Innovation in Language Learning

 Institutional-integrated teletandem (iiTTD) is a modality of teletandem [7] which includes an array of genres within its activities, is part of a university course syllabus and is graded by professors. Different activities are mandatory in this new modality – TTDii: (i) a tutorial before sessions begin; (ii) text production in order to be peer reviewed by the partner; (iii) reflexive diaries; (iv) questionnaires [5]. According to Cavalari and Aranha, “the tutorial is a vital procedure in iiTTD modality, because besides informing students about the project, it has the intent of helping them understand the learning potential of teletandem practice”.  Authors also emphasize the importance of writing reflexive diaries, once the practice aids autonomous learning.  Texts, written every other week, and corrected by the foreign partner, are considered a trigger to the beginning of the session and they can have diverse communicative purposes: function as a warm up; work as an exercise linguistic error correction, specially for students who are studying to be teachers; raise non-shared issues that promote intercultural exchanges, among others.

            This new modality at UNESP-Sao José do Rio Preto is far from having its characteristics described and studied. A study group has been developing works on context description [1],[3],[5]; data collection and analysis [4]; the relationship between participants and the genres that emerge in context [2], to mention just a few.        

            If genres are understood as current rhetorical action [6], the search of complex relations among the genres that emerge in this context is justified because it is characterized as a lócus in which human activities develop, acquire meaning in social relations, are historically shared and are dynamic. The purpose of this work is to discuss iiTTD activities as a complex web of interrelated genres in which each participant acts according to shared genres within teletandem community.     

            As genres change, they adapt to the needs and are transformed. The recurrence of genres allows its sharing and acceptance by the teletandem community. In this sense, we intend to understand the interaction – each online encounter between two partners - as recurrent rhetorical situations that present conventional forms once they emerge from situations with similar structures and elements and its participants respond similarly.

 Data analyzed in this work are from a teletandem database that has been created in order to guarantee a research environment for undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in investigating different aspects of teaching and learning via teletandem. Results show that once participants are aware of genre conventions in the array of genres the modality encapsulates, the interactions seem to be more productive. In this work, we will discuss evidences from first interactions within a group of Brazilian and American students.