Pre-service language teachers’ technobiographies: understanding digital practices

Almeida, Patricia Vasconcelos

doi:10.1590/1678-460X202440260725

Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Brasil

DELTA: Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e Aplicada

Español English

Brasil

Español English

sumário « anterior atual seguinte »

Sumário

Articles • DELTA 40 (2) • 2024 • https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-460X202440260725 copy

Pre-service language teachers’ technobiographies: understanding digital practices

Tecnobiografias de professores de línguas pré-serviço: compreendendo práticas digitais

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

ABSTRACT

Digital technology is present in many areas of 21^st century society, including education. However, not enough attention has been paid to pre-service language teachers’ life history in relation to technology - their technobiographies. To identify these digital practices, a case study was carried out with pre-service language teachers, analyzing how they choose digital tools to learn a foreign language and their impressions about what is available online. The aim of this study is to add to the available literature in the field of Educational Technology, concentrating on pre-service language teachers’ experiences with digital technology. As a qualitative piece of research on Computer Assisted Language Learning, this study used technobiographies as data. The analysis shows that participants were concerned about the contents of the selected website or the app to learn the chosen language. Access features and available placement tests were also investigated. The findings suggest that understanding digital practices and online learning experiences could benefit the construction of a meaningful training curriculum aimed at professional development and future practice.

Keywords:
computer assisted language learning; educational technology; narrative inquiry; language teacher training; technobiographies

		Number of participants
*Pre-service language teachers*	who accepted to participate	14
*Pre-service language teachers*	whose data were selected for analysis	03
*CALL experience*	no prior experience	05
	little experience	07
	significant experience	02
*CEFR language skill level*	A2	05
	B1	06
	B2	01
	C1	02
*Gender*	female	08
*Gender*	male	06
*Age*	early 20s	08
	early 30s	04
	late 30s	02

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N
Audio 1	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Audio 2	√	√	√		√		√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Audio 3	√	√	√	√	√	√		√	√		√
Audio 4	√	√	√		√		√
Audio 5	√	√	√			√
Script	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√	√
Total	6	6	6	3	5	4	4	4	4	3	4	3	3	2

	Participant A	Participant B	Participant C
Family	Aunt - “first one to have a computer.”	Parents - “important for the learning process.”	“My mother.”
Family	Parents - “always thought that technology was important.”	Parents - “important for the learning process.”	“My mother.”
Peers	X	X	“My first contact with technology came via my neighbors and friends.”
Teachers	X	X	“Encouraged me to study.”

	Participant A	Participant B	Participant C
School	X	X	“Contact with the technology at school.”
University	“I have learned a lot about language teaching using technological tools.”	X	“The quantity of things to do related to the course.”
University		X	“I use facebook to keep in touch with people from the university.”
Extra-curricular	“My aunt’s home.”	“At home.”	“My neighbors and friends’ houses.”

	Participant A	Participant B	Participant C
Interests	“It is not limited to social media but I use facebook, twitter, Instagram.”	“Social media, netflix, university pages.”	“I use technological resources for my academic life.”
	“Subjects that I am interested in like feminism.”		“I use facebook to keep in touch with people from the university.”
			“I post comments when I need some information.”
			“I take part in votes which I consider important.”
Inspiration	X	“My father has a degree in information systems, we used to live with computers and other electronic artifacts.”	X
Expertise	“My own blog.”	“I am a digital native.”	X
Self-directed learning	“In my blog I develop the site and add elements that I think are relevant.”	“Used to play with the computer using those CDs made to learn English.”	“Better to use the technological resources.”
Self-directed learning	“Today I do routes using the technology and map research.”		“Better to use the technological resources.”
Gender	X	X	X
Perceptions	“I have learned a lot about language teaching using technological artifacts.”	“I did not change my social practices with internet use because I am a digital native.”	“I need to prepare more to use the technological resources.”
Perceptions		“Technology is essential in people’s lives, academic and professional.”

	Participant A	Participant B	Participant C
Decision-making and Career	“As a teacher I would use the activities that my classmates presented in the micro-classes.”	“I use/would use the technology as a professor, because I believe that is very beneficial to the learning-teaching processes in many aspects .”	“As a teacher I would use the computer, the camera, the cell phone, the data show , depends on the activity and the teaching approach.”
Decision-making and Career	“All of them were very relevant for my practices as a teacher.”

Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo - PUC-SP PUC-SP - LAEL, Rua Monte Alegre 984, 4B-02, São Paulo, SP 05014-001, Brasil, Tel.: +55 11 3670-8374 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: delta@pucsp.br

Acompanhe os números deste periódico no seu leitor de RSS

[1] Conflict of interest

The corresponding author has no conflict of interest to declare and bears full responsibility for the submission.