Expanding Learning Spaces: Virtual Places of Learning in An Online Intercultural Exchange Project between the U.S.A. and Italy
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2019
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Italian Studies in Southern Africa
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Association of Professional Italianists
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School of Languages and Linguistics
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Journal Article
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Trape, R. & Calamita, F. (2019). Expanding Learning Spaces: Virtual Places of Learning in An Online Intercultural Exchange Project between the U.S.A. and Italy. Italian Studies in Southern Africa/Studi d'Italianistica nell'Africa Australe, 32 (2), pp.278-304
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This article presents a telecollaboration project for the acquisition of a foreign language developed by Roberta Trapè, University of Melbourne and Francesca Calamita, University of Virginia (UVa). The project is part of the "Language Forward Initiative", a much broader initiative promoted by the Institute of World Languages (UVa) to create immersive online programs that aim to expand the opportunities for male and female students studying a foreign language at the University of Virginia to interact with native speakers abroad. "Telecollaboration", "online intercultural exchange" or "virtual exchange" are definitions that are used to refer to intercultural meetings of learners who interact online, and to collaborative projects with partners who come from different cultural contexts and / or from different geographical places. , as an integral part of the institutional curricula. The "Language Forward Initiative" project between Italy and the United States will be developed in three years (2018-2021) and is based on a virtual exchange between 'Italian Studies' (UVa) and an Italian high school in Milan. The project created virtual spaces, parallel to the traditional space-time of classroom lessons, in which students have the opportunity to use and produce the foreign language and their knowledge in a meaningful context. The main idea is to lead the learners to a virtual and relational "other" space, in which they can examine phenomena and experience their cultural position while trying to enter the cultural world of others (Scarino, 2014: 391). American students and students have been associated with students who live in Italy to talk in groups of two by videoconference through Skype on topics selected by the teachers. The activities that take place outside the classroom in this alternative space have favored the development of foreign language interaction and conversation skills, but have also encouraged critical and comparative thinking and intercultural skills. The project will develop over the next two years in a virtual exchange based on issues of intercultural citizenship.