Lessons to be learned from the Portuguese as a Foreign Language online Teaching and Learning Lab

Abstract

In the context of the E-LENGUA project, the University of Coimbra developed an online Moodle-based laboratory with two articulated components: a Portuguese as a Foreign Language (PFL) A1 level online course and an Instructor-Learner Interaction Corpus (ILI Corpus). Designed to promote the use of ICT in the teaching and learning (TL) of PFL, the PFL-TL Lab has stimulated the collaborative learning of two groups of students who exhibit very asymmetrical levels of language proficiency. The goal of the present study is to present the lessons that were drawn from two sets of data collected in PFL-TL Lab: learner participation levels in the online course activities and oral interactions recorded for the ILI Corpus. Results reveal the need for improvement measures targeted at instructional design and participants, strongly suggesting the need for the implementation of activities fostering the reflective practice of online tutors.

Keywords

• Teaching and learning of Portuguese as a Foreign Language
• participation levels
• synchronous oral interaction
• communicative breakdown
• asymmetry of language proficiency