directions for further research This study has proposed that face-to-face and electronic CL share many characteristics, but that there are also aspects unique to the electronic environment that need to be considered when cooperating in virtual space. As Johnson & Johnson (2004: 803) state: “Electronic communications influence interaction style and work flow” (cf. also e.g. Kern 2006: 200f.) Issues associated with digital invisibility were identified as new and peculiar to the field of virtual cooperation. A range of possible means to overcome related issues were presented. However, given the broad nature of this topic, further research should delve deeper into successful strategies that can be used by group members during cooperation in a virtual environment. This has been a study embedded in the context of a language teacher education programme administered in the format of blended learning. It has specifically focussed upon the cooperative dealings of one tridem and one tandem that both made extensive use of two asynchronous channels in the electronic environment, the group forum and the online diary. The findings of this study might have been different, had data, for example, been collected in a setting other than E-LINGO or analysed using another research framework or methodology (cf. Freeman 2009: 36f.). Seen from this angle, the approach this study takes “constitutes one way of ‘slicing the cake’” (Silverman 2000: 52). Other approaches are not in competition, but can enhance the field by augmenting and exploring existing and additional issues (cf. ibid.). My research has touched upon potential paths to foster the establishment of positive interdependence and accountability in the virtual space of blended learning, as identified in the electronic messages by members of two small groups. This area certainly requires further exploration. Future research may profit from a) scrutinising the proposed sets of behaviours and their links to positive interdependence more thoroughly as well as examining their use in and validity to other contexts of CL in virtual space b) investigating which additional behaviours may facilitate and support the telecollaborative dealings of virtual teams - in particular referring to synchronous communication media in and outside of online learning environments c) exploring how the identified behaviours relate to other techniques and recommendations for virtual CL teams to shape and manage the cooperation process 241 d) identifying conditions and limitations of the proposed behaviours and ways in which they may interrelate with, or depend on, other group characteristics (such as group size or composition) and group member traits (cf. e.g. Tsui & Ki 2002: 37; Kreijns et al. 2003: 341). Analysis of the data has considerably deepened my understanding of how virtual team members may assist each other and promote group unity and empathy by sharing certain types of information with their partners. Nevertheless, some categories that I identified did not receive prominent attention in the proposed conceptualisation of CL in virtual space. These might point to additional topics for research, such as, exploring the means and effects of members extending the cooperative work beyond designated group tasks (e.g. voluntarily communicating and working together on individual tasks) and beneficial ways of negotiating the cooperative work in electronic environments (e.g. consciously practising group work negotiation; allowing outside influences to stimulate and improve the group work; negotiating group routines and adjusting them to the needs and possibilities of each individual member; finding distinct ways of communicating, interacting, working and dealing with problems in the group). A further topic that may be addressed by future research is the relationship between group name usage and naturally emerging roles on the one hand, and group size, group composition and opportunities for face-to-face contact within the group on the other. As far as research contexts are concerned, it remains to be explored how participants conduct electronic cooperation in completely virtual contexts, such as online courses of studies with no incorporated face-to-face meetings. Future studies will also profit from selecting research contexts that allow for the examination of groups of various sizes, in particular those of more than three members. The study of CL in virtual space could be further extended by integrating findings into additional theories of cooperation, such as Tuckman’s group dynamics model of developmental stages in small groups (e.g. Tuckman & Jensen 1977). Finally, the issue of practical applicability requires further research. Based on the data, hypotheses for the construction of blended learning courses and online learning environments could be put forward. On the technical side, these include the incorporation of ‘comment’ functions and formatting tools in online learning diaries; the availability of opportunities to relate contributions within different CMC tools (e.g. personal member profiles with up-todate information on personal context factors; creating hyperlinks between diary entries and, say, the E-LINGO calendar; cf. also Hesse et al. 1997) and, generally, the incorporation of more opportunities to share information about oneself with fellow group members (e.g. sections where participants can add information on ‘What’s new? ’, ‘New files opened’, ‘New links’, ‘What I found 242 challenging/ surprising/ ...’, as was practised by one participant in her online diary). As far as activities that virtual CL teams carry out are concerned, the role of the tasks needs to be further explored. For appropriate tasks to be in place, issues such as the conditions under which the use of an online diary is most fruitful for collaboration need to be explored. For example, should participants be given more guidance when composing entries or should they be required to ‘answer’ a team partner’s entry? The value of tasks that allow the partners insights into each member’s preferred ways of working and learning (e.g. combined with information in the personal profile) has been alluded to and should be followed up by future research. In a similar vein, tasks that lead members of pre-assigned groups to discover possible reasoning behind the group composition prior to the group work (and hence areas of homogeneity and heterogeneity on which mutual appreciation, support and positive interdependence may be built) appear promising, but require further exploration. The value and specific affordances of tasks that focus on the participants’ exchange of social (i.e. not primarily task-related) information also need to be further studied. The applicability of practical suggestions to contexts in which CL is practised in virtual space marks a new avenue that needs to be further explored by future research. To conclude this section and, in fact, my whole study, I would like to refer to the data once more. While relating a personal situation, Valerie, one of the participants, summarises the current status of research on CL in virtual space, the position of my study in it, and the prospects for future research so well that I am happy to leave the final say to her (cf. also Dörnyei 2007b: 313): We will see. One step after the other. Now I have caught up with my dairy [...]. There is much more to do! 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Ann Kimes-Link Aufgaben, Methoden und Verstehensprozesse im englischen Literaturunterricht der gymnasialen Oberstufe Eine qualitativ-empirische Studie Giessener Beiträge zur Fremdsprachendidaktik 2013, 404 Seiten €[D] 68,00/ SFr 85,50 ISBN 978-3-8233-6798-7 Die vorliegende Studie gewährt anhand mehrerer Fallstudien einen Einblick in die Realität schulischen Literaturunterrichts und leistet somit einen Beitrag zur Grundlagenforschung im Rahmen der fremd-, aber auch der muttersprachlichen Literaturdidaktik. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt gemäß den Prämissen einer rezeptionsästhetischen Literaturdidaktik auf der Frage, wie literarische Texte im Englischunterricht der gymnasialen Oberstufe tatsächlich gelesen werden und durch welche Aufgaben und Methoden Lehrkräfte das Unterrichtsgeschehen steuern. Es wird geprüft, inwiefern diese didaktischen Maßnahmen geeignet sind, die Interaktion der Lernenden mit dem Text sowie die Interaktion der Lernenden untereinander zu intensivieren und so vertiefte Verstehensprozesse zu begünstigen. Die Studie bedient sich eines qualitativ-empirischen Designs und einer Daten-, Methoden- und Perspektiventriangulation. Durch die Integration von Videoaufzeichnungen, Lehrer- und Schülerinterviews sowie schriftlichen Schülerprodukten wird ein Panoramablick auf das Unterrichtsgeschehen bereitgestellt, der es ermöglicht, Hypothesen über die Ausbildung verschiedener Kompetenzen auf Seiten der Lernenden sowie über lernförderliche und -hinderliche Bedingungen für die Vertiefung von Verstehensprozessen beim Umgang mit literarischen Texten zu generieren. The present study combines research from the fields of cooperative learning and computer-mediated cooperation with recent findings from research on foreign language teacher education and development. In particular, it provides insights into the functioning of (tele-)collaboration among a cohort of prospective foreign language teachers who participate in a blended learning teacher development programme. A large proportion of research on Cooperative Learning (CL) to date has concentrated on situations where the cooperating partners have the opportunity of working together by sharing face-to-face contact. With the increasing popularity of virtual learning scenarios, the question arises as to whether the defining principles of CL can be transferred to digital environments where partners share little or no face-to-face contact. This study takes the CL approach as a starting point and discusses a transfer of insights from this area to the field of cooperation in an online learning environment. Giessener Beiträge zur Fremdsprachendidaktik