Eight participants were in the fourth study group meeting, including two over the video conferencing website established by Prof. Chang from Chia-Tung U. for us. We did experience some technological glitches. If we can solve the problem soon, people who are not in Taipei can also have the chance to join us in our future activities. For this, we are excited and feel grateful to Prof. Chang's generous help and effort.
The 4th study group meeting started by listing everybody's issues for discussion, and we really had a lot to put on the board: 11 different topics. For easier processing, I try to put them into categories this way (if not appropriate please let me know):
Group A. Writing Issues
1. Is it all right to write like this?
Group B: Conceptual Muses (interesting ideas)
2. "Cultural rich point": teacher training, discourse analysis
3. Technology as social artifact and its limitations
6. The "contradiction" focus of activity theory
8. Forming new identities through intenet communication
Group C: Practical Concerns
5. How to coordinate with partner schools?
11. Conflicts in practice between the goal of developing communcative competence (general expectations) and the emphasis of intercultural competence (the latter was empasized by Thorne in the article)
10. Cultural stereotypes: there are many different cultures within the same country. Wouldn't it cause stereotypical thinking if we think of people only in terms of the country they are from?
Group D: Term confusion
What is the difference between --
7. telecollaboration projects and tandem projects?
4. ICFLE and other CMC projects?
9. interculture and cross-cultural communication?
We talked about all of these at the meeting, and the discussion helped clarify many concepts.
Next week will be our last SCT study group meeting. We are going to brainstorm on questions to be raised when Thorne visits. Exciting!
For those who have not signed up for the seminar, please do so quickly. We need to prepare refreshment and handouts. Thank you.
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