Language Learning & Technology

Language Learning & Technology
http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num1/call.pdf
February 2009, Volume 13, Number 1 p. 121
Copyright © 2009, ISSN 1094-3501 121

Call for Papers for Special Issue of LLT

Theme: Multilateral Online Exchanges for Language and Culture Learning

Guest Editors: Tim Lewis, Thierry Chanier, and Bonnie Youngs

Telecollaborative partnerships for language and culture learning have evolved rapidly in the past decade. Recent years have witnessed a number of multi-partner exchanges, known as Tridems, or Multidems. Multilateral exchanges reflect the changing needs of language learners in globalized societies, where prolonged and intensive face-to-face contact with a second-often geographically proximate- culture has been replaced by more fleeting encounters with a range of world languages and cultures, which may well take place in a virtual environment. For this special issue, we are seeking papers that address issues of language and culture learning in multilateral exchanges. Papers should be grounded in a theoretical framework that formulates research hypotheses and then seeks to confirm or disconfirm them by following an appropriate research methodology (http://llt.msu.edu/resguide.html). Papers should also present data on
actual languageand culture-learning outcomes.

Possible topics for submissions include but are not limited to:

• Language-and culture-learning outcomes of online exchanges between learners and institutions from outside traditional areas such as Europe and North America.
• Investigations of the sociolinguistic impact of exchanges involving differences of status between partner languages.
• Evidence of learners' reflection on themselves and their own culture that addresses questions such as the intra-cultural and intercultural relationships between participants and how culture is negotiated.
  
• Impact of technology on language or culture learning, e.g., in monomodal vs. multimodal exchanges, roles of synchronous vs. asynchronous media, etc.
• Studies of different types of data from multilateral intercultural learning partnerships that can be used to analyse the nature of online intercultural competence and, most importantly, to measure gains in intercultural competence.
• Studies of the impact of participants' prior intercultural learning experiences and possible benefits of post-exchange follow-up.
  
• Studies of the influence of different patterns of learning, teaching styles, and combinations of media use in multilateral online exchanges.
  
• Evidence of peer tutoring in multilateral intercultural partnerships.
• Development of learner corpora based on data from multilateral exchanges.

250-word abstract
by 31st May 2009