Abstract

Being a language teacher in the modern world requires sensitivity to complexity, which may pose challenges for student teachers and teachers in the field accustomed to classroom-based learning and teaching. This study examines how language students are managing complex pedagogic situations in a technology-rich environment while exploring new ways of being language teachers. The case context of the study is a university course, which entailed the students designing and carrying out an online English language project for fifth-graders in two Finnish schools. The project activities included online chat sessions, which the students and the course teacher administered from the teacher’s office at the university. The office was an important site for the participants to negotiate and process pedagogic issues and practical matters that arose in the course of the work. The research approach draws on nexus analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) and multimodal (inter)action analysis (Norris, 2004). Video recordings from the office as well as the researchers’ participatory observations are the primary materials for the analysis. The study provides implications for developing language teacher education.