eTandem Language Learning Integrated in the Curriculum: Reflection from Students' Perspectives

Overview & Synopsis

This article presents an eTandem course between two distant languages – Chinese and French, at institutional level – between the. The course, targeted for second-year students (Level A2-B1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, CEFR, 2001) from both sides, included theme-based asynchronous learning activities in the LMS Moodle platform as well as task-based synchronous oral communication via Skype. Taking into consideration the socio-institutional differences between the two counterparts, one focusing on literacy and cultural knowledge while the other emphasising pragmatic linguistic competences, the course design followed a careful and iterative instructional design procedure so that the eTandem course be gradually integrated in the curriculum of both universities. This article studies the students' expectations, participation, satisfaction and feedback based on the data collected during the three-year implementation of the project. The findings show that the students have benefited both linguistically and culturally from the eTandem exchange. However, issues like designing more contextualised online exchange tasks as well as normalising the course in both universities remain important future work. Abstract in Chinese