Academic social activity in online English language teaching: what do learners tell us about it?

ABSTRACT In this article we seek to understand, through the participants’ discourse, the impact of the planning (ALMEIDA FILHO, 2012) of an online English language course in a university context, based on Social Activities (LIBERALI, 2012). To do so, we briefly explain the Socio-Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (ENGESTRÖM, 1999) and the notion of Social Activities in English teaching as a way to enable the social repositioning of learners, even through an environment of online teaching and learning. We show how the course was planned and also analyze aspects related to learners’ performances and difficulties, the quality of their participation and their perceptions of the course. As a result, we verified that the learners in general have difficulties with Social Activities of an academic nature and that these difficulties led to limited participation in the didactic activities proposed in the course. However, positive aspects were observed by the teacher-researcher and cited by the students in their testimonies.

摘要 本文旨在通过参与者的话语，探究大学语境下，采用ALMEIDA FILHO（2012）提出的课程规划方案、基于社会活动（Social Activities，LIBERALI, 2012）理论的在线英语课程所产生的影响。为此，我们简要阐释了社会文化历史活动理论（Socio-Cultural-Historical Activity Theory，ENGESTRÖM, 1999），以及英语教学中的社会活动理念，以期即便在在线教与学环境中，也能助力学习者实现社会重定位。本文阐明了该在线英语课程的规划细节，并分析了与学习者学习表现、面临的困境、参与质量以及其对课程的认知相关的多个维度。研究结果显示，总体而言学习者在学术性社会活动方面存在困难，此类困境导致其参与课程中设置的教学活动的程度受限。不过，教师-研究者观察到了诸多积极面向，且学生在其证言中也提及了这些积极之处。