2024 Volume 9 Pages 1-27
An eTandem video chat exchange project was conducted in a public elementary school in Tokyo, Japan. Forty sixth-graders participated in the exchange with a gross number of 37 Year 8 students at a P-12 public school in Melbourne, Australia. The pupils in Tokyo were learning English at school, and the students in Australia were learning Japanese. They shared the two languages in the video chat and used them interchangeably to negotiate the meanings in their collaborative interaction. 97% of the Japanese pupils felt the exchange was enjoyable, and 97% wanted to talk with their partners again. 91% said they became more eager to learn English than before experiencing the exchange. The eTandem language exchange condition allowed them to be autonomous in communicating with their partners because they had no detailed control from their instructor about the content or language choice during the exchange. The video chat situation increased the communication clues for the pupils on the video chat screen. The elementary school principal and the teacher in charge of their English classes felt satisfied with the exchange’s success. They were willing to create another chance for the pupils to meet each other on the video chat screen.
