Congresos y Jornadas Didáctica de las lenguas y las literaturas. | Page 416

Teego: [chat] Schwester.
Teego: Schwester.
Natalie: Uau. Schwester.
Teego: The first three letters is always like a /∫/ basically ‘sh’ in English /∫/, yeah? And then the ‘w’
is /v/ Schwester.
Natalie: Schwester, Schwester.
Teego: Yes, Schwester.
Natalie: Yes? Schwester.
Teego: Yes, perfect.
Natalie: Schwester. My Schwester. I have just one Schwester. And brother.
As we can see, Openmeetings gave the participants the opportunity to write and
speak in the language they were learning. By means of the interactions, they were able to
learn vocabulary and to discuss the major theme of their presentations: environmental is-
sues. The results of this study allow us to assert that Openmeetings is an extra resource
that can be effectively used in English classes in a technological context of education.
Final Remarks
By analyzing the interactions between Brazilian and German students, we noted that
the English language has been, besides the target language of the Brazilian students, the
mediational tool used by the partners of students to assist each other in the practice of Por-
tuguese and German, since the Germans had no knowledge of Portuguese, and the Brazil-
ians had no knowledge of German either. English as an anchoring language was the way
the participants found to jointly assist each other in the learning process of their target lan-
guages. The use of language to support the teletandem sessions helped the Brazilian stu-
dents improve their learning of English.
In relation to the software used in this study, we can affirm that Openmeetings has all
the features necessary to be used in teletandem learning sessions, but the use of these fea-
tures depends on the knowledge the participants have about the functioning of the soft-
ware. It is the degree of learner autonomy in relation to the available resources related to
the software that enables the participants to qualitatively expand their language learning
opportunities.
The microphones and webcams are the primary resources of Openmeetings, and it is
through them that the participants can speak, see and listen to each other. Besides, these
resources, the chat and the whiteboard were also important tools to complement micro-
phone and webcams. The use of all these resources caused qualitative changes in the ac-
tions of the participants of this study making the teletandem approach more similar to
face-to-face interactions, as it enables learners to feel as if they were in the same physical
1181