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Jessica Etridge-Moutet & Anne-Catherine Mechler

Making Virtual Language Exchanges Work

Audience focus: Teachers of adolescent learners, Teachers of adult learners, Academic English teachers

Abstract

Language exchanges can bring multiple benefits for our students, from increased motivation and confidence to more exposure to both the target language and culture. VIRTUAL language exchanges can open international doors for our students whilst they study from home.
Putting in place such an exchange requires careful structure from facilitators. How will you ensure student implication throughout the project? How will the students measure their progress? How are you going to assess the exchange, if at all?
Addressing these questions and more, we will present our own experience of setting up and evolving our inter-institutional virtual language exchange programme between a French and UK university.

Biographies

Jessica Etridge-Moutet is an ELT teacher with 13 years experience working in France mainly in higher education, and is now Maître de Langue at ENS de Lyon. After completing her Masters degree in Foreign Language Didactics with Technology, she has a particular interest in creating courses and projects that focus on the use of online tools to facilitate language learning.

Anne-Catherine Mechler is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath, teaching French as a Foreign Language. She has been working in the University's Foreign Languages Centre since 2015, after teaching French in various settings and on three continents.
Originally from France, she initially trained as a translator in Canada. She has been living and working in the UK for 12 years now but definitely considers herself a citizen of the world!