2018 October 2018 | Yuka Akiyama | Past, Present, and Future of Telcollaboration

Past, Present, and Future of Telecollaboration Research and Practice

Dr. Yuka Akiyama

The presenter will discuss some of the theoretical and practical issues involved with implementing and researching telecollaborative interactions (a.k.a. virtual exchange), namely technology-mediated intercultural interactions between participants of different first languages. 

She will start the presentation with her recent study (Akiyama & Cunningham, 2018) that synthesized 20 years of telecollaboration practice in the world. She will then introduce her discourse analysis study (Akiyama, 2017) on a semester-long, video-mediated eTandem project between thirty U.S. learners of Japanese and thirty Japanese learners of English who engaged in weekly interactions via Google Hangouts. Her analysis will show how telecollaborative success was mediated by participants’ discursive practices that were subject to various institutional, intercultural, and individual difference factors.

Presenter: Yuka Akiyama (Tokyo University)
Yuka Akiyama is Lecturer (Junior Associate Professor) and vice director at the Center for Global Education in the School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo. She obtained her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics at Georgetown University (U.S.), Ed.M. in TESOL from Boston University (U.S.), and B.A. from International Christian University (Japan). Her current role at the University of Tokyo includes managing various intercultural projects, teaching English, and promoting interactions between local Japanese students and students from overseas. She has worked as a Japanese and English teacher at various universities including Oxford Brookes University (U.K.), Georgetown University (U.S.), MIT (U.S.), Boston University (U.S.), and International Christian University (Japan). Her research investigates online intercultural interaction between learners of Japanese and English. She is especially interested in examining the longitudinal development of comprehensibility and interactional competence, and the role of corrective feedback and tasks for the development of such oral competence. Her publications have appeared in various international journals including Language Learning, TESOL Quarterly, Modern Language Journal, and System.    
Date and Time: Saturday, 20 October 2018 - 2:30pm - 4:30pm 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Location: Nagasaki International University, 2825-7 Huis Ten Bosch Cho, Sasebo, Nagasaki

Fee for JALT members, students, and NIU staff: Free

Fee for one-day members: Free

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