eTandem Language Learning Integrated in the Curriculum: Reflection from Students' Perspectives

This article presents a reflection on the findings from students’ perspectives of a three-year eTandem course between two distant languages – Chinese and French, at institutional level – between the Unit of Chinese Studies of the University of Geneva, Switzerland and the French Department of Hubei University, Wuhan, China. The participants are second year language students from both sides. The course includes theme-based asynchronous learning activities in the Moodle platform as well as task-based synchronous oral communication via Skype. The analysis is based on (1) the data obtained each academic year from a pre-exchange survey of students’ language profile and expectations for the exchange, (2) formal course evaluations administrated by the University of Geneva, (3) the students’ activity statistics on Moodle platform, and (4) a face-to-face interview with the students from either universities.The benefits the Chinese-French eTandem course brought to the students are not only linguistical, but also cultural. The course will go on with a renewed design based on the students’ feedback. A solid partnership between the University of Geneva and Hubei University is vital for the continuation of this Chinese-French eTandem exchange project. As a long-term collaboration is expected, the future work will also focus on the “normalization” of the eTandem course (O’Dowd 2010) in Hubei University.