Digital critical literacy development and intercultural awareness raising ‘in’ action, ‘on’ action and ‘for’ action in ELT

Abstract:
This paper reports on project ‘Blending MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) into English Language Teaching Education with Telecollaboration (BMELTET)’. BMELTET aims to foster reflection on ELT with a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning)-MOOC blend that promotes the engagement of international students based in the UK and studying on an MA in ELT, with a ‘glocal’ community of ELT practice, with students and staff based in universities in Brazil, China and Spain and with the participants on the MOOC from all over the world. BMELTET aims to debunk the myth of the ‘native speaker’ as the ideal teacher of English language, thus decolonising ELT through dialogic online intercultural exchanges. A mixed-method approach was adopted for the data analysis and data was collected via two online surveys, the analysis of the ‘live’ ZOOM exchanges and focus groups with self-selected groups of students. The results illustrate a positive changed attitude towards online learning and digital literacy facilitated by BMELTET, but also show that there still are challenges to be overcome.