Language and human factors : growing digital together

While increasing digitization is attractive in many domains, it is also a source of concern and scepticism in others. In education, especially in the areas of language learning and teaching, the introduction of digital tools can unnecessarily widen the gap between students and teachers if not done properly. Learners might value the accessibility and flexibility of new online language courses and resources even as they regret the reduced or lack of personal contact with native speakers. Educators might be wary of the promises of yet another new form of digital technology, having too often abandoned previous tools they had rushed to adopt and implement without enough preparation. Others might be too timid to engage in a paradigm shift from which they feel excluded. The mosaic of attitudes and opinions that contributes to these two extremes of learner- and teacher-centeredness deserves greater consideration, in particular the personal, cognitive and emotional factors that come into play when digitizing language teaching practices. More concretely, we are interested in exploring how to best empower educators to adopt digital practice as an integral part of their professional and teaching identity. The action research project we will report on, co-funded by swissuniversities and the ZHAW, focuses on the ergonomics of socio-technical systems and reflective practice. The objective of the project is to provide tertiary-level language and translation teachers with a space for exchange and learning, guided by more advanced peers in a situation created to promote collective learning. These learning exchange spaces build on the concept of proximal zones of development as described by Vygotsky - in other words, allowing teachers to move between what they already know and what they can accomplish with the help of colleagues with more digital experience. By moving away from the traditional model of ad hoc training in educational tools, where teachers are directly confronted with what they cannot (yet) do, this action research project aims to radically change teachers' attitudes in the face of digital innovation and empower them to assume agency and appropriate new tools for their own purposes. Over the course of the two-year project, the effect of collaborative interventions are being monitored with techniques familiar from translation and writing process research (e.g. screen recordings, eye tracking, cued commentaries, and semi-structured interviews). We will report on the preliminary results from the first set of interventions and explain how such findings can be applied to other disciplines and professions to better understand the essentially human dimension of the digital transition