Emotions in teaching and learning languages and the development of confidence in the Teletandem context

• Grant number: 24/14172-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• End date: October 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Applied Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Laura Rampazzo
• Grantee: Isabelle Sartori Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Telecollaboration or virtual exchange (VE) programs promote collaborative online learning among students from different institutions who are geographically distant (O'Dowd, 2013, 2018, 2021). One model of VE is the Teletandem project (Telles, 2006; Telles; Vassallo, 2006), which aims to promote linguistic and intercultural development among speakers of different languages. As part of the tasks they should complete throughout their participation, learners meet virtually and synchronously in teletandem oral sessions, write learning diaries after each session, complete questionnaires, and attend mediation sessions (Aranha; Cavalari, 2014; Cavalari, 2018). In this context, this research aims to identify the emotions present in participants' learning process within teletandem and to examine to what extent their account of the experience indicates that teletandem has an impact in the gain of confidence to communicate in a second language. Following a qualitative and interpretive approach, this project proposes to analyze the learning diaries written by Teletandem participants and the questionnaires they answer before and after their participation. This research adopts a case study approach on data selected from the Multimodal Teletandem Corpus (MulTeC) (Aranha; Lopes, 2019). We believe that the results will contribute to the reflection and perception of students regarding the importance of telecollaboration and to recognize the impact of emotion on intercultural practices and for the development of confidence.