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TESOL Student Teacher
Discourse

This book explores the use of online and face-to-face interactions


in language teacher education (LTE) by assessing the formation and
practices of a community of practice (CoP), and evaluating the roles
discussions between student teachers and a peer tutor can play in terms
of identity formation, articulating narratives, reflective practices, and
maintaining affective relationships. The specific context within which
this is embedded is a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
(TESOL) programme, often known as English Language Teaching (ELT),
at a third-level Irish institution. The data drawn on come from student
teachers on a master’s (MA) programme who interacted with a peer
tutor (the researcher) via a number of modes (face-to-face and online).
The approach to data analysis is a corpus-based discourse analytical
one, which examines the linguistic features of student teacher and peer
tutor talk; the features of community practices in the discourse; and how
different modes of communication shape the nature of this discourse.
Perceptive data from the student teachers is used to outline their reactions
to the modes of communication and the activities they participated in.

Elaine Riordan is a lecturer in TESOL at the University of Limerick,


Ireland. Elaine’s research interests include English language teaching
and teacher education, the discourse of communities of practice, corpus
linguistics, discourse analysis, new technologies and language teaching/
learning and computer-mediated communication.
Routledge Advances in Corpus Linguistics
Edited by Tony McEnery,
Lancaster University, UK
Michael Hoey,
Liverpool University, UK

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David L. Hoover, Jonathan Culpeper, and Kieran O’Halloran

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Elena Semino, Zsófia Demjén, Andrew Hardie, Sheila Payne and
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Katie J. Patterson

TESOL Student Teacher Discourse


A Corpus-Based Analysis of Online and Face-to-Face Interactions
Elaine Riordan

For a full list of titles in the series: please visit: www.routledge.com


TESOL Student Teacher
Discourse
A Corpus-Based Analysis of Online
and Face-to-Face Interactions

Elaine Riordan
First published 2018
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Taylor & Francis
The right of Elaine Riordan to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-92777-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-68229-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To
Teddy
Contents

Acknowledgementsviii
List of Tablesx
List of Figuresxi
List of Abbreviationsxii

1 Introducing the Context: LTE, Social Learning,


and CoPs 1

2 Technologies in LTE 20

3 Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis 38

4 Community Discourse: Frequent Linguistic Features 61

5 Community Discourse: Identity Formation and


Representation113

6 Community Discourse: Affective Relationships 153

7 Conclusions 200

Appendices213
Index232
Acknowledgements

Many people deserve a mention here. I’d like firstly to extend my sincer-
est thanks to my supervisors and colleagues Fiona Farr and Liam Murray
for their constant support and guidance over the last number of years.
I couldn’t have asked for better mentors to guide me through the PhD,
and I can honestly say that working with and learning from them both
has made my experience all the more rewarding and enjoyable. I’m also
extremely grateful to my external examiner for my PhD, Randi Reppen,
for her insightful comments which have helped to shape my work, and
for always offering advice and assistance in my many requests over the
last number of years. Sincerest thanks also goes to my internal examiner
and mentor at the University of Limerick, Angela Chambers, who gently
pushed me into submitting the proposal to Routledge, and is constantly
a source of advice and inspiration.
In addition, I’d like to acknowledge the assistance I have received from
the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Univer-
sity of Limerick, and my Head of School, Cinta Ramblado, for giving me
the time to bring this book to fruition. I’d like to thank my former and
current Deans in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences,
Tom Lodge and Helen Kelly-Holmes, for their support. Further apprecia-
tion goes to friends and colleagues in the School of Modern Languages
and Applied Linguistics, in particular the TESOL/Linguistics team who
make my working experience truly enjoyable. I would especially like to
thank Sharon Aherne, Angela Farrell, Mary Fitzpatrick, Sarah Gibbons,
Margaret Healy, Helen Kelly-Holmes, Zoe Lawlor, Catherine Martin,
Freda Mishan, Máiréad Moriarty, Anne O’Keeffe, Niamh O’Sullivan, Íde
O’Sullivan, and Elaine Vaughan. I’m also extremely grateful to friends
and colleagues in the Centre for Applied Language Studies (CALS) at
the University of Limerick, and the Inter-Varietal Applied Corpus Studies
(IVACS) research groups for their constant encouragement.
Further gratitude goes to the series editors Tony McEnery and Michael
Hoey for agreeing to take on my project. In particular, I’d like to thank
Acknowledgements ix
Michael Hoey for his keen eye and his insightful comments in the shaping
of the work. I’d also like to thank Margo Irvin and Kathleen Laurentiev
at Routledge for their guidance and support at the early stages of this
work, and Elysse Preposi, Alexandra Simmons, and Kevin Kelsey at the
submission stage. Any mistakes are my own responsibility.
The participants in this study also deserve a mention because without
them this would not have been possible. Finally, I’d like to thank my
good friends and my family for everything they have done to make this
possible, including my mom (Breda), dad (Gerry), sisters Anne and Gil-
lian, and nieces Zoe, Ellie-May, and Daisy. And to the more recent addi-
tions to my family, Mike, Brógan, and Elle—thank you.
Tables

3.1 Summary of Project Data 48


3.2 Perceptions towards Technologies and Interactions 50
4.1 Participation in Chat 62
4.2 Participation in DF 64
4.3 Participation in F2F1 66
4.4 Participation in F2F2 68
4.5 Interactivity Measures 75
4.6 Type/Token Ratios across Modes 77
4.7 Lexical Density across Modes 79
4.8 Reference across Modes (W/PM) 82
4.9 Response Tokens across Modes (W/PM) 88
4.10 Modals across Modes (W/PM) 92
4.11 Metalanguage across Modes (W/PM) 101
5.1 Top Twenty Three-Word I Clusters in Student
Teacher Discourse 117
5.2 Top Twenty Three-Word We Clusters in Student
Teacher Discourse 122
5.3 We Referents over Time in Student Teacher
Discourse (W/PM) 128
5.4 Student Teacher Narratives across Modes 135
5.5 Comments on Reflection 142
6.1 Top Twenty Affective Items in the TEC-SPI 155
6.2 Top Twenty Evaluative Items in the TEC-SPI 159
6.3 Sorry Online and F2F (W/PM) 167
6.4 Top Ten Potential Hedges in F2F and Online Modes 175
6.5 Two-Word Chunks with a Hedging Function 176
6.6 Chunks as Hedging Devices (W/PM) 177
6.7 Words One to the Right of Kind of/Sort of in F2F 183
6.8 Model for the Analysis of Hedges 188
6.9 Affordances of the Tasks 190
Figures

3.1 Participants’ Teaching Experience and Computer Skills 49


4.1 Participant Contribution in Year One 70
4.2 Participant Contribution in Year Two 72
4.3 Participant Contribution in Year Three 73
4.4 Peer Tutor Contribution over Time 73
4.5 Feel and Like across Modes 86
4.6 Evaluative Tokens across Modes 90
4.7 Time References across Modes 94
4.8 Past Verb Forms across Modes 96
4.9 Cognitive Tokens across Modes 97
5.1 Merged Subject/Object Pronouns in the TEC-SPI (W/PM) 115
5.2 Concordance—I Think I117
5.3 Concordance—I Was Teaching118
5.4 Concordance—I Am Not120
5.5 We Referents in Student Teacher Discourse (Raw) 126
5.6 We Referents in Peer Tutor Discourse (Raw) 127
5.7 Novice and Professional Student Teacher We over Time
(W/PM)129
5.8 Topics for Reflection 140
5.9 Impact of Project (Reflection-on-Action Perspectives) 145
6.1 LIWC Percentage of Positive and Negative Emotion 157
6.2 Concordance—Good/Better/Best Teacher(s)162
6.3 Please and Thanks (W/PM) 164
6.4 Smilies and Laughter (W/PM) 169
6.5 Concordance—Peer Tutor Smilies170
6.6 Top Three Two-Word Chunks in F2F and Online Modes
(W/PM)176
6.7 Percentage of Student Teachers’ and Peer Tutor’s Hedges
(W/PM)178
6.8 LIWC Percentage of Tentativeness and Certainty 182
6.9 Concordance—A Bit in Online Modes 187
Abbreviations

BASE: British Academic Spoken English Corpus


BAWE: British Academic Written English Corpus
BNC: British National Corpus
CADS: Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies
CALL: Computer-Assisted Language Learning
CDA: Critical Discourse Analysis
CL: Corpus Linguistics
CMC: Computer-Mediated Communication
C-MELT: Corpus of Meetings in ELT
CoP: Community of Practice
DA: Discourse Analysis
DF: Discussion Forum
EFL: English as a Foreign Language
ELT: English Language Teaching
ESL: English as a Second Language
F2F: Face-to-Face
FL: Foreign Language
FTA: Face-Threatening Act
KWIC: Key Word in Context
L2: Second Language
L-CIE: Limerick Corpus of Irish English
LIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Wordcount Programme
LOB: Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus
LPP: Legitimate Peripheral Participation
LSWE: Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus
LTE: Language Teacher Education
MA: Master of Arts
MICASE: Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English
OL: Online
POR: Post-Observation Reports Corpus
POTTI: Post-Observation Trainer Trainee Interactions Corpus
SLA: Second Language Acquisition
Abbreviations xiii
TEC-SPI: Teacher Education Corpus of Student Teacher and Peer Tutor
Interactions
TESOL: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
TP: Teaching Practice
1 Introducing the Context
LTE, Social Learning,
and CoPs

1.1 Introduction
This book explores the use of online and face-to-face interactions in lan-
guage teacher education (LTE) by assessing the formation and practices of
a community of practice (CoP) (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998a),
and evaluating the roles that discussions between student teachers and a
peer tutor can play in terms of identity formation, articulating narratives,
reflective practices, and maintaining affective relationships. The specific
context within which my research is embedded is a Teaching English to
Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) programme, often known as Eng-
lish Language Teaching (ELT), at a third-level Irish institution. The data
I draw on come from student teachers in a master’s (MA) programme
who interacted with a peer tutor (the researcher) via a number of modes
(face-to-face and online).
My approach to data analysis is a corpus-based one, where I examine
the linguistic features of student teacher and peer tutor talk; the features
of community practices in the discourse; and how different modes of
communication shape the nature of this discourse. Perceptive data from
the student teachers are used to outline their reactions to the modes of
communication and the activities they participated in. Examining the dis-
course in such ways allows me to explore how student teachers engage
with one another and what the content of their talk is, which should
offer a better understanding of student teachers. In order to provide an
overview of LTE for corpus linguists in particular, in this chapter, I briefly
discuss historical issues within LTE, before considering the theoretical
foundation on which this book rests: namely, social learning and CoPs.

1.2 Language Teacher Education

1.2.1 Historical Issues in LTE


LTE in the field of TESOL dates back to the 1960s. Since then, there
have been many shifts in the theories underlying the education field, the
first of which was a move from a behaviouristic perspective to a more
constructivist one.
2 Introducing the Context
Transmission from Product-Process to Constructivist Processes
The 1960s and 1970s saw the transmission of knowledge and product-
oriented theories (behaviourism) to a more constructivist, process-oriented
approach (Crandall 2000; Freeman 2001; Abednia 2012), resulting in
greater focus on teacher cognition, reflection, and teacher development.
The behaviourist view of learning focussed on teachers’ behaviours and
how they impacted teaching and learning (Freeman 2001; Johnson 2009).
This approach was felt to ignore the individual experiences of teachers
(Freeman and Johnson 1998), and although some argue that it improved
teaching practices to some extent (Freeman 2001), it was acknowledged
that for ‘teacher education to be fully effective, it is crucial to examine
how teachers arrive at their explanations and understandings of what
they do in their classroom practice, and the role formal teacher education
plays in that process’ (Freeman 1991, 439).
The constructivist view of learning proposes that knowledge is con-
structed by people, and meaning is derived through experiences; thus,
the shift from behaviourist to constructivist approaches resulted in more
emphasis being placed on how the teachers learned, how they were in
classrooms, and why they made practice-related decisions (Cochran-
Smith 2005). As will be seen in later chapters, these are some of the issues
I tried to tease out of the discussions I had with the student teachers dur-
ing the data collection phases of my research.

Focus on Situated Cognition


In the 1970s, attention was placed on situated teacher cognition (Free-
man and Johnson 1998), which emphasised the interdependence of
knowing and doing, whereby knowledge is connected to activity, context,
and culture (Brown, Collins, and Duguid 1989). For LTE, this meant
that the linking of theory and practice was a priority, and that teach-
ers should learn from social interactions in authentic contexts. It was
acknowledged that ‘teacher learning is not viewed as translating knowl-
edge and theories into practice but as constructing new knowledge and
theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in
particular types of activities and processes’ (Richards 2008, 6). Taking
the view that learning happens through social participation falls in line
with the community of practice (CoP) framework (Richards 2008), con-
nects with sociocultural theories1 and social learning, and acknowledges
the importance of identity construction, dialogue, and collaboration, all
of which are important in the context of my data.

Teachers’ Prior Learning and Inquiry


In the late 1980s, Freeman (1989) stated that LTE had become somewhat
unfocussed, and courses for teacher education often lacked coherence
Introducing the Context 3
and a sound foundation. Accordingly, a paper by Freeman and Johnson
(1998) proposed a new knowledge base for LTE, basically stating that
any content (methodologies, theories, and so on) should be delivered and
‘understood against the backdrop of teachers’ professional lives’ (ibid.,
405). They stressed the value of both theoretical and practical knowl-
edge, and they placed emphasis on the teacher as researcher/investigator
‘with respect for the role of teachers in developing theory and directing
their own professional development through collaborative observation,
teacher research and inquiry, and sustained inservice programs’ (Crandall
2000, 36). This shift thus underlined the significance of teachers’ prior
learning experiences, which were realised via observation and reflection
(Freeman 1991, 2001; Johnson 2009). Rather than viewing teachers as
‘empty vessels waiting to be filled’ (Freeman and Johnson 1998, 401),
they were considered to have previous experiences, their own personal
values and opinions, all of which impact upon classroom practices.

Professionalising LTE
In the late 1990s, Freeman and Johnson (1998, 398) cautioned that there
had been little research implemented in LTE, stressing that ‘much of the
work [. . .] has been animated more by tradition and opinion than by
theoretical definitions, documented study, or researched understandings’.
The impact this paper had was profound, and stirred an impetus in pub-
lished works in the field. Today, teacher education is more grounded than
before (Johnstone 2004; Wright 2010)—it has more interest in reflective
practice, teacher knowledge, cognition and learning, school-based learn-
ing (mentoring), peer coaching, teacher narratives, and the link between
the teacher and the researcher (Mann 2011), elements which manifest
themselves throughout the chapters that follow.

1.2.2 Reflective Practice


I now move on to consider reflective practice for language teachers, as
this is one of the fundamental practices which has emerged from the
historical development of LTE, and is core to later parts of this book.
Dewey (1933, 16) defined reflection as ‘active, persistent, and careful
consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of
the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends’.
Extending Dewey, Schön (1991) identifies the concepts of ‘professional
knowledge’ and ‘experiential knowledge’, with the former referring to
the facts and theories that teachers know about teaching, and the latter
concerning the knowledge which stems from actual experience. Schön’s
(1991) reflective model therefore includes reflection-in-action (reflec-
tion while practising, which is often at a sub-conscious level, unless a
break-down in an established routine happens), and reflection-on-action
4 Introducing the Context
(reflection on the practice retrospectively). In modern LTE programmes,
student teachers are asked to reflect on issues important to language
teaching and pedagogy (reflection-on-action), and to reflect during their
teaching practice (reflection-in-action).
Reflective practice is an active and evidence-based process where the
teacher considers their own classes and those of other teachers in order to
learn about teaching. This can include student teachers considering them-
selves and their teacher roles and identities, their students, their practice,
and issues related to teaching and learning, where they explore, construct
meaning, generate knowledge, draw conclusions, and use new knowledge
to make decisions about their practice (Riordan 2012; Farr and Riordan
2015). Reflective practice is deemed most beneficial when it results in
positive alterations in one’s practice (Ray and Coulter 2008), as this can
demonstrate that learning has occurred (Forbes 2011). The process of
reflection has been aptly likened to a compass whereby the teacher can
stop, observe, and ascertain where they currently are, so they can make a
decision about where they want to go in the future (Farrell 2012). Teach-
ers need support during this process (Mena-Marcos, García-Rodríguez,
and Tillema 2013; Farr 2015), and therefore an important figure within
reflective practice is the teacher educator who scaffolds reflections (exam-
ples of this will be seen later in the analytical chapters).
Further research is needed to more fully understand reflective practice
(Kramsch and Ware 2004; Collin, Karsent, and Komis 2013), and inter-
estingly Akbari (2007) finds no evidence of reflective practice leading
to improved teacher performance, although Farr (2011, 13) argues that
‘[. . .] to say that this means that it is not an effective tool, among oth-
ers, is perhaps taking it a step too far’. So, while reflective practice has
been described as a ‘catch phrase in teacher education’ (Wang, Chen, and
Levy 2010, 779), it has found a continued place in LTE (Lloyd and Bahr
2010; Farr and Riordan 2012; Farr 2015; Farrell 2016). In fact, Far-
rell (2012) points out that the terms reflection and reflective practice are
almost obligatory terms in LTE today.

Frameworks of Reflection
The model of reflective practice applied in this book comes from Jay and
Johnson (2002), which derives from the work of teacher educators on
the University of Washington’s Teacher Education Programme, and com-
prises three dimensions. The first, Descriptive Reflections, ‘involves the
intellectual process of “setting the problem;” that is, determining what
it is that will become the matter for reflection’ (ibid., 77). Therefore, at
this level, the student teacher describes the issue, which could be a prob-
lem in class, a feeling, an experience, or a theory. The second dimension,
Comparative Reflections, involves considering an issue through number
of different lenses so that the student teacher can better understand it,
Introducing the Context 5
and to ‘discover meaning [they] might otherwise miss’ (ibid., 78), while
the third dimension, Critical Reflections, is where ‘one makes a judge-
ment or a choice among actions, or simply integrates what one has
discovered into a new and better understanding of the problem’ (ibid.,
79). Although there are other useful models of reflection, Jay and John-
son’s model acknowledges the different levels of reflection and therefore
attempts to capture the complexity of reflective practice. In addition to
this, I find the three dimensions and the accompanying guiding questions
in their framework suitable for the description and categorisation of the
reflections found within my own data (see also Riordan 2012; Farr and
Riordan 2015).

1.2.3 Summary
To date, LTE is in a state of situated, social cognition, with a focus on
professional development, teacher narratives and identities, and reflective
practice. There has been momentum in LTE research particularly from
a sociocultural point of view (Norton 2004), and a well-cited paper by
Johnson (2006) highlights the importance of the ‘sociocultural turn’ and
the impact this has had on LTE. Concerning the ‘sociocultural turn’, she
discusses the shift from behaviourist and cognitivist views of learning to
a focus on the fact that knowledge is dynamic, social, and situated, and
that cognition is intertwined with context and participation (which I out-
lined earlier). As sociocultural theories have clearly impacted LTE, some
of the key players in this field (Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger)2 are there-
fore the focal point of the following section. This will provide a backdrop
to the aforementioned developments in LTE, but is also connected to the
concept of CoPs, a major theoretical framework employed in this book.

1.3 Lave and Wenger’s Social Theory of Learning


The concept of CoPs draws on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) social theory of
learning, namely situated learning, which comprises four main elements:
people are social beings; knowledge is considered as competence within
an enterprise; knowing is participating in and engaging with such enter-
prises; and learning should produce meaning that derives from our expe-
riences of the world (Wenger 1998a). Such elements lead them to take
social participation as the main focus of their CoP framework, which
constitutes four components: namely, meaning, which can be viewed as
learning through experience; community, which assumes learning by
belonging; practice, signifying learning by doing; and, identity, refer-
ring to learning as becoming (Wenger 1998a). Although this framework
was not put forward with student teachers in mind, these four compo-
nents can be used to describe the learning that student teachers engage
in. For example, student teachers learn about teaching through teaching
6 Introducing the Context
practice, observation, and continued professional development activities
(meaning); they learn by being integrated with and feeling part of the
teaching community (community); they continue to learn as they master
their craft (practice); and their identity as a teacher evolves and is shaped
through their practice and interactions with others (identity).

1.3.1 Legitimate Peripheral Participation


Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that the most important characteristic
of their theory of learning is Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP),
whereby learners participate at first peripherally in CoPs, and then with
time gain skills and knowledge which facilitate fuller participation in the
CoP. They state:

“Legitimate peripheral participation” provides a way to speak about


the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activi-
ties, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice.
It concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a com-
munity of practice. A person’s intentions to learn are engaged and the
meaning of learning is configured through the process of becoming a
full participant in a sociocultural practice. This sociocultural process
includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills.
(Lave and Wenger 1991, 29)

While the term legitimate peripheral participation is to be considered as


a whole, it may be further defined by its individual tokens (ibid.). Firstly,
legitimacy entails ways of belonging, in that participation at the core and
the periphery are both legitimate, and members at either position equally
belong to the CoP. Secondly, peripherality suggests that there are numer-
ous ways of being engaged in the community, as well as different levels
of inclusivity (ibid.). Peripheral participation, whereby members are not
interacting but merely observing, may be enhanced to full participation
with time.
To illustrate LPP, Lave and Wenger investigated five cases of appren-
ticeship, namely midwives in México, tailors in Liberia, US Navy quar-
termasters, butchers in US supermarkets, and Alcoholics Anonymous
members. They noticed that there are strong relationships between the
members in a community, the activities they perform, and the artefacts
they use, and that participation in such communities and knowledge
acquisition and dissemination are key to the success of CoPs. They insist
that for members to develop identities as full participants of a com-
munity, they must first enter the community as peripheral participants,
but if they do not participate to some degree, the possibility of learning
may disappear. This is often practised in LTE, where student teachers at
first peripherally participate in the teaching community by doing guided
Introducing the Context 7
observations of other teachers’ classes, followed by peer teaching and/or
teaching practice. I now turn to fuller description of CoPs.

1.4 Communities of Practice


CoPs have been defined as ‘an aggregate of people who come together
around mutual engagement in some common endeavor’ (Eckert and
McConnell-Ginet 1992, 464). They are groups of people sharing com-
mon goals who can learn through social interactions, with the view that
the shared community knowledge is greater than an individual member’s
knowledge (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998a; Johnson 2001).
Important in the CoP framework are the interrelationships between
meaning-making, identity negotiation and re-negotiation, community
belonging, and the practices of members, characteristics which I now
explore.

1.4.1 Community Features

Community Practices
Wenger (1998a, 1998b) outlines three dimensions of practice within a
community, including mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared
repertoire. Mutual engagement is members’ active engagement and nego-
tiation of meaning, where membership in a community is defined. This
includes individual and other members’ competence, knowledge and
actions, and members’ capacity to make meaningful connections with
other members’ contributions (Wenger 1998a). Wenger (2001, 2004)
refers to mutual engagement as the ‘community’, and Davies (2005)
highlights that in order to have mutual engagement in a CoP, interaction
and participation within communities must be meaningful. For student
teachers, mutual engagement can be viewed as participation in the pro-
cess of learning to be teachers (Clarke 2008).
The next dimension of community practices is a joint enterprise, and
Wenger (1998a) refers to three features of an enterprise which encompass
a CoP; the enterprise emerges from negotiation and mutual engagement,
the joint enterprise is defined by members’ pursuit of it, and as the enter-
prise belongs to members, it creates both a goal and mutual account-
ability among members. This has also been referred to as ‘the domain’
(Wenger 2001, 2004). For student teachers, this includes the joint activity
of learning to teach (Clarke 2008).
Thirdly, a shared repertoire includes words, discourses, stories, ges-
tures, and practices that have become part of the community and are
integral to its practice (Wenger 1998a). It has also been termed ‘the prac-
tice’, which is essentially the outcome of mutual engagement within a
shared enterprise (Wenger 2001; Davies 2005). For student teachers, this
8 Introducing the Context
includes a shared knowledge of teaching, resources, and the metalan-
guage of the field (Clarke 2008).
The combination of these three components can result in the cultiva-
tion of a CoP (Wenger 2004), but for practice to be opened up and for
newcomers to see how the CoP operates, members must have access to
all three (Wenger 1998a). CoPs thus have certain markers of inclusion
and exclusion, and certain ways of acting and interacting (Clarke 2008).

Gaining Meaning through Practice


Another important feature of CoPs is negotiation of meaning, which
Wenger (1998a, 53) sees as ‘the process by which we experience the
world and our engagement in it as meaningful’. For this, he discusses
the duality of participation and reification. He describes participation
as the experience of socially being and living in the world with respect
to participating in communities, and being involved in and engaged
with social enterprises, therefore indicating that meaning negotiation is
both social and personal. By reification, he refers to one reifying their
experiences through the ‘process of giving form to our experience by
producing objects that congeal this experience into “thingness” ’ (ibid.,
58). As such, reification is taking something theoretical and transforming
it into a tangible entity, such as documents or materials (Brandon and
Charlton 2011), or even shared jargon between members (Morton and
Gray 2010). It has been noted that ‘participation and reification interact
with each other and generate a negotiation of meaning whereby learning
occurs. For instance, even if a book is present (reification), one cannot
be involved in learning unless one reads and thinks through it (participa-
tion)’ (Nishino 2012, 3). So, for student teachers, participation could be
the act of engaging with each other about their practice, while reification
is making issues such as theoretical LTE concepts real and usable.

Learning within Communities


CoPs also have learning at their core (Khalsa 2012), and in fact, the defi-
nition of learning evolves within the CoP framework because it moves
‘away from conceptualising learning as something with a distinct start
and end point to something with a more fluid nature where learning is
informal and a product of everyday experience’ (Brandon and Charl-
ton 2011, 170). CoPs are not only vehicles through which newcomers
gain knowledge, but they can also be a place to drive the formation of
new knowledge (Wenger 1998a). In the vein of knowledge creation and
appropriation, a community should allow newcomers to witness compe-
tence and practice in order to promote their participation. For student
teachers, competence can often be witnessed by observing and reflecting
Introducing the Context 9
on other teachers’ practices, before a teaching practice component is
introduced into a programme of study.

Identity within Communities


Another chief element within the CoP model is identity, which results
from the negotiation of our experiences within communities. Identity is
central to CoPs because it acts as the key element between the social
and the individual, and allows the negotiation of both in terms of one
another (Kwan and Lopez-Real 2010). Identities in a CoP are therefore
co-constructed (Wenger 1998a; Clarke 2008). The fact that identity
construction and negotiation are innate to CoPs means that ‘learning is
more than a set of competencies or accolades, it is around growth and
change of the self’ (Lawthom 2011, 155). This holds significance for stu-
dent teachers, who are commencing their learning trajectory, where their
identities are continuously being shaped and reshaped.

Community Boundaries
Wenger (1998a) suggests that we should also accept the reality that mem-
bers may be part of multiple CoPs. The term brokering has been used to
refer to the concept of a member having multimembership in varied com-
munities so that elements of one practice can be transferred to another
(ibid.). This, as indicated by Wenger (1998a), is not an easy task, but
allowing members to participate peripherally is an important practice of
a community. Multimembership has positive learning effects as members
have to reflect on their identities in varied communities, and if they use
this as a way of learning and developing, they can reorganise or change
the form of their identity (McConnell 2006). Concerning teaching, bro-
kers might bring ideas or concepts from their TP or work-based place-
ment back to the classroom or vice versa (Levine 2010).

Belonging to Communities
Extending the above discussion, belonging to a CoP comprises three
dimensions: engagement, imagination, and alignment (Wenger 1998a).
Engagement includes members engaging in activities, finding a common
enterprise and shared experiences, developing relationships, managing
boundaries, producing community competence, and participating at var-
ying degrees of peripherality (Wenger 1998a). This is important and a
necessary starting point for creating and constructing identities. When
working with language teachers in the UAE, and examining their dis-
course for evidence of engagement, Clarke (ibid.) focussed on the varied
ways of mutually engaging with one another, with the development of
10 Introducing the Context
an understanding of the joint enterprise, and with the appropriation of
shared discourse and practices (the three chief elements of a CoP).
The second mode of belonging, imagination, includes members know-
ing their own and others’ abilities, sharing experiences and practices,
observing, interacting, producing artefacts, looking at developments, and
exploring current practices and identities (Wenger 1998a). Imagination
for teachers means they are taking steps back, looking at themselves, and
reflecting (Clarke 2008). To this end, in combining the first two modes of
belonging (engagement and imagination), the outcome is reflective prac-
tice (Wenger 1998a), which, as I noted earlier, is increasingly crucial in
language teacher education.
The final mode, alignment, includes members finding common ground,
expressing their views, having unity, giving and gaining inspiration, and
investing energy into the community (ibid.). When discussing alignment
as a mode of belonging, Clarke (2008) talks about teachers looking out-
side the boundaries of their CoP and finding relations within other CoPs,
such as shared objects and shared practices of teaching. Of particular
interest here is that

choosing teaching is a particularly significant statement of ‘belong-


ing’ [as it] potentially involves all three modes of belonging; it may
involve alignment with the social purposes of teaching; it usually
involves engagement with the practices of teaching; and almost by
definition, it involves an imaginative casting of self into an envi-
sioned future role as a teacher.
(Clarke 2008, 76)

Therefore, in the CoP framework, learning is considered part of human


nature; involves the negotiation of meaning; is experiential and social;
shapes our identities; includes varied levels of participation; constitutes
dealing with boundaries; derives from engagement, imagination, and
alignment; and connects the local and the global (Wenger 1998a).
While other concepts are in use,3 the term CoP is the preferred term
for the community within my research because the notion of a CoP has
already been discussed and used by many researchers in the field of edu-
cation (Dirckinck-Holmfeld et al. 2004; Ellaway, Dewhurst, and McLeod
2004; Riverin and Stacey 2008; Borg 2012; Matzat 2013; Bannister
2015; Britt and Paulus 2016), and because the participants in my study
are bound by their profession of teaching and are sharing knowledge
within that specific domain. Other studies drawing on corpus-based tech-
niques for CoP analysis include Healy (2012), and Healy and Onderdonk-
Horan (2012), who use the framework to examine CoP interactions in a
hotel management training institution, and Vaughan (2007, 2008, 2010;
Vaughan and Clancy 2013), who draws on a corpus-based methodology
to explore practising teachers’ community discourse.
Introducing the Context 11
1.5 Online Communities of Practice
In line with the aims of this book, I now consider online CoPs. The flex-
ibility of Web 2.04 encourages the development, in particular, of CoPs
(Ayling and Hebblethwaite 2011; Khalsa 2012). Advancement in com-
puter technology has resulted in changes in time and space boundaries
which allow for richer interaction and participation, and thus facilitates
technology playing a role in the development, support, and life cycles of
CoPs (Wenger 1998b). With the appropriate implementation, the impact
technology can have on student and teacher effectiveness is substantial, as
it can create opportunities for students and teachers to collaborate within
and outside their institutions, and facilitate brokering (see Hoadley 2012).

1.5.1 The Merits of Online CoPs

A Sense of Community
Research on master’s degree distance learners found that online inter-
actions promoted a sense of community between members (Hay-
thornewaite, Kazmer, and Robins 2000). In this work, members who
participated felt that they were engaged in a rich and sharing learning
environment, while those who did not form an early connection with
the community felt isolated and anxious about posting to the forum.
Similarly, online communities of coordinators of Adult Learning Coun-
cils felt that community membership promoted learning, and the creation
and negotiation of the community identity (Gray 2004). Another study
by McConnell (2006), who worked with students in e-learning master’s
degree programmes, reflects the supportive role an online community can
offer to participants. For example, questionnaire results demonstrated
that 78% of students often returned to discussion threads during their
free time, which nods to reflective processes (which is particularly impor-
tant for student teachers); 73% and 88% believed, respectively, that they
supported other students and others supported them.

Learning through Collaboration and Reflection


Another benefit that technologies offer is a space for collaborative learn-
ing (Arnold and Ducate 2006; Hughes 2007). Collaborative learning
works well in online modes as the setting of the activity is not restricted,
group dynamics change within online environments, the group configu-
ration is open allowing outside participation of experts, and a variety of
media are at our disposal to host interactions (Nachmias et al. 2000).
Furthermore, online CoPs have been advocated for their potential to
facilitate learning via peer mentoring and reflective practice (Schlager
et al. 2009; Roig and Rivera 2013). A collaborative and reflective envi-
ronment is important for student teachers because ‘beginning teachers,
12 Introducing the Context
like other classroom instructors, work independently for most of the day
and have little opportunity to converse and collaborate with other teach-
ers in their building’ (Romano 2008, 53). It is, however, cautioned that
collaboration is dependent on both the skills of the participants and the
technologies used (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2000).

Affective Engagement
Another merit of online CoPs is affective engagement. For example, a
study by Arnold et al. (2005) investigates how online interactions can
support social activity (and how this can influence cognitive develop-
ment), community-building, and professional development. They argue
that online interactions can benefit student teachers by offering them
spaces for support, relationship building, and identity shaping, as well as
promoting the integration of technologies into teaching. Their study con-
sists of two courses, and they draw on content analysis as their method
of analysing the data, under the Rourke et al. (2001) framework of social
presence, an adaptation of the Community of Inquiry Framework5 (Gar-
rison, Anderson, and Archer 2000; Anderson et al. 2001). Study one
comprised two groups of student teachers conversing via online reflective
journals, where specific discussion topics were not offered in the vein of
facilitating deep reflection (although questions to elicit reflection were
posed). Results showed a lot of social presence6 which was exemplified
through interactive techniques (encouraging and giving support and
advice, showing mutual awareness), affective devices (expressing humour,
emotions, and disclosing information), and cohesive devices (using first
names, or phatic comments). This resulted in sharing, supporting, rela-
tionship building, and community formation, which facilitated reflection
on their roles as teachers (Arnold et al. 2005).
The second study consisted of two groups discussing specific topics in
a discussion forum. Findings again illustrate social presence or affective
engagement in the CoP. They discovered that interactive devices were the
most frequent, followed by cohesive and affective devices. They posit
that the lower levels of affective devices could be due to the nature of
the tasks where the student teachers were not asked about their personal
feelings or emotions. Social presence also increased with time in this
study, possibly demonstrating the nurturing role that members developed
for one another. In comparing both studies, they note that unstructured
tasks promote more affective interaction, as seen in study one, while
structured tasks facilitate more interactive and cohesive interactions, as
seen in study two. They conclude that Computer-Mediated Communica-
tion (CMC) is beneficial for CoPs in teacher education, in that student
teachers can interact with their peers, gain advice and support, and cre-
ate relationships, and as a result, form identities and gain technological
knowledge (ibid.).
Introducing the Context 13
1.5.2 The Group Dynamics of Online CoPs
Group dynamics play a vital role in the success of CoPs. However, in
an online environment, participants often experience difficulty finding
their shared interests and common ground. Also, because facial and
paralinguistic features are often invisible, there could be a breakdown
in communication, or participants may find it difficult to demonstrate
social presence, which is important for fostering relationships (Preece and
Moloney-Krichmar 2003). Newer technologies have, however, worked
towards creating ways of combating the fact that members sometimes do
not meet face-to-face by affording new and varied modes of communica-
tion (Wenger et al. 2005). In addition, it is often the case that because
members cannot see each other online, there is a drive to disclose more
information about themselves, which could in fact promote the formation
of strong relationships over time (Preece and Moloney-Krichmar 2003).
McConnell’s (2006) work (with students in e-learning master’s degree
programmes) delves into the group dynamics of three communities. His
findings report that two of the groups strived for harmony and commu-
nication. These members exercised control by monitoring themselves to
prevent group divisions, and endeavoured to create trust by being open
with each other and actively supporting others’ ideas. However, the third
group experienced a breakdown in communication. Examples include
students not replying to each other’s posts; members feeling anxious; a
lack of negotiation; a lack of group decision-making; and ground rules
for project work being changed. McConnell (ibid., 184–5) argues that
this ‘less cohesive group is unable or unwilling to show dependence on
the other members of their group, and the group as a whole is still striv-
ing to prove that it can be dependable’. In sum, findings demonstrate that
members ought to share a concern about both the community and its
members (ibid., 189), which educators should be aware of when nurtur-
ing teacher CoPs.

1.6 Closing Comments


This chapter began with a historical overview of LTE, where I addressed
the concept of reflective practice. I then focussed on social and situated
learning, which paved the way for a discussion of CoPs. Important fea-
tures such as meaning-making, participation, identity creation, and issues
of belonging were examined before an overview of online CoPs was
offered. Thus far in the discussion, the framework of CoP appears fitting
for an analysis of student teacher discussions, because firstly, the socio-
cultural turn has influenced LTE, and secondly, some important aspects
of LTE today (i.e., social and situated learning and cognition, the amal-
gamation of theory and practice, novice/expert dialogue, the importance
of previous knowledge, and identity creation) are subsumed within the
14 Introducing the Context
CoP framework. With this in mind, in the following chapter I delve into
the area of technologies in LTE, and CMC in particular.

Notes
1 Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory considers culture the main factor that
contributes to an individual’s development, with language playing a central
role in cognitive development.
2 See also, for example, Vygotsky (1978).
3 See, for example, McConnell (2006) who distinguishes between three types of
community, including a Learning Community, a Community of Practice, and a
Knowledge-Building Community.
4 Web 2.0 is defined in terms of ‘ideas such as participatory information sharing
and collaboration, user-generated content and the web as platform’ (Sindoni
2013, 34).
5 This is a framework designed for looking at the learning experience in an
online medium. The main elements of the framework are the interaction of
cognitive presence, social presence and teacher presence, all of which should
be present in the learning environment (Garrison, Terry and Walter 2000).
6 Social presence is defined as ‘the ability of participants [. . .] to project their
personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to
the other participants as “real people” ’ (Garrison et al. 2000, 89).

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The Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics, edited by Jesús Romero-
Trillo, 53–73. New York: Springer.
Vygotsky, Lev. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological
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Wang, Yuping, Nian-Sheng Chen, and Mike Levy. 2010. “The design and imple-
mentation of a holistic training model for language teacher education in a cyber
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———. 1998b. “Communities of practice: Learning as a social system.” Systems
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2 Technologies in LTE

2.1 Introduction
The previous chapter provided a general backdrop to Language Teacher
Education (LTE), social learning, and CoPs, and my focus here is the
employment of technologies in LTE and the communication that this pro-
duces. I therefore discuss Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC)
through the specific tools being examined in this work (chat, discussion
forums, and blogs). As face-to-face discussion is also core to my work,
studies on spoken interaction in LTE are included at relevant points in
this chapter and in the analytical chapters for comparison purposes.

2.2 Computer-Mediated Communication


CMC has been described as ‘one of the most promising forums for foster-
ing dialogue’ (Wade and Fauske 2004, 134), and is celebrated for offering
a great deal of information on the behaviour of humans as well as lan-
guage use (Herring 2007). This has resulted in its discourse and practices
having attracted interest in (applied) linguistic and sociolinguistic spheres
(Thurlow 2001; Androutsopoulos and Beißwenger 2008; Tagg 2015).
Studies include, for example, an examination of language competence,
choice, and use online among higher education students (Kelly-Holmes
2004); politeness in CMC (Herring 1994); code-switching on social net-
working sites (Eldin 2014); emotions in text messages (Miyake 2007); dis-
course features of blogs and wikis (Myers 2010; see also Vaughan 2011;
Vaughan 2012); compliments on Facebook (Placencia and Lower 2013);
and the management of multilingualism on the Web (Kelly-Holmes
2013), to name but a few. In relation to types of CMC, while some forms
of CMC are similar to spoken language, there are some differences (Levy
and Stockwell 2006), while other forms are similar to written language
(Sotillo 2000; Lapadat 2002). Therefore, CMC is seen as both like speech
and writing (Savignon and Roithmeier 2004; Vásquez 2011), but the
modes of CMC differ from each other as well (Barton and Lee 2013),
and these differences make up a substantial part of the analyses I present.
Technologies in LTE 21
2.2.1 Chat
Chat or Internet Relay Chat (IRC) facilitates real-time online commu-
nication. Participants choose a time to log in and chat instantaneously
with users’ names being visible on the screen. While communication in
this mode is often viewed as messy because of lags in turn-taking and
off-topic threads (Meskill 2009), the benefits of chatroom discussions for
education include that there is a log of transcripts for follow-up analyses,
and the interaction this mode produces has similarities to spoken dis-
course (Lamy and Hampel 2007).
A central, albeit early, study on the use of synchronous communica-
tion with students was implemented by Kern (1995), who investigated
synchronous discussions for foreign language learning compared to oral
class discussions. The transcripts were coded for discourse functions,
turn length, and English usage. When online, both groups of students
took more turns and on average used more words. The online discourse
showed similarity to the written mode, for example, more lexical density
and certain syntactical preferences, but it also had some features akin
to spoken discourse, something which I explore in this book, and has
been addressed in a previous publication based on a sub-set of my data
(Riordan and Murray 2010).
In another analysis of chatroom discussions, interactions were held
with university-level French language students in order to explore liter-
ary texts, where the author (Beauvois 1998) observed students using the
computer laboratory as well as in their traditional classroom. Beauvois
discovered that the chatroom offers a more balanced distribution of dis-
course where students have the same opportunity to discuss issues, and
neither the teacher nor a dominant student can govern the discussion. The
analysis of the transcripts revealed that the online discourse appeared to
have more in terms of interaction compared to the traditional classroom
setting, and evidence was found of a student, who was quiet in class, hav-
ing a ‘voice’ online (ibid., 208).
In comparing chat sessions to face-to-face, Negretti (1999) used con-
versation analysis to examine chat between native English speakers and
university graduate ESL (English as a Second Language) students. One
of the main differences between chat and face-to-face is that, as a result
of various and unstructured topics in chat, the interaction is ‘disrupted
and discontinuous’ (ibid., 81), and also, many conversations can happen
at the same time, even by the same person, which would not be the case
in face-to-face conversations. As a result, the students managed turn-
taking in a different way from spoken conversation. Other features found
are those which combat the lack of paralinguistic cues. For example, he
found the use of punctuation (to show a change in topic or someone try-
ing to give up the floor to another participant), capital letters (to grab
attention), emoticons (to show feelings, emotions, or humour), icons and
22 Technologies in LTE
pictures from the web page hosting the chatroom, and onomatopoeia (to
convey aural cues) (Negretti 1999).
A final study (Duemer et al. 2002) concerns the use of synchronous
computer conferencing with engineering students to investigate commu-
nity formation and students’ identity with the profession of engineering.
Their analysis showed that the students demonstrated enhanced identity
alignment with the profession of engineering as they grew in confidence
when talking about engineering (ibid.), and indeed similar findings were
reported on the use of blogs for novice teachers aligning themselves with
the teaching community (Irwin and Boulton 2010). It appears that this,
within a CoP framework, would be evidence of moving from periph-
eral participation to fuller participation and identification with their
professions.

Teacher CMC: Chat


I now move on to deal with some pertinent studies on teachers’ use of
chat. Burnett (2003) investigates tutor moves (see Sinclair and Coulthard
1975) in online chat between the researcher and nine trainee primary
teachers on a UK distance learning programme. She observed that her
moves relied more on speed than accuracy, therefore spellings and incor-
rect language were not rectified. She also made reference to the presence of
slang and punctuation to compensate for the lack of paralinguistic cues,
echoing Negretti (1999). Furthermore, Chen et al. (2009), using content
analysis, explored chat discussions in terms of social cues, interaction
patterns, cognitive and metacognitive skills, temporal issues regarding
posts, and perceptions of the environment. Sixty-one school teachers on
an online teacher professional development course in mathematics made
up the participants, and the analysis deals with six discussions compris-
ing 3,600 messages. The facilitator posted 280 messages out of the 3,600,
accounting for 3.4% of all messages, which is a recurrent feature of cha-
troom discourse. The teachers’ perceptions of chat included that they
viewed this mode as an effective space to engage socially, share expe-
riences, exchange information, and have intellectual discussions. From
analysing the postings, it was found that the discussions were dominated
by the teachers, cognitive and metacognitive skills were low and super-
ficial, and the main function found was that of relationship-building
(ibid.).

2.2.2 Discussion Forums


In comparison to chat discussions, which are synchronous, discussion
forums are asynchronous. Asynchronous tools are suitable for reflection,
the development of metacognitive skills, collaborative problem-solving,
support, sharing, and developing social relationships with other students
Technologies in LTE 23
and tutors (Holmes 2004; Slattery 2006; Montero, Watts, and García-
Carbonell 2007; Higdon and Topaz 2009), issues I consider here.
A study by Kamhi-Stein (2000), on the use of CMC in a teacher educa-
tion programme, ascertained a total of 253 moves in the asynchronous
discussion, and found that the number of initiations and responses that
the instructor posted were much lower than those of the student teachers,
thus illuminating the function this mode offers in terms of participation,
parallel to that of chatroom discourse. Correspondingly, Pawan et al.
(2003) examine patterns of interaction in asynchronous online learning,
and discuss how this mode increases collaboration. Their investigation
was implemented with in-service teachers from three different courses.
Findings indicate that while there was uneven teacher participation, they
undoubtedly dominated the discussion compared to the instructors. The
authors summarise by stipulating that discussions will not automatically
become interactive as they are asynchronous; in fact, it emerged that some
posts were more akin to monologues than dialogues, which they suggest
could be due to a lack of student understanding behind the process and
rationale for discussions, and the lack of overt facilitation by instructors
(ibid.). Other studies on the employment of asynchronous CMC similarly
uncovered unbalanced student–teacher participation (Wickstrom 2003;
Wang, Chen, and Levy 2010).

Teacher CMC: Discussion Forums


In Romano’s (2008) study, collaborative discussion forums for ten first-
year teachers were utilised, and the teachers noted benefits from the dis-
cussions in terms of promoting reciprocal reflection and advice, although
both high and low interactivity were evident. Furthermore, although the
teachers had a shared enterprise in being new to the art of teaching, she
believes that a sense of community may not have been achieved, as they
were teaching different grades and situated in different schools, therefore
suggesting that distance and difference is an issue (ibid.). I, however, must
point out that while face-to-face contact is desirable for the longevity of
a community, various online communities have been established in such
contexts.
In addition, Szabo and Schwartz (2011) utilise Blackboard discussions
with preservice teachers to investigate the enhancement of critical think-
ing skills. The student teachers involved were from an Education Psy-
chology undergraduate course, comprising four classes, two traditional
and two technology groups. The traditional groups engaged in lectures,
class discussions, and homework, while the technology groups had both
in-class and online activities, namely posting reflections to the forum.
They observed a significant increase in critical thinking for those in the
technology group, but not for the traditional group. They found that
the student teachers’ reflections moved from surface-level reporting of
24 Technologies in LTE
content to critical thinking regarding the content, and they therefore con-
firmed that the asynchronous modes enhanced reflection, and the appli-
cation of theory to practice.
Higher-order thinking skills through online forums were also explored
by McLoughlin and Mynard (2009), who analyse postings using the Gar-
rison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) Community of Inquiry Framework.
Participants were female Bachelor of Education students, who engaged
in online forums to facilitate reflection, interaction, and discussion on
course-related areas. Findings demonstrate signs of higher-order thinking
skills and reflection before posting, which they believe alleviates anxiety
for those who may be more reserved. In opposition to the findings on
chat, they found low levels of social postings, and suggest that this may
be due to the fact that the student teachers met with each other in class
every day, and therefore did not need to use the forum for such activities.
Lastly, Wickstrom (2003) employs online forums with preservice
teachers to assess the effects on the discourse and reflective practice. Par-
ticipants included forty-five undergraduate student teachers on a reading
assessment course, who, as well as having other tasks, were required to
post reflections on assessment scenarios offered by the instructor and also
responses to course readings. Over the course, there was (as with pre-
vious findings) evidence of unbalanced participation. The author high-
lighted the importance of her presence and assumed that if she were not
‘there’, some student teachers might have been reluctant to post, as they
relied on her to initiate turn-taking. In relation to the notion that quiet
members would speak out in the forum, she noticed that these student
teachers ‘responded in a matter-of-fact way’, and although they did talk
more online, it did not appear that the mode created a comfortable space
for them to talk openly, and it was those who were more talkative in
class who were the same online (Wickstrom 2003, 420). Student teacher
to student teacher interaction prompted more discussion than teacher
to student teacher, and accordingly, when they were interacting with
each other, the posts were more reflective than when interacting with the
teacher (ibid.), demonstrating the power of peer interactions.

2.2.3 Blogs
I now turn my attention to the third tool I use, namely blogs. A blog or
weblog is a website that contains posts presented in reverse chronological
order, and is considered similar to a discussion forum, with less structure
and a more personal tone (Lafford and Lafford 2005). Blogs are attractive
to the education arena as they are easy to set up and maintain, and do not
require technical capabilities (Coffman 2005; Lamy and Hampel 2007;
Ray and Coulter 2008). Blogs promote reflection, community-building,
self-expression, the enrichment of reading and writing skills (Murray and
Hourigan 2006; Dippold 2009; Murugaiah et al. 2010; Lin et al. 2014),
Technologies in LTE 25
and can be used as journals in LTE (Margalef García and Pareja Roblin
2008; Higdon and Topaz 2009; Yang 2009; Tang and Lam 2014).
A promoter of blogs to encourage higher-order thinking skills is Arena
(2008), who believes that they can be used to foster relationships, give a
sense of belonging to a community of writers and readers, give each stu-
dent a voice, and allow students to interact with an authentic audience.
In research conducted by Murray and Hourigan (2008) on the use of
blogs for language and technology students, blogs supported communi-
cation and reflection, although they observed that it was the higher-level
students who reflected on a more critical level (ibid.).

Teacher CMC: Blogs


Concerning teachers’ use of blogs, online mentoring has been explored
by McLoughlin et al. (2007), who set up a collaborative blog for student
teachers. Using content analysis, salient themes in the postings included
TP experiences and reflections, student-related issues, pedagogical theory
and practice discussions, examples of support and advice, sharing infor-
mation, and articulating future intentions (ibid.). A further study exam-
ining the formation of a CoP through blogging derives from Murugaiah
et al. (2010), who were involved in professional development-building
in a university school partnership, for which they created three CoPs,
comprising English, maths, and science teachers. Although initially post-
ings were minimal, with effective moderation this improved. The student
teachers shared lessons with one another, and also had the chance to
express tensions and emotions, voice feelings, and therefore bonded as a
community (ibid.).
Yang (2009) considered reflective practice through collaborative blog
writing with forty-three EFL student teachers from two teacher educa-
tion programmes. Analysis of blog posts were categorised into themes
including theories of teaching, instructional approaches, teaching evalu-
ation methods and criteria, self-awareness, and questions about teaching
and requests for advice (ibid., 15), which resonate with those outlined
by McLoughlin et al. (2007). As with other research presented here,
Yang (2009) also found more descriptive than critical reflections with the
instructors playing a role in scaffolding reflection.
A further report on blogs situates itself in the Irish context, as part of
a pilot project on teacher induction for post-primary schools (Killeavy
and Moloney 2010). The aim was to nurture the development of a CoP
while also fostering reflection and encouraging interaction between nov-
ice teachers and their mentors. The participants formed two cohorts, one
of which had already used blogs as part of their postgraduate training.
Out of the twenty-eight participants, twenty-three created anonymous
blogs, shared them with the researchers, and were asked to share them
with another peer. Another group blog was maintained to keep contact
26 Technologies in LTE
and interaction between the student teachers and the researchers. From
the blog posts, they found that reflections were minimal and descriptive
or content-based, and sometimes non-existent, and the emerging themes
included their initial eagerness at the beginning of their teaching, the dif-
ficulties they reported in teaching, and their feelings of isolation (con-
firming what Kamhi-Stein 2000 inferred). They suggest that the student
teachers predominantly used the blogs to share feelings and frustrations,
which has also been found in a sub-set of my data (Riordan 2012). From
focus groups with the student teachers, they observed that they had con-
cerns including privacy and time issues, and some felt that blogs were
not conducive to reflection (Killeavy and Moloney 2010). Although there
was no evidence that blogs furthered reflective practice, at a later seminar
Killeavy and Moloney asked the student teachers to review their blog
postings, and concluded that this fostered deeper reflective discussion.
The postings revealed no evidence of community formation between the
group, as the student teachers did not share their blogs with one another,
and the authors concluded that the shortage of social contact may have
contributed to the lack of community-building (ibid.).

2.2.4 Multimodal Interactions


As my research involves how student teachers interact and create mean-
ing within multiple modes, it is now timely to briefly discuss the area of
multimodality. Kress and van Leeuwen (2001, 20) define multimodality
as ‘the use of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic prod-
uct or event, together with the particular way in which these modes are
combined’. For them, modes are resources or systems that people uti-
lise to make meaning, including speech, writing, image, sound, gesture,
gaze, colour, and so on (Barton and Lee 2013). Multimodality is heav-
ily influenced by Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1978), which
puts forward three aspects of context that affect meaning, including field
(the topic or social activity in question), tenor (participant relationships),
and mode (distance between participants).1 The theory of multimodality
therefore focusses on the semiotic resources of communication, includ-
ing the modes and media, and the communicative practices where such
resources lie, with the belief that meaning does not only lie in the multi-
ple semiotic resources, media, or modes, but ‘also at different “places”
within each of these’ (Kress and van Leeuwen 2001, 111). This theory
has been used to analyse, for example, visual media (Kress and van Leeu-
wen 2001), blogs (Abas 2011), Facebook (Eisenlauer 2014), online com-
munication (O’Halloran 2009), and video chats, blogs, and YouTube
comments (Sindoni 2013), the latter few of which nod to the multimodal
nature of online communication (Royce 2002; Hampel and Hauck 2006;
O’Halloran 2009; Lotherington and Jenson 2011; Herring 2013; Jewitt
Technologies in LTE 27
2013). One particular type of corpus which facilitates multimodal analy-
ses is the multimodal corpus.

Multimodal Corpora
A multimodal corpus has ‘transcripts that are aligned or synchronised
with the original audio or visual recordings’ (Lee 2010, 114). The follow-
ing are some examples of current multimodal corpora:

• The Nottingham Multimodal Corpus (NMMC) is 250,000 words of


recordings and transcriptions from single speaker and dyadic conver-
sations in an academic context (Knight et al. 2008; Knight 2011b).
• The SACODEYL corpus ‘focuses on the compilation and pedagogi-
cal exploitation of spoken interviews with British, French, German,
Italian, Lithuanian, Romanian and Spanish adolescents between 13
and 18 years of age’ (Hoffstaedter and Kohn 2009, 4). Each language
contains twenty to twenty-five ten-minute video-recorded interviews,
consisting of either individual pupil and paired pupil interviews,
which are thematically and linguistically annotated (Hoffstaedter
and Kohn 2009). The transcripts and the accompanying audio files
are also synchronised (Widmann, Kohn, and Ziai 2011).
• A corpus based on the same principle is the BACKBONE corpus. The
data comes from adults who speak regional varieties of languages
and lesser-taught languages (British English, Irish English, German,
French, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, and manifestations of English as
a Lingua Franca). For both the SACODEYL and the BACKBONE
corpora, the materials are linked to transcripts, and on the interface,
as well as materials and activities, there is a section search, a co-
occurrence search, and frequency searches (Kohn, Hoffstaedter, and
Widmann 2010; Hoffstadter 2010).
• The Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English (249,000
words) is also available to read online with the transcripts and audio
files synchronised.

A multimodal corpus is advocated for allowing, for example, the explo-


ration of verbal and non-verbal behaviour, but also the analysis of both
in terms of each other (Knight and Tennent 2008). Head, eye, hand, and
body movements can be analysed (Allwood 2009; Knight and Tennent
2008), as well as lexical, prosodic, and gestural features (Knight 2011).
This type of corpus is thus celebrated for offering more information
about context and meaning-making in interactions (Adolphs, Knight,
and Carter 2011), and therefore contributing more with respect to prag-
matics, linguistics, communication, and the nature of language (Allwood
2009; see also Baldry and Thibault 2008).
28 Technologies in LTE
One particular study to discuss is the work of Sindoni (2013), who
draws on frameworks from multimodality and linguistics, with analyti-
cal approaches from conversation analysis and corpus linguistics (CL),
to examine the communication emerging from video chatting, blogs, and
YouTube comments. When examining video chatting, where participants
can speak to one another via video streaming and simultaneously write,
she explored mode switching (moving between speech and writing). She
also drew on questionnaires and interviews to query users’ perceptions of
the two modes at their disposal. She found that both speech and writing
were used but speech was preferred, and while there was mode switch-
ing, those who talked did not generally write and vice versa, highlighting
that personal preference is a factor in determining mode switching. She
noted that the resources drawn on in the written mode included frequent
emoticons, with features such as capitalisation and punctuation being
idiosyncratic.
Her second analysis included a LiveJournal blog corpus (LJC), in which
she examined resource switching, which mainly focussed on the use of
text and images within the blogs; she drew on corpus-based techniques
(word frequency, keyness, and clusters) to examine the linguistic features.
Without discussing her findings here, as I will return to them later (see
Chapter Four), she noted that although a blog generally ‘blends more
than one resource’ (ibid., 126), in her corpus, writing was predominantly
used, followed by the use of images. She found again that idiosyncratic
choices were made by users in that they appear to choose one resource
over another (e.g., image versus writing). Thirdly, she examined You-
Tube comments based on one popular video, whereby she explored word
frequency, keyness, clusters, and semantic preference and prosody. With-
out reporting in detail her corpus-based findings (as they do not directly
relate to the subject of this book), one interesting function was that users
liked to turn video utterances into written texts in the form of quotations.
She also found that the interaction within the comments between users
was loose but the interaction with the video was high, therefore position-
ing the video as the ‘master-text’ (ibid., 210).
From her three analyses, she notes that the integration of semiotic
resources is less than was expected, and idiosyncratic preferences seem
to overrule resource or mode switching. Furthermore, verbal language
still appears to have priority in digital texts, and ‘patterns of communica-
tion in web-based texts are shaped by different practices, expectations,
technicalities, and users’ skills, degree of literacy and personal passions’
(Sindoni 2013, 217), issues which also emerge in my findings (see Chap-
ter Four).
Although, as shown above, examining multimodality undoubtedly
offers a vast array of information on language and context, my own
corpus is not multimodal, as will be seen in Chapter Three. I acknowl-
edge that a multimodal corpus might provide further insights into my
Technologies in LTE 29
data analysis; however, this was not practicable at the time of my data
collection.

2.3 Corpus-Based CMC


The final part of this chapter draws on corpus-based research in online
modes, as this is the methodological tool I employ. Examples of corpus-
based analysis of CMC include an examination of:

• CMC discourse compared to spoken and written corpora (Yates 2001),


• e-mail exchanges (Klimt and Yang 2004),
• online political discussions using critical discourse analysis (Sotillo
and Wang-Gempp 2004),
• Google documents to uncover web-based registers and text types
(Biber and Kurjian 2006),
• online and face-to-face ESL student discourse (Fitze 2006),
• modal verbs in asynchronous discussions (Montero, Watts, and
García-Carbonell 2007),
• online discussions pertaining to football and politics (Montero-Fleta
et al. 2009),
• text messaging (Tagg 2009),
• complaints on TripAdvisor (Vásquez 2011),
• CANELC (Cambridge and Nottingham E-Language Corpus) (Knight
and Adolphs 2012; Knight, Adolphs, and Carter 2014),
• blogs, micro-blogs, e-mails, discussion posts, and online newspaper
and opinion columns (Titak and Roberson 2013),
• error analysis within online communication between students doing
telematics simulation (MiLC learner corpus) (MacDonald, García-
Carbonell, and Carot-Sierra 2013),
• lexical bundles (Marchand 2013),
• linguistic and multimodal analysis of video chats, blogs, and You-
Tube comments (Sindoni 2013),
• transactional language on eBay (Knight, Walsh, and Papagiannidis
2017), and
• blogs, portfolios, chat, and discussion forums for student and more
experienced teachers (Riordan 2012; Riordan and Murray 2010,
2012; Riordan and Farr 2015; Farr and Riordan 2012, 2015a,
2015b, 2017).

A few corpus-based studies considered relevant to the discussion are


briefly presented here. Firstly, a study conducted in the EFL context,
which aimed at comparing CMC and face-to-face interactions, investi-
gated type-token ratios (TTRs). Types are the different words in a text,
whereas tokens are the running words in a text. For example, the sentence
She has a dog and a cat contains seven tokens and six types. The higher
30 Technologies in LTE
the TTR, the more lexical variation and the denser the information in the
text. Written texts are usually said to have a higher TTR, as writers have
more time to think about what they are writing (and plan their language
use), compared to the transient nature of speech. This study aimed to
uncover whether students repeated the same words in one mode more
than in the other, and the findings suggest that the discourse in online dis-
cussions was more lexically dense than in face-to-face (Fitze 2006). The
analysis also revealed that the asynchronous mode had more new words
to total words than face-to-face settings, which itself contained more rep-
etition of lexis. Fitze (ibid.) thus concludes that students have much more
access to a rich range of vocabulary when engaged in online discussions
compared to face-to-face discussions. This of course is not surprising, as
students have more time to deliberate and reflect upon their language use
and choices when writing, compared to the synchronicity of speech.
Moreover, an interesting study by Yates (2001) demonstrated that the
TTR for lexical types compared to total lexical tokens in his CMC corpus
(CoSy) was 0.590, compared to the written LOB (Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen)2
corpus which amounted to 0.624, and the spoken London Lund corpus3
which amounted to 0.395, postulating that with regard to the use of lexi-
cal words, the CMC data appear more like the written mode. The same
study investigated lexical density, which is the division of the number of
lexical words (or content words, for example, nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs) by the total number of words in a text. It is supposed that
the higher the lexical density, the more information in a text. Yates found
that the CMC corpus amounted to 49.258, the written LOB amounted to
50.316, and the spoken London Lund to 42.292, again highlighting the
closeness of CMC to the written mode. However, on an analysis of first-,
second-, and third-person pronouns within the same corpora, the results
demonstrated a closeness of CMC to the spoken mode, thus upholding
observations that some features of CMC interactions are more like writ-
ing and others are more akin to speech (Levy and Stockwell 2006; Sotillo
2000; Lapadat 2002; Savignon and Roithmeier 2004; Vásquez 2011).
Clearly there is a paucity of literature on corpus-based studies of LTE
online discourse, but what we can assume is that there is a fine line
between online synchronous and asynchronous discourse compared to
‘typical’ spoken and written registers. By employing corpus-based tech-
niques in Chapter Four, I attempt to refine such assumptions, and gain
a more precise picture of these intersecting modes of communication
within the field of LTE.

2.4 Closing Comments


This chapter has presented a discussion of chat, discussion forums, and
blogs, in order to outline their linguistic and functional affordances. Chat
discussions can promote a sense of solidarity and community-building,
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Don Albert Sí.

Fidel Encara no s’atreveix a presentar-me en la seva societat? M’ha


de dur lluny, ben lluny, allà on no’ns coneguin! Aixís entén
l’estimació?

Don Albert Més endavant, passats uns quants anys… comprèn?…


podran instalar-se a Barcelona.

Fidel (aixecant-se, am dignitat) Prou!

Don Albert (també aixecant-se) Pensi que desprecía una gran


fortuna. Aprop de donya Lluisa mai li faltaria res.

Fidel Me faltaria l’amor.


Don Albert (somrient amb ironia) Oh! Les seves idees…

Fidel (serenament i am dignitat) Són generoses i enlairades…

Don Albert Les idees… el benestar les suavisa.

Fidel (ofès) Per qui m’ha pres?

Don Albert (fent una rialleta) Jo tinc més experiencia de la vida.

Fidel Més edat, vol dir.

Don Albert Tinc més món, cregui-m.

Fidel I, am tot i això, encara no ha vist mai un home que no vulgui


vendre ni trair els seus sentiments?

Don Albert Tot-hom procura pel seu benestar.

Fidel (amb energia) Bé: acabem.

Don Albert Acabem. Què determina? Què li dic a la seva mare?

Fidel (convençut i serè) Que ja estic content am la que tinc, que no’n
vui d’altra.

Don Albert Això és crudel!

Fidel Es just! Lo crudel seria abandonar an aquests pobres vells.

Don Albert No’m dóna ni una esperança?

Fidel Ni una.
Don Albert Mediti-ho am més calma.

Fidel Es inutil. Am vinticinc anys, m’ha donat temps de sobres pera


arrapar-me an el cor dels humils. Avui ja hi estic arrelat del tot. Tinc
els seus anhels i les seves esperances. No puc trasplantar-me: sóc
massa fet.

Don Albert (movent el cap) No va bé, no va bé.

Fidel Per què ha vingut a pertorbar la pau d’aquesta casa, la


tranquilitat d’aquests pobres vells?

Don Albert He vingut, com li he dit abans, complint una missió


sagrada.

Fidel I tant sagrada!

Don Albert Els precs d’una mare ho són sempre pera mi.

Fidel No totes les dònes que posen sers al món són dignes de ser
mares.

Don Albert Ara sí que veig…

Fidel Que? Digui! No s’ho calli.

Don Albert (molt subratllat) Veig clarament que l’ausencia de la


mare endureix el cor.

Fidel (indignat) Què sap vostè, si no’n té?

Don Albert Fidel!


Fidel No’l trec jo mateix de casa perquè hi han els meus pares, ho
sent bé?, els meus pares, i vui que ells el treguin.

Don Albert (en veu baixa) M’he ben equivocat!

Fidel (cridant) Mare! Pare! Veniu: feu el favor.

Don Albert (sofocat) Que no’s basta per sí sol?

Fidel Veniu! (Compareixen precipitadament per la segona porta de


l’esquerra la Madrona, el Passarell i en Boira.)
Escena X
(Els mateixos, més la Madrona, el Passarell i en Boira)

Passarell Què hi ha, Fidel?

Fidel Treieu de casa an aquest senyor, que m’està insultant!

Don Albert Jo no l’insulto.

Fidel Fa més: ve a profanar la nostra pobresa. Treieu-lo, pare!

Don Albert No n’hi ha necessitat: ja m’en vaig.

Passarell (concentrat) Marxi!

Don Albert Jo que’m creia enraonar amb un jove educat!

Fidel Mare: que no ho sentiu?

Madrona Verge del cel!

Fidel Que no’l sentiu?

Don Albert (amb ironia fina) Senyora, la felicito: en Fidel és més


digne fill de vostè que de donya Lluisa.

Fidel Miserable!

Madrona (a don Albert) I la seva mare què hi dirà?


Don Albert No hi pensi més en ella. Passin-ho bé. (Desapareix.)
Escena ultima
(Els mateixos, menys Don Albert)

Madrona (després d’un curt silenci) Quin home! (En Boira tanca la
porta d’una revolada.)

Fidel (acostant-s’hi) Mare: encara ho creieu que jo haig de deixar-


vos?

Madrona (abraçant-lo) No, Fidel!

Passarell (plorant d’alegria) Ho veus, Madrona?

Madrona (an en Fidel) Diga-m mare, sempre mare!

Fidel Sempre us ho diré.

Boira (amb esclat de joia) Aixís m’agradeu!

Fidel Us oferien diners a cambi d’un gran sacrifici.

Madrona Quina repugnancia!

Fidel Jo no vui que us sacrifiqueu.

Passarell (abraçant-lo, plorant) Fidel!


Fidel No consento que a les vostres velleses se profani aquesta
blancor, que jo corono am petons. (Els besa a tots dos en el cap.)

Passarell Fill meu!

Madrona (besant-lo) Fill del meu cor!

Boira (plorant i rient) Apa, aquí!

Fidel Si ja esteu cançats o no podeu treballar, reposeu.

Passarell No, no, Fidel!

Fidel Sí, reposeu. Jo sóc jove, i a mi’m pertoca afanyar-me pera


vosaltres.

Passarell (anant-se’n, sanglotant, a seure a l’esquerra, al costat de la


taula) Gracies, gracies.

Fidel M’heu donat vinticinc anys de vida. Treballaré, amb amor, pera
donar-vos-en el doble!

Passarell Quina alegria que tinc!

Fidel (a la Madrona, senyalant l’escudeller) Mireu, mireu: encara hi


ha’l meu clavell en fresc.

Madrona Me’l dones?

Fidel Sí. Am l’ànima i tot.

Madrona Doncs, me’l quedo pera mi.


Fidel (desprenent-se dels braços de la Madrona) Mare!

Boira (am molta fruició) Apa, apa, a riure tot-hom i a dinar


desseguida. (Treient les estovalles d’un calaix de la taula). Això no ha
sigut res. (Extenent enlaire les estovalles). Mireu: la bandera de la
pau i de la manduca. (Para la taula tot taratlejant, en veu baixa, “Les
flors de Maig” d’en Clavé. La Madrona muda l’aigua de la copa en
que hi ha’l clavell, i després rega les clavellines de la finestra.)

Passarell Fill, fill meu!

Fidel (abraçant an el Passarell) Pare! (El Passarell, abraçat an en


Fidel, esclata en plor. En Boira, tot atrafegat i alegroi, extén les
estovalles damunt de la taula, estirant tant aviat d’un cap com de
l’altre, seguint taratlejant “Les flors de Maig”.)

Madrona (de la finestra estant) Que ploreu?

Fidel És d’alegria, mare!

Teló rapid
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