The construction of the distance learning relationship ; La construction de la relation pédagogique à distance : Étude d'un dispositif de télécollaboration au sein d'un monde virtuel pour la formation des enseignants de FLE

This research focuses on the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the initial training of teachers of French as a Foreign Language and on pedagogical communication. Our work examines the contribution of a telecollaborative project (SLIC: Second Life Interculturel). This project involved students from Université Blaise Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand, France) enrolled in a Master's program in French language teaching using ICT and advanced-level undergraduate students of French from Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, United States). For all SLIC participants, the main objective was the development of intercultural communicative skills through collaborative tasks in the virtual world Second Life. This project was designed to take two important aspects of teacher training into consideration: active and reflexive learning.The aim of this thesis is to understand how students manage to develop pedagogical relationships online when involved in a telecollaborative project using a virtual world and how the teachers in training adopt the role of discussion leader. This study has two goals: firstly, a descriptive one, analyzing tasks and online interactions in order to better understand the actions of participants, as well as the relationships they build. Secondly, this thesis has a praxeological aim since the results allow us to identify some elements for reflection concerning the improvement of ICT integration in teacher training.The Computer-Assisted Language Learning domain provides the theoretical background for this thesis. The latter draws on theoretical foundations in interaction analysis and sociology. We use the interactionnist model of the interpersonal relationship considering two dimensions: a vertical dimension which concerns the rank system (hierarchy vs. equality) and a horizontal dimension (distance vs. closeness).We adopted an ethnographic approach. We collected and structured data into a LEarning and TEaching Corpus (LETEC) in order to analyze them in context. We ...