“GNILT – Globally Networked Italian Language Teaching”: uno scenario formativo di telecollaborazione per ridurre le distanze

The current study is an empirical investigation of the agency expressed by Italian future teachers in an online project called Globally Networked Italian Language Teaching (GNILT), which was integrated in two post-graduate courses on the teaching of Italian as L2, held at the University of Macerata and the University of Salento. GNILT was an experience of collaborative planning and teaching of a task that future teachers had to test during an online lesson with students of Italian as L2 from a Turkish and a North-American University. For the current research, agency is an individual’s ability to analytically and critically assess different experiences and to actively participate in different teaching contexts. A thematic analysis has been carried out focusing on the language used by future teachers (n. 17) in final questionnaires, presentation files for assessing the training experience and discussion forums. The investigation shows that future teachers: a) reiterate teacher-centered models; b) rarely reflect on their responsibilities when unsuccessful events occur; c) sometimes manifest the emergence of a “collective agency” thanks to technology mediated collaborative work with their colleagues.