Understanding teletandem learning from an intersubjective perspective

1. Understanding teletandem learning from an intersubjective perspective Douglas Altamiro Consolo (UNESP – State University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) dconsolo@ibilce.unesp.br Gerson Rossi dos Santos (IFSP – Votuporanga, Brazil) gersonrossi@ifsp.edu.br

2. The Study • This presentation is about an investigation on language description that focuses on the role of the establishment of intersubjectivity (McCafferty, 2002; Mori and Hayashi, 2006; Vygotsky, 1930/1971; 1978; Duranti, 2010; Sambre, 2012) in the teletandem learning process. Intersubjectivity is understood as an experience of otherness between discourse subjects and is established between individuals as they recognize each other as individual subjects in social contexts. We report on analyses of teletandem data from online interactions between an interactant at a state university in Brazil, who was doing a major in English and Portuguese to become a language teacher, and an interactant studying Portuguese as a foreign language at a university in the USA. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

3. Researchcontext • Institucional and integrated teletandem (iiTTD): • Complementary collaborative language learning activity, carried online, and integrated to a foreign language subject in the curriculum of the undergraduate course in which participants are regularly enrolled (BRAMMERTS, 2002; ARANHA e CAVALARI, 2014; CAVALARI e ARANHA, 2016). • Autonomous and reciprocal learning based on online oral sessions through voice and webcam vídeo between partners who employ different target-languages separatedly so they can assure mutual benifit (BRAMMERTS, 1996, 2001; VASSALO e TELLES, 2006); • Participants are formally instructed on the principles and guidelines of the iiTTD activity by means of a tutorial session before their first oral session (ARANHA e CAVALARI, 2014; CAVALARI e ARANHA, 2016); • Oral sessions are audio-and-video-recorded by an automatic media capturing application. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

4. Researchmethodology • Qualitativeresearch(Silverman, 2000; Burns, 2000; Mason, 2002; Burns & Grove, 2003); • Ethnographicnature; • Verbal / imagetic data; • Focusesontheinteractionbetween diferente analytic componentes such as constructs, hypothesis, themesandcategories; • Hermeneuticorientation(Grondin, 2012); • A paradigmofapproachingthebeing in its social andhistoricalconstitution, dedicatedtobothunderstandandclarifytheexperienceofthe individual subject. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

5. Researchmethods • Participants: a 7-week partnership between a Brazilian learner of English as an FL who speaks Portuguese as L1 and a North-American learner of Portuguese as an FL who speaks English as L1. • Types of data: audio and video-recorded oral sessions; text productions; text reviews, chat records. • Analysis procedures: • Oral sessions transcription; • Transcription adaptations; • Raising macroprocessual narrative units; • Microprocessual interpretation oriented by 4 axis: • Corporealty; • Responsivity; • The dicothomy agreement/resemblance and disagreement/difference; • Learners attitudes towards L2 production. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

6. Intersubjectivity: aninterdisciplinaryconstruct Aristotle Applied linguistics Appliedstudies Psychology Descartes Bakhtin Cognitive semiotics Husserl Philosophy; theoretical studies Merleau-Ponty, Scheler, Lévinas, etc. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

7. Intersubjectivity:aninterdisciplinaryconstruct • Phenomenology (Husserl, 1929/1969; Scheler, 1971; Merleau-Ponty, 1946/1996) • The constitution of the being is necessarily intersubjective, that is, it occurs through the experience of otherness; • Experiencing the Other relies on empathy and transcendence; • The body is the physical expression of the self, beyond its immediate materiality. • Dialogism (Bakhtin, 2006; 2015) • Making an utterance does not rely (only) on the cohersions of an abstract language system, but occurs as a response to a previous utterance – an expression of the Other – and simultaneouly aims at causing responsivity in the shape of a subsequential utterance (thus establishing a dialogue chain); • Words carry emotional-volitional tones, thus communicating the expression of the self; • The Other’s body is acknoledged as the self’s exterior body, thus consisting of an experience of the ego that differs from self-experiece and is based on the aesthetical perception of the Other. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

8. Intersubjectivity:aninterdisciplinaryconstruct • Psychology and development (Zlatev, 2007; 2008; Meltzof & Brooks, 2007; Möttönen, 2016; Stern, 1977; 1992; Braten, 2006) • The development of social communication runs through preverbal stages, of a mimetic nature; • Babies develop intersubjectivity by exercising with their care-takers joint attention to mutual references through bodily mimesis, thus establishing extensivities between each other’s physical expression.; • Verbal language is the most complex stage in the establishment of intersubjectivity, but it isn’t the only. • Applied linguistics (Mori & Hayashi, 2006; McCafferty, 2002) • L2 learning benefits from the construction of mutual gestural repertoires, which enables interlocutors to acknoledge discourse projects and subjective atitudes and enhance mutual comprehension conditions. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

9. Non-linear researchphases Raising theoretical foundations Analysis methodology Data analysis gersonrossi@hotmail.com

10. Transcrição – fragmento A Transcriptionsample gersonrossi@hotmail.com

11. Results: constructiongoalsandexpectations gersonrossi@hotmail.com

12. Results: metalanguage gersonrossi@hotmail.com

13. Results: corporealtyand joint attention 3 2 1 gersonrossi@hotmail.com

14. Results Among other findings, the establishment of intersubjectivity encompasses both an immediate partner-to-partner dimension as well as a broader discourse community-based dimension. It has shown to develop as partners perceive each other aesthetically through their voice and cinematic image, so that they can develop mutual responsiveness, thus supporting better comprehension and language development. Furthermore, there are evidences that intersubjectivity further develops when discourse is constructed beyond the verbal domain and encompasses multiple gestures of empathy, affection and reciprocity. Main analysis categories are: • (i) verbal and non-verbal communication; • (ii) the co-construction of conditions for responsiveness towards the interlocutor in the target-language; • (iii) bodily mimesis – understood as body dynamics that are/might be discoursively employed by the partners; • (iv) the co-construction of a shared framework of reference to boost mutual comprehension and manage communication difficulties; • (v) the relationship between the recognition of analogy/resemblance/agreement versus the recognition of difference/disagreement between individuals. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

15. Mostinfluentialbibliographicalreferences: Bakhtin, M. (2006). Estética da criação verbal. Translated by Paulo Bezerra. 4ª ed. São Paulo, Brazil: Martins Fontes. Duranti, A. (2010). Husserl, intersubjectivity and anthropology. Antropological theory 10(1). Matusov, E. (1996). Intersubjectivity without agreement. Mind, culture and activity, vol 3, n. 1. Mori, J.; Hayashi, M. (2006). The Achievement of Intersubjectivity through Embodied Completions: A Study of Interactions Between First and Second Language Speakers. Oxford University Press. Telles, J. A. (2011). Teletandem: A transculturalidade das interações on-line em línguas estrangeiras via teleconferência. Paper presented at the IX CBLA – Congresso Brasileiro de Linguística Aplicada (Brazilian Conference of Applied Linguistics), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: UFRJ - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Zlatev, J. (2007). Intersubjectivity, mimetic schemas and the emergence of language, Intellectica 2-3. gersonrossi@hotmail.com

16. Thank you! Muito obrigado! dconsolo@ibilce.unesp.br gersonrossi@ifsp.edu.br gersonrossi@hotmail.com