Developing Chinese student teachers' understanding of task-based language teaching by online collaborative discussion

The study examines how online collaborative discussion contributes to Chinese student teachers' evolving understanding of task-based language teaching (TBLT). The study analyzed online collaborative discussion from an intact class of master's students of Teaching Chinese as an International Language on the Moodle discussion forum for 3 weeks. This study demonstrates how student teachers built up their understanding of the theoretical constructs of TBLT via thematic analysis. Furthermore, this study showed how the cumulative and exploratory talk repaired student teachers' misconceptions and deepened their understanding via discourse analysis. The student teachers raised questions, provided explanations, exchanged perspectives, and elaborated on each other's opinions. The finding underlines the role of exploratory talk in knowledge development and construction. This study suggests that teacher educators need to demonstrate questioning and critique strategies to Chinese teachers that can trigger cognitive conflicts in them to foster exploratory talk for improving the quality of online collaborative discussion.
本研究旨在探索在線協作討論如何促進母語為中文的國際漢語教師對任務型教學法的理解。本研究分析了國際漢語教學專業的研究生在Moodle論壇上為期三個星期的討論。通過主題分析，研究展示了實習教師關於任務型教學法核心概念的理解過程。通過話語分析，研究呈現了積累型話語和探索型話語如何幫助實習教師修正迷思，逐步建立起對任務型教學法的深層認識，在這一過程中實習教師能夠提問、解釋、交換意見以及擴展同儕的觀點。以上發現反映了探索型話語在知識發展和建構中的作用。研究建議教師培訓者可以向母語為中文的教師展示提問和批判的策略，以激發認知衝突，促進探索型話語，進而提高在線協作討論的質量。Copyright © 2021 世界華語文教育學會.