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In this presentation, we will focus on the analysis of student-student and students-teacher interaction occurring in online synchronous virtual settings in higher education. The preliminary findings from the study draws upon empirical material that consist of 24 sessions (both student-only and teacher-led, with approximately 30h of interaction material), that are part of an “Italian for beginners” language online course for adults. Our interests here relate to accounting for how students make sense of the multilingual, multimodal online learning environment as a place where the keys to gain access to the processes of inclusion and marginalization are provided by the competence of the students to understand the “mode of communication” or the “rules” of the community-of-practice in these settings.

The use of digital tools in institutionalized language learning arenas to promote a more flexible learning is becoming more and more crucial in order to reach a larger group of students who would otherwise not have access to such a course. By using Technology Mediated Communication (TMC), it is potentially possible to attend the course from anywhere in the world, with the help of digital tools such as a computers and smart phones

Being inside the virtual classroom and only engaging in TMC to interact in a learning community, means that the students need to adjust to the new media and artifacts that are available. Our capability of thinking is embedded within the frame of the current ways of thinking and communication in interaction in the society we live in (Säljö, 2005: 41). If face-to-face interaction is not available, students and teachers draw upon interactional strategies according to the possibilities offered in the environment in order to negotiate meaning and participation as well as their role inside the virtual classroom.

The study takes a sociocultural approach to tracing the ways technology enhances or hinders communication in a community of practice as well as the affordances of the multimodal, multilingual setting where different literacy practices occur at the same time (Gee & Hayes, 2011: 22). The findings show that the teacher, as well as the students, position themselves at times as facilitators of the use of the different modes, at times as more peripheral participants, who need to be guided in the communication and whose presence in the group is to be confirmed by the other members of the community, thus creating patterns and processes of inclusion and empowerment as well as marginalization in the interaction.

References

Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E. R. (2011) Language and Learning in the Digital Age. Oxon: Routledge

Säljö, R. (2005) Lärande och kulturella redskap. Om lärprocesser och det kollektiva minnet. Stockholm: Norstedt Akademiska Förlag