What Really Works in Telecollaborative Pedagogy? A Case Study of an Algerian-Moldovan Project

Abstract

This chapter presents and discusses an international telecollaborative text-writing and translation project conducted during the second semester of a translation course in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The participants were non-native intermediate students of French from universities in Algeria and Moldova. This paper firstly provides theoretical background on telecollaboration and its benefits for learners from different geographical, linguistic, and cultural contexts. Secondly, it analyses the challenges of telecollaborating via asynchronous and exolingual communication (email). To do this, I analyse student perspectives on the efficacy of the approach in the form of reports administered before and after the tellecollaborations. The chapter concludes that telecollaboration between learners from different backgrounds is difficult, but can succeed and remains an opportunity to develop linguistic, cultural and digital skills along with intercultural awareness. In the conclusions I give an overall evaluation of the case study, and suggestions for a future telecollaborative work.