Internet-based collaborative work groups to foster pre-service language teacher autonomy
Résumé
This talk deals with an online Franco-German project aiming at fostering pre-service language teacher (PSLT) autonomy. In this project, 54 PSLTs were led to complete online collaborative tasks, designed to have them reflect on how emotions may affect teacher identity development; in this project, “autonomy” was considered as an affordance, as the collaborative and tutored learning environment was devised to have the PSLTs engage with their peers in a self-awareness raising process. Two hypotheses were formed: collaborative activities may promote skill development (project management, ICT use, intercultural skills...); digital tools help build communities of practice able to develop a sense of autonomy. Action research is in progress. The first results suggest that the collaborative tasks encouraged both autonomy and social cohesion among all participants; the results also highlight institutional and human obstacles, particularly as regards the retrieval and analysis of video excerpts showing the PSLTs in actual teaching situations.