Expressing Beliefs about Educational Technology with Multimodal Projects in a Second Language Acquisition Doctoral Course
Format Type
Plenary
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
13-1-2021 1:30 PM
End Date
13-1-2021 1:50 PM
Abstract
Educational technology (ET) plays a variety of roles in second/foreign language (L2) education, including enabling engagement with target cultures and languages, and interaction with people both inside and beyond classroom walls. Research indicates influences upon ET use in L2 education include the ET-related beliefs of teachers. However, scant research appears to exist on the ET-related beliefs of current and future (doctoral students) teacher educators in L2 education programs, who (will) design and implement teacher education curriculum that may influence future L2 teachers’ ET beliefs. This presentation addresses this gap with a discussion of the discoveries of a qualitative case study in which 17 international doctoral students in a Second Language Acquisition course expressed beliefs about ET use in L2 education. The study data were collaboratively created digital stories, responses to a digital survey, semi-structured interviews, and discussion thread posts. The author employed deductive analysis to identify themes in the data, and used multimodality concepts from Unsworth’s (2006) work on image-text relations to explore the expression of beliefs in the digital videos. Discoveries indicated the participants believed ET use should be purposeful and involve consideration of learning objectives and individual students’ needs and desires. Exploration of multimodal data indicated the participants employed ideational concurrence (Unsworth, 2006), or the use of multiple modalities to express similar meanings, to convey beliefs about ET, including perceptions that ET motivates learners and allows them to take more control of their learning. The presentation concludes with a discussion of implications for teacher education practice and research.
Keywords
second/foreign language teacher education, beliefs, educational technology, multimodal projects
Expressing Beliefs about Educational Technology with Multimodal Projects in a Second Language Acquisition Doctoral Course
Educational technology (ET) plays a variety of roles in second/foreign language (L2) education, including enabling engagement with target cultures and languages, and interaction with people both inside and beyond classroom walls. Research indicates influences upon ET use in L2 education include the ET-related beliefs of teachers. However, scant research appears to exist on the ET-related beliefs of current and future (doctoral students) teacher educators in L2 education programs, who (will) design and implement teacher education curriculum that may influence future L2 teachers’ ET beliefs. This presentation addresses this gap with a discussion of the discoveries of a qualitative case study in which 17 international doctoral students in a Second Language Acquisition course expressed beliefs about ET use in L2 education. The study data were collaboratively created digital stories, responses to a digital survey, semi-structured interviews, and discussion thread posts. The author employed deductive analysis to identify themes in the data, and used multimodality concepts from Unsworth’s (2006) work on image-text relations to explore the expression of beliefs in the digital videos. Discoveries indicated the participants believed ET use should be purposeful and involve consideration of learning objectives and individual students’ needs and desires. Exploration of multimodal data indicated the participants employed ideational concurrence (Unsworth, 2006), or the use of multiple modalities to express similar meanings, to convey beliefs about ET, including perceptions that ET motivates learners and allows them to take more control of their learning. The presentation concludes with a discussion of implications for teacher education practice and research.