Digitally-supported language exchanges in primary school : The AlpConnectar project

This article presents the design, implementation and outcomes of AlpConnectar, a Swiss project that exploits technologies for digitally-supported language exchange (LE) in primary schools. Launched in 2013, the project involves three Swiss cantons where different languages are spoken (namely German, French and Italian) and respectively taught as foreign languages since the third grade of primary school. In the first section of the paper the linguistic composition of Switzerland is briefly presented and the current methodologies and approaches in foreign language teaching in the country are introduced. After a literature review of online LE practices, the AlpConnectar project is presented, along with a LE example to illustrate how it works. The final sections present the results of the project, based on data collected from both pupils and teachers. The results seem to suggest that while digital technologies offer significant benefits for LEs, they are no silver bullet, and their impact depends on a number of contextual variables.


Introduction
Switzerland is a multilingual country in which four main linguistic communities (German-, French-, Italian-and Romansh-speaking) have a strong territorial basis.The need to keep national cohesion led to the development of a shared language learning policy, which is currently being discussed because of the perceived importance of English and the growing presence of other languages in the country.
AlpConnectar is a joint project of three Swiss Universities of Teacher Education and Swisscom, the leading national telecom provider.Its main goals are (a) the mutual linguistic understanding and learning among pupils from different regions, (b) the reduction of inhibition in communicating in a foreign language, (c) the improvement of language skills and (d) the fostering of motivation and awareness of linguistic and cultural differences and analogies, thanks to authentic learning experiences.AlpConnectar's key feature lies in the combination of components of multilingual didactics (see Troncy & Goletto, 2014; the Swiss Passepartout project), of transcurricular learning of foreign languages (Dausend, 2014) and of the pedagogy of exchange (Saudan, 2003), as well as in differentiating and expanding the contact with the other language to optimize more conventional foreign language teaching as well.
The next two sections present the linguistic situation in Switzerland and the key features of foreign language learning in primary education, with a focus on language exchanges.The third section introduces some key elements of the relationship between digital technologies and language exchange (LE) practices, just before the AlpConnectar project is presented and illustrated with some examples in the fourth section.The fifth section of the paper presents the design and results of an impact study conducted on the project, and then some conclusions are drawn.

Languages and cultures in Switzerland
The Federal Republic of Switzerland recognizes four national languages, as illustrated in Figure 1: German (spoken by 63% of the population, either Hochdeutsch or a variant of Swiss-German dialects; 2015 census), French (23%), Italian (8%) and Romansh (or Rhaeto-Romanic; less than 1%).They are spoken in quite homogeneous and geographically separated regions: Switzerland is indeed a multilingual country with a strong territorial structure.Most Swiss tend to live in their home-language region and consume media from that linguistic region.What are the plurilingual practices associated with such a linguistic situation?The Federal Statistical Office (UST, n.d.) discloses that in 2014 about 64% of the population use more than one language once a week, 38% use two languages, about 19% use three and 7% four or more (UST, 2017b).What actually challenges the territoriality principle the most is the national/internal mobility as well as the international incoming mobility.Multilingualism and individual plurilingualism are therefore a "spread and scattered" reality in the country.
Moreover, in 2015 citizens of foreign origin with permanent residency were almost one fourth of the population (24.6%;UST, 2017c), without taking into account the high rate of incoming temporary (daily, seasonal) foreign workers.Foreigners' mother tongues become more and more similar, in terms of proportions of residents, to national languages: For example, Portuguese makes out 3.7% of the population and Albanian 3%, while all the "other languages" in Switzerland add up to 21.5%, that is, more than the proportion of Italian-and Romansh-speaking residents (UST, 2017a).
While Swiss people were never unified by one language, English turns out to be more and more consistent; 4.6% of the population considers it their main language (UST, 2017a), and about 800,000 residents use it regularly in their profession.Where a second or third national language learned in school is soon forgotten or not taught (like Italian in most German-speaking cantons), for better or for worse English is handy.

Language education: Curricular models and approaches to "foreign" languages
In Switzerland, each canton is responsible for schooling within its borders, so that there is no single unified Swiss school system, but rather many different cantonal systems.In order to coordinate language teaching, which is a key issue in a multilingual country, the Swiss Confederation developed a policy for language integration, entrusted to the cantons for implementation.According to the national language education concept (EDK, 2012), during their 11 years in compulsory education, the pupils should learn one or two other national languages and English in addition to the local language.

The 3/5 model
Currently 23 cantons out of 26 have agreed on an organization model defined as 3/5: The first foreign language (meant as a national language or English) begins in primary school in Grade 3 and the second foreign language (national or English) in Grade 5.Each canton decides which language to introduce in those grades (details can be found in EDK, 2016).
Teachers usually teach foreign languages with the support of textbooks.Not all of them though are aligned with the actual needs, goals and approaches and some aim mainly at lexical and grammatical knowledge and/or simple and simulated linguistic situations.In such teaching aids, authentic communication opportunities or contacts with the linguistic culture of the target language are not explicitly foreseen.
Consequently, debates also address foreign language teaching approaches and methodologies as the "traditional" teaching and learning of grammar rules does not seem to match with nor cover the needs of interactive, taskor content-based and authentic language use.However, it has been noted that this assumption is made on a language policy level rather than based on empirical results (Schoenenberger, 2016).

Learning languages in authentic situations
Of course, the learning of languages occurs outside as much as inside of school.The national language policy aims to include out-of-school learning settings and exchange situations not only in (junior) high school/professional schools, but also at the primary school level.Swiss compulsory schools' task is also to contribute to the exchange, understanding and cohesion between the four linguistic and cultural regions.
The three actual regional curricula (Lehrplan 21; Plan d'études romand; Piano di studio della scuola dell'obbligo ticinese) underline the following aspects of foreign language learning: 1.More opportunities to use and develop communicative skills and pragmatic learning strategies in authentic situations, where the linguistic input (verbal and non-verbal) and a wide range of semantic fields and language registers are essential requirements.2. Positive attitudes towards different languages, which includes the mother tongues of foreign classmates, and a reflective attitude towards the functions of languages, making comparisons and analogies between language and cultural elements to enhance functional plurilingualism.
Within this approach, the role of foreign language teachers grows into that of language experts who know how to guide the pupils to encounter and learn new languages and cultures, to become autonomous in their learning and gain experience with target language speakers in formal and informal settings.

Language exchanges in Switzerland
Language exchange (LE) offers the opportunity to connect all these aspects, and it is a well-known practice in Switzerland as well.Its composite linguistic distribution makes it possible to enjoy a fully immersive LE within the national borders, thus making it simpler and cheaper than in an international setting.Data from the 2015/16 school year (the latest available; CH Stiftung, 2016) report over 23,000 regional exchanges in the country, over 3,000 exchanges in Europe and around 800 outside Europe.53% of the exchanges in Switzerland were class visits of a few days, 22% included letter-based exchanges, 9% holiday camps, and 8% class exchanges (that is, when each class visits the other, with a total of two mobilities).The large majority of the exchanges (53%) took place in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, 43% the French-speaking part and only 4% the Italian-speaking part.In Europe the countries most often chosen for the exchanges were Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy.Outside of Europe however the students have mostly chosen the USA, Canada and India.Up to now typical regional LE therefore consists of a visit of a few days to another region, meeting another class and (in most cases) being hosted by their families.The preparation is usually based on sending and receiving letters or emails with pupils from another linguistic region, which makes it difficult for primary school classes to participate as their focus is mainly on oral skills.

Technological affordances
Over the last three decades, digital technologies have deeply changed the way we communicate both in the professions and in everyday life.If we agree on the idea that language learning is situated in social interactions (Mondada & Pekarek-Doehler, 2004), we can assume that the online world also offers new opportunities to LE practices.
From a technical point of view, online communications have allowed more frequent and smoother contacts between classes of all grades, blending both asynchronous and synchronous tools, so that if a letter exchange could take several weeks, an email can take a few hours.This provides new venues for peer and native-speaker interactions (Lee, 2004).At the micro-level, the diffusion of social media and messaging apps has led to an evolution of the "pen-pal," introducing a potentially infinite number of message formats: from email to pictures to Whatsapp to blogs, and so on, including oral communication.The arrival of tablets, more flexible and cheap instruments, has expanded such opportunities (Bastian & Aufenanger, 2017).New trends for older students also include the use of virtual worlds and different social media apps (Luo & Yang, 2018).O'Dowd's (2016) review indicated that videoconferencing is emerging as an affordable and effective tool for intercultural online interactions.
At the institutional level, online LEs are becoming a common practice.In Europe, this is fostered by the eTwinning program, launched and managed by the European Commission in 2005 and still ongoing, which illustrates how a digital platform can also facilitate partnering with other institutions at an institutional level (Gilleran & Kearney, 2014;Velea, 2011).Unfortunately, Switzerland has no access to this program.The TILA Project (http://www.tilaproject.eu/)also provides useful resources and instruction for teachers willing to start an online LE project.

Models and designs
Depending on the grades involved, the technologies available, goals, time, and many other factors, online LE can take many forms.O'Dowd (2016) distinguishes two basic models of telecollaboration: the e-tandem model, where students are paired and mostly work on language competences (a.k.a.Teletandem; El-Hariri, 2016;Telles, 2009), and the intercultural model, where the focus is on getting in touch with a different culture through meaningful personal interactions.Alp-Connectar tries to blend the two approaches in a consistent program.
In his review, O'Dowd (2016) identified a trend, which is also strongly present in AlpConnectar: the rise of cross-disciplinary approaches in which the telecollaboration becomes a means to foster collaboration in different subject areas, moving beyond the borders of foreign language learning.The ease in establishing a communication has indeed allowed for more attention to interdisciplinary work, combining foreign language learning practices with subject-matter learning, along the lines of content and language integrated learning (CLIL; Mehisto, Marsh, & Frigols, 2008).
Tasks design also seems to be a key feature in online LEs, which require different designs than face-to-face language learning (Guth & Helm, 2011;Hauck & Youngs, 2008).Based on a literature review on task design in online intercultural exchange, O'Dowd and Ware (2009) identified three main task categories: information exchange, comparison and analysis, and collaboration.In AlpConnectar, this dimension was embedded into a more holistic interdisciplinary project-based approach.

Challenges and teachers' competences
The introduction of online LE should also take into consideration potential obstacles.Luo and Yang (2018), in their review of the literature, include intercultural issues among teachers, language teaching traditions, technological problems, proficiency mismatch among the participants, uneven class sizes and, in case synchronous communication is foreseen with far away classes, time-lag issues.
More relevant and challenging than the above-mentioned issues is the development of teachers' competences for online LE, which develops in three interrelated dimensions: organizational, pedagogical, and digital, and would be supported by positive attitudes and beliefs (Dooly, 2008;O'Dowd, 2013).Vinagre (2017) suggests that teacher training through modeling and exploratory practice may help teachers acquire the required competences.This suggested an approach for the design of the initial teacher training that happens in the first project phase (see below).

Impact of online LE
The reported benefits that online LE potentially brings to language education are manifold.Some studies emphasize that direct contact with native speakers improves language competences in all areas, especially in communicative uses (Belz & Thorne, 2006;Chun, 2008).Cappellini (2016) has observed that some conversational actions occur online more often than offline, thus supporting the idea that this new format might offer new affordances for language learning (cf.Jianqi & Yuping, 2010).
Many researchers view the internet as an effective tool for supporting the development of cultural awareness and of intercultural competences (O' Dowd, 2005;Thorne, 2003;Ware & Kramsch, 2005).Indeed, intercultural learning and awareness seem to be enhanced as computer-mediated communication provides an opportunity to actually meet other cultures and develop a more dense concept of "the other" (Helm, 2016;Lomicka, 2006).This brings Thorne (2006) to claim that telecollaboration has acquired a central role in foreign language learning seen from an intercultural perspective.Finally, online LEs also provide opportunities for the development of digital competences, which belong together with language competences in the EU Key Competences for the XXI Century (EU Council, 2006).
AlpConnectar focused on all three competence domains, which were considered both in planning and design, and in project evaluation.

Online LE in primary education
The vast majority of the impact studies available on online LE refer to upper secondary and higher education.This is likely due to the fact that students in that age group already have high linguistic proficiency, better digital skills and more autonomy, which consequently makes the implementation on online LE easier.
Nevertheless, much activity also seems to be occurring in the lower grades.The activities proposed within the eTwinning project (Gilleran & Kearney, 2014) provide many examples.Recently, thanks to videoconferencing and cost-free online calls, orality has become a part of distance exchange, thus also potentially including children from kindergarten or primary school (Freixas, Cortada, & Bomburé, 2013).Other authors argue that access to online resources also represent a new opportunity for (foreign) language learning that could also enrich or enhance LE (Lombardi, 2009).
Impact studies in online LE in primary education come more in the form of case studies.They mostly suggest that online LEs offer real benefits in the development of intercultural understanding and motivation and has interesting implications for language learning processes (Macrory, Chrétien, & Ortega-Martín, 2012).One recent interesting study focused on the improvements in oral reading fluency achieved through peer-assisted reading via telecollaboration (Lin, 2016).

The AlpConnectar project
In 2013 the impulse phase of the initiative Schule ans Internet (Schools in the Net) of the Swiss leading telecommunications company Swisscom was coming to an end.Started in 2002, it had brought a free Internet connection to over 6,000 schools and over 54,000 classes across the nation (Swisscom, n.d.).Nonetheless, data suggested that the availability of an Internet connection only had a minor effect on teaching and learning activities.In many cases, the Internet access remained in the teachers' room, and only in few cases was it diffused with a Wi-Fi or cable connection to the classrooms.During a meeting with representatives of the Universities of Teacher Education (UTE) of Ticino, Valais and Grisons in the Alps region, this issue was raised, and interpreted as an opportunity to develop innovative teaching methods for foreign language learning within a multilingual country, the original challenge developed into a joint project called AlpConnectar.
Despite being in a multilingual country, the rather isolated situation of many small villages across the Alps represents a challenge for language learning.People from small villages are usually not motivated to learn a foreign language, including national languages, as this is neither necessary nor required in their immediate environment.Moreover, the cultural tensions and prejudices towards the other linguistic regions and towards neighboring countries contribute to such demotivation.Finally, for those classes a traditional linguistic exchange is also difficult to organize because most of them are far from the main connection routes.Could digital technologies enable the development of a learning environment that allows authentic contact with other national languages and cultures for primary school classes anywhere in the Swiss Alps?AlpConnectar (www.alpconnectar.ch)officially started in September 2013 and launched its field experimentation with primary school classes in January 2014.The project activities spread over four school years (2013/14 to 2016/17), involving 9 primary school classes and collecting a large amount of data.

The AlpConnectar models
AlpConnectar devised two models for transforming linguistic and cultural barries across the Alps into learning opportunities, leveraging on digital technology: a bilateral model, and a trilateral model.Both models involved classes in Grades 4 to 6, that is, from the second to the fourth year of foreign language learning in primary schools.
As depicted in Figure 2, the bilateral model connects two school classes of two different linguistic regions, or of two regions in bilingual cantons, such as in Valais (German and French) and in Grisons (German and Italian).Each class experiences at the same time the learning of a second language from the peers and the teaching of its own language to peers.
The trilateral model, also illustrated in Figure 2, connects three classes from three different linguistic regions.In this model each class learns the foreign language from another class of peers, and teaches its first language to a third class, thus creating a sort of learning triangle.

A lightweight digital integrated approach
The integration of digital tools within a novel LE setting is at the core of the project.The focus on small alpine schools made it a priority that, whatever the system, it should not cause any additional economic or organizational hurdles.Alp-Connectar tried to develop a system that is: • Financially sustainable for all classes, even those in small villages.
• Easy to manage, so that it does not require frequent interventions from IT staff (often not present in small schools).• Easy to use for teachers, that is, similar to tools that they already use professionally or privately.• Scalable, that is, it should start with a minimal investment but could be progressively expanded through the integration of additional devices or services.The AlpConnectar project team chose a rather simple hardware configuration: • A Wi-Fi router placed in the classroom and under teacher control, thanks to an on/off button.• A set of tablets, either Android or iOS, ideally one for every four pupils plus one for the teacher.All tablets are connected to the class or school Wi-Fi and have a limited set of available apps.
• One overhead projector that can be connected to one tablet for wholeclass videoconference sessions.• A Bluetooth loudspeaker.
• A set of headsets (one per pupil, plus a Y-connection to attach multiple headsets to a single source), to be used when pupils connect in small groups or work with audio.After the first year of experimentation, the configuration of this set was integrated with: • A better performing laptop computer for teachers (to replace the tablet), which supported higher-quality whole-class videoconferences and faster app interactions.• An external ambient microphone, with the purpose of enhancing the audio quality of videoconferences.The cost of such devices is around 3,000 CHF, representing a reasonable investment for schools.Moreover, this is not dedicated hardware, but rather a set of tools that could be used (and have been actually used) for other activities besides the project.Tablets are also easy to move from one room to another.The reduced number of tablets, lower than 1:1, was determined both for easier class management and for allowing pupils to work collaboratively on the screen, which is, in this case, not a private space.
The software configuration included a videoconferencing tool (originally Vidia, a custom Swisscom product, then replaced with Skype for Business), and the Storebox cloud service.Choosing Swisscom apps had the advantage of keeping all traffic within Switzerland, avoiding data theft risks and complying with the Swiss data protection law.Moreover, Swisscom was the unique technical support provider, simplifying the procedures.Nonetheless, it would be easy to replicate the AlpConnectar model with other similar (and free) software.Other simple apps were also installed on the tablets (camera, internet browser, etc.) and controlled through a screen-lock system that helped teachers to control what apps pupils were allowed to use.
Teachers also received supporting didactic materials, including a teachers' handbook, a teaching guide and an illustrated set of strategies for effective communication with speakers of another language, along with some examples of learning activities with the AlpConnectar system.

Teaching patterns
Despite the simple hardware and software configuration, the AlpConnectar system allows for a wide variety of teaching and learning designs.
On the one hand, the cloud system supports asynchronous multimedia file sharing, including texts, pictures, video and audio recordings.On the other, videoconferencing brings in synchronous communication, including not only words, but also pictures, gestures and any object that can fit the camera.Tablets also allow to rearrange the class in different modes, blending full-class moments with group, pair or even individual activities.For example, the presentation of the pupil's house can be achieved through a written text, but more often with a video.Full-class videoconferences were used to introduce the classes to each other and for discussions, and even for remote sing-along.Small group videoconference sessions were used for presentations and exchanges of recipes, riddles, and so on.
Other learning materials, such as Discovering Switzerland, a book available in all three national languages, integrated the landscape, for example by providing the source material for developing quiz questions for the other classes.
In all cases, both teachers and pupils asked for a face-to-face gathering in order to finally "meet."Such get-togethers were extremely lively and effective as they were not about creating a group from scratch but living a new act in the one-year-long collaboration history.1

An example AlpConnectar language exchange
The AlpConnectar bilateral model can be illustrated through the example of the exchange between Felsberg (in the German-speaking part of the canton of Grisons) and Poschiavo (in the Italian-speaking part of the same canton).It is one of the bilateral projects that involves two Grade 5 classes.
Thanks to AlpConnectar, the two classes can interact in a variety of modes throughout an entire school year, creating an authentic communication situation, overcoming the limitations of more conventional language lessons (cf.Balboni, 2012), and introducing the perspective of multilingual didactics.During their language learning classes, pupils do not engage in "rote exercise" but meaningfully interact with native-speaker peers.The language lessons in the weekly program are not abandoned, but, thanks to AlpConnectar, the teachers have the possibility to open up their teaching in a transdisciplinary fashion to new communication situations (Dausend, 2014).By using a communicative, action-oriented and authentic approach, the teacher prepares the pupils for a communicative situation that sees them interacting with peers.This transforms the use of the foreign language from an academic performance to a communicative necessity.Moreover, all this takes place in view of a concrete get-together that will take place at the end of the school year.
The use of the foreign languages is also possible thanks to activities that pupils carry out in other subjects.In this case teachers decided to work in the curricular domain Nature, Humanity and Society, which allows to broaden the scope of the language lesson and find linguistic inputs also outside of the class context (Diadori, Palermo, & Troncarelli, 2015).

A year-long exchange
The online exchange extends throughout an entire school year and starts with a face-to-face teacher training session.Consistently with recent findings (Vinagre, 2017), the training not only provides basic technical knowledge but also offers an opportunity to let teachers create bonds and promote explorative learning, suggesting to try out possible online collaboration forms among teachers.Also, starting from the second project year, we promoted modeling, asking "veteran" teachers to present and discuss their experience and to interact with "novice" teachers.
In its implementation, the project involves three progressive phases, as illustrated in Figure 3: • Phase 1, a preparatory stage that serves to establish contact between the classes.This already happens in the foreign language and lasts two months (October/November).In this case study, both classes produced a video featuring their own class and school.In a second video, the pupils introduced themselves individually and talked about what they do during their free time.In this context, the activity of "introducing oneself" (very common also in grammar-oriented textbooks) takes on a more authentic dimension as it responds to a communicative reality: It is no longer an artificial activity, but it is necessary to talk to these peers who do not know me/us.• Phase 2, in which interchange activities start with small projects.This phase lasts three months (December/February, including the Christmas holiday).The didactical material developed during Phase 1 is used in the activities that take place in Phase 2. Now the pupils see each other on the screen, present to each other, ask questions and try to find answers.Everyone speaks in the respective foreign language.To do this, pupils have previously prepared "standard phrases/chunks," which make the interaction somehow schematic and predictable.This is certainly a limit on this didactic action, but it is still more authentic than repetitive exercises during more traditional classes.When the presentation is over, students move on to other activities, such as preparing typical local recipes, which they will then have to explain to the other class.In this case study, bye exploiting the lessons of Nature, Humanity and Society, pupils used their tablets to create a video featuring certain aspects of their village (e.g., the square, buildings, monuments, etc.) and their daily lives.They did all this using the foreign language.• Phase 3 involves more complex interchange activity with more emphasis on the use of the foreign language and lasts until the end of the school year.It is about working on a more demanding project, both from the point of view of content and language.The topic chosen, great predators, actually came from the news.Through a research process, Felsberg's children created posters for presenting the wolf, while Poschiavo's ones did the same about the bear.The outcome of the research project was then translated into the foreign language and presented to the peer class through a video.

Insights from the trilateral model
While the overall dynamic remained the same, the peculiar structure of the trilateral model offered the opportunity for a different activity design.A teacher had proposed to work with Die Schweiz in einem Buch: Sprachen und Kantone (Alli, 2006), a book published in Italian, French and German.The classes were divided into groups and roles distributed so that the class hours in the mother tongue (e.g., Italian in Ticino) were used to prepare questions on the history, geography and languages of Switzerland for the peer class.For example Ticino children prepared their questions in Italian, which were to be asked their German-speaking peers from Castiel during the quiz sessions.
Since each class had to play the role of the quiz-maker, all pupils had to deal with the (interdisciplinary) contents of the book, and therefore they also knew where to find the different topics and possible solutions in the book.In the videoconferencing sessions the questions were then asked in such a way that the respondent pupils had to answer in the foreign language, and the solutions had to be searched for in the foreign language edition of the book.Points were distributed for correct answers, which was a gamified learning experience.

The study: Assessing the impact of AlpConnectar
AlpConnectar uses rather simple technologies in order to bring an innovative LE method to primary education.But is it worth the effort?

Research questions
In order to evaluate the participants' appreciation and the actual impact of digitally supported LE activities on motivational, intercultural, linguistic and technological aspects a study with the following research questions was conducted: 1. What are the strengths and the weakness of AlpConnectar?2. What impact does AlpConnectar have on (a) motivational aspects, (b) intercultural aspects, (c) linguistic competences, and (d) digital skills?

Sample and research design
Overall, AlpConnectar has allowed 9 primary school classes to engage in digitally-supported LE from 2013 until now.Table 1 shows the profiles of the 7 classes that participated in the project in the 2015/16 school year and whose data were used for the analysis presented in this paper.Pupils attended different grades (4th to 6th grade) and had different years of birth (from 2003 to 2006).The differences in the age of the pupils were not a problem for the exchanges: As teachers reported, at the beginning the younger children were intimidated, but after a while they started forgetting the age difference.Nonetheless, as the age difference can have an impact on the language competences, it was taken into account in the analysis.Also the gender of the pupils differs according to the classes: Castiel, for example, has only 30% of female pupils while Flanthey has 65%.
The teacher sample consisted of three women and four men.They are generalist teachers (i.e., they teach all subjects in their grade).Five of them have more than 10 years of professional experience, one between 5 and 10 years and one less than 5 years.
The research study is based on the approach of the methodological triangulation (Flick, 2004) and combines quantitative and qualitative data as well as data from both the teachers and the pupils.
Qualitative data about the previous AlpConnectar year was collected in a focus group with the teachers at the end of the 2014/15 school year.The focus group was attended in person by the three teachers of the trilateral model and one teacher of the bilateral model of the canton of Grisons, while teachers of the bilateral model of Valais provided written feedback.The information collected here was used to define the dimensions and working hypotheses for the qualitative part of the study.
The quantitative survey, which was characterised by a longitudinal design, involved both teachers and pupils.Two data collections were conducted, the former in November 2015 and the latter in June 2016, each time with 7 teachers and 113 pupils.Teachers filled in their questionnaire digitally and sent it back by email; then, they distributed the pupil questionnaires in class in paper format, collected them and a researcher compiled the data for the analysis.

Instruments and methods of analysis
The questionnaires used include pupils' pre-questionnaire, pupils' post-questionnaire and teachers' survey.They were developed in-house and were based on the literature, taking inspiration for example from instruments developed in previous studies (Abendroth-Timmer, 2007;Chen & Starosta, 2000;Schlak et al., 2002), among which there are the DESI study (Wagner, Helmke, & Rösner, 2009) and the Swiss "lingualevel" instrument for the assessment of linguistic competences (Lenz & Studer, 2008).The questionnaires included open question items as well as 4-point Likert scale ones (e.g., 1 = I completely agree, 4 = I completely disagree).Different language versions of the questionnaires/surveys were used depending on the region.The German versions, however, were the original ones, and they were translated to create the other versions.The original German versions are included in Appendices A, B and C.
The dimensions covered in the questionnaire for students are: personal information, family information (origin and socioeconomic status), school subjects and languages they like, foreign language learning (perceived usefulness, competence level, etc.), cultural awareness (knowledge of the culture of the other language regions), technologies (level of competence) and the perception of the project in general.
Teachers were surveyed with respect to their expectations and their attitudes towards the project.Teachers also indicated their pupils' language skills in the foreign language (last evaluation in the foreign language in the previous year, level of skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing), interest in languages as a whole, participation in foreign language lessons and some transversal skills, like teamwork or communication.
The quantitative data were analyzed following two steps.First, descriptive statistics of the motivational, intercultural, linguistic and technological aspects have been generated.Second, a logistic regression has been conducted.To estimate the coefficient of determination that indicated the amount of explained variance, Naglekerke's R squared has been used.Naglekerke's R squared has been chosen since this measure adjusts the scale of the statistic to cover the full range from 0 to 1 and therefore enables a better interpretation of the results (Backhaus, Erichson, Plinke, & Weiber, 2008).Qualitative data were analyzed by clustering and reordering clusters on a SWOT analysis framework.

Results
The following subsections present first the results obtained in the focus group meeting with the teachers on the 23rd of June 2015, and second the results obtained from the analysis of the questionnaires collected during the 2015/16 school year.Quantitative results are presented following the research questions, namely the impact on (a) motivational aspects, (b) intercultural aspects, (c) linguistic aspects, and (d) technological aspects.

What teachers say
The first insights on the overall advantages and disadvantages of AlpConnectar (our first research question) come from teachers, who identified the following strengths of AlpConnectar: 1. Enrichment of foreign language lessons thanks to the context of authentic communication.2. Development of the ability to communicate, for example when standing in front of the camera.3. Development of technical expertise in the use of digital devices.4. Improvement of group work abilities.5. Improvement of linguistic competences.6. Awareness of personal linguistic limits.7. Great increase of foreign language learning motivation.8.The ability to identify learning objectives (e.g., expansion of vocabulary) and improve learning strategies.
Teachers also noticed that AlpConnectar can be complementary to the "usual" textbooks, rather than an alternative; for example, the work on the book supports the acquisition of vocabulary useful for the exchange activities.In most cases, however, the textbook was somewhat set aside halfway through the year, but this was not felt as a problem: It was offset by the fact that the pupils acquired in-depth skills in other areas of language learning such as oral skills.
Reported project weaknesses were mainly related to technological issues.For example, teachers claimed, in relation to the quality of videoconferencing, that they "need better working conditions -even from the point of view of the pupils, who are likely to lose motivation if the quality is too low."This point has in fact several implications, including (a) the need for a larger bandwidth, (b) the need to check and adapt all aspects (devices, connections, etc.) at the beginning of the project before starting the activities, and (c) the need for quick technical support when specific problems arise.
An issue for teachers was also evaluation, as usual assessments (mainly written tests) did not seem adequate to actually assess what pupils learned from the online LE.This remained indeed an open issue.
Finally, teachers agreed that AlpConnectar requires flexible time management in order to realize the exchanges.This was not problematic in the classes involved but could be an issue if the schools have stricter timetables (like in secondary schools).
In the following sections, we present quantitative data which address our second research question, namely: What impact does AlpConnectar have on (a) motivational aspects, (b) intercultural aspects, (c) linguistic competences, and (d) digital skills?

Motivational aspects
Pupils' motivation to learn the foreign language has been measured before starting the project (t1) and after (t2). Figure 4 shows that the variation in motivation depends on the classes analyzed.We note for example that in Sonvico and Monthey students were in general more likely to learn a foreign language (French or German respectively) than in Castiel (where they learned Italian).In Castiel not only was the motivation to learn lower, but it also dropped during the school year.In Monthey on the contrary, it increased during the school year, while there were no major changes in Sonvico.

Figure 4
Results of the trilateral model: I am motivated to learn a foreign language If we take a look at the bilateral model, we can see that also in this case there were differences among the classes.Pupils in Poschiavo were the most motivated, followed by Felsberg and Flanthey, the least motivated being those in Naters.Against our expectations, the motivation to learn a second language decreased during the school year, except in Poschiavo, where it increased, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5
Results of the bilateral model: I am motivated to learn a foreign language In order to better understand which pupils most appreciate the second language, a logistic regression has been calculated with the dependent variable of "how much do you like the foreign language" and independent variables of gender, socioeconomic status of the family (measured based on the ISEI index), region of class (Latin, i.e., French or Italian; or German Switzerland), family language background (multilingual or monolingual) and prolonged stay in the foreign language region (it was assumed that if the pupil has already spent a period in that region, s/he might be more interested in learning the language).The results presented in Table 2 indicate that girls, as well as pupils coming from Italian-speaking or French-speaking regions of Switzerland, pupils with multilingual backgrounds and those who had already spent a prolonged stay in the second language region were significantly more likely to enjoy learning the foreign language.The model explains 26.2% of the variance.B) is an odds ratio that expresses the likelihood of an event occurring relative to the likelihood of an event not occurring.In this case girls are for example 2.431 times more likely to like a foreign language than boys.
To the open question "If you compare your situation at the beginning of the school year with the situation at the end of the school year, what has changed?" the majority of the pupils affirmed to be more motivated to learn the foreign language compared to the beginning of the school year, stating for example that "a project like AlpConnectar stimulates learning the German language" (boy in Poschiavo) or "yes, I think it was a cool change.It makes much more fun to learn" (boy in Felsberg).A girl in Flanthey even wrote: "I started to love German," and a boy in Sonvico: "They motivated me and made me understand that French is the most beautiful language there is!" Nonetheless, as the quantitative data show, some pupils were less motivated after the project.This was justified by a general negative attitude towards foreign languages: "I do not need to learn other languages" (boy in Castiel), "I do not like other languages, I prefer to speak German" (girl in Naters); or by the complexity of the foreign language itself: "I do not like French, is it too difficult and complicated" (girl in Naters).In the three German-speaking classes, several pupils indicated that they prefer English compared to a national language (French or Italian).Interestingly, this preference was not found in the Italian-speaking and French-speaking classes.

Intercultural aspects
A second objective of the project was to let pupils meet another culture and linguistic region and raise awareness of intercultural issues.Figure 6 shows the results related to the question: "It is enough to know only my own language."It should be noticed that the results as well vary depending on the class analyzed.In Monthey, the pupils disagreed with this statement, whereas there was more consensus in Sonvico and in Castiel.It should be mentioned that the class in Monthey had a strong presence of children from migrant families.In the bilateral model, whose results are shown in Figure 7, Felsberg's pupils disagreed more strongly with the statement, followed by Poschiavo and later by the two Valais classes.To see if the attitude toward the second language region changed positively after experiencing AlpConnectar activities and to trace a profile of who has changed its attitude, a logistic regression with the dependent variable of "has your attitude towards the foreign language region changed positively?" was conducted.The results, which are included in Table 3, show that pupils from the French-speaking and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland have mainly positively changed their attitudes.The model explains 13.1% of the variance.B) is an odds ratio that expresses the likelihood of an event occurring relative to the likelihood of an event not occurring.
If we analyze the answers to the open question, we can see that pupils mainly appreciated the opportunity to make new friends.In some cases these friendships continued also outside of school (they exchanged the telephone numbers and remained in contact).Thanks to the exchanges with the other classes, the pupils also discovered new cultures and traditions (e.g., typical recipes, school structures, local animals, etc.).However, also in this case some students said that their knowledge about the partner region had not changed and their previous impressions had confirmed by the project: "I know nothing new.It is as I expected" (boy in Castiel), "It is just like I have imagined" (girl in Flanthey).

Linguistics competences
One central objective of the project was to improve the pupils' language skills.A 10item self-evaluation scale that addressed both oral and written comprehension and production was used.Children were asked to answer whether they had improved or not in ten different aspects (e.g., "I can understand simple questions that concern me directly," "I understand if someone asks me for my name or address").
Figure 8 shows that only 6.3% of the pupils in Sonvico and 8.3% in Castiel had the impression that their language skills had not improved, while the majority of the pupils affirmed that their language skills had indeed improved.In the classes of the bilateral model, whose results are presented in Figure 9, we find a negative result in Poschiavo, where more than half of the pupils responded that they had not improved, while the other three classes had the impression they had improved.In general, even if the study design does not allow to make the claim that the students learned during the year only as a result of the AlpConnectar project (as other language learning activities were also going on at the same time), the majority of the pupils reported that they had made progress during the year.Reported learning effects relate to vocabulary and to the ability to communicate.They also stated that they had developed strategies to communicate with their peers, despite the limited linguistic resources, as one girl in Monthey wrote: "I have learned that even if I make mistakes, I should not stop.Of course it's a pleasure to talk with them;" a girl from Sonvico echoed: "I noticed that when I started I did not know how to speak French, but now I can speak much better."Data on the pupils' self-perception was triangulated with the teachers' assessment of their pupils' skills.Both at the beginning of the project and at its end, teachers were asked to report the last evaluation by a foreign language test and to indicate their assessment of the pupils' level of skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing.Teachers' data provided a positive view on pupils' learning, indicating a general improvement over the course of the year.A logistic regression was also calculated to analyze to whom the teachers attribute the best skills.Table 4 shows that teachers attributed the best language skills to children from families with a higher socioeconomic status.This is a well-known effect in the field of education (see for example Felouzis & Charmillot, 2017).The model explains 23.5% of the variance.B) is an odds ratio that expresses the likelihood of an event occurring relative to the likelihood of an event not occurring.

Digital skills
Using tablets and online communications pupils should also have the chance to enhance their digital skills.Figure 10 shows that all pupils in the trilateral model thought they had made some improvements in the use of technologies; on the other hand, Figure 11 presents the same results for the bilateral model, where we see some pupils affirming that they had not improved, especially in Poschiavo and Naters.
According to what they reported in the questionnaires, during the project pupils felt, for example, to have learned how to use computers and tablets, to have improved their internet-research strategies, and learned how to create presentations and videos.In addition, some adopted a more critical approach toward the Internet.The ones who had not improved affirmed that they had already known how to use digital technologies.

Summary and discussion
This paper has presented the AlpConnectar project as an example of digitally supported LE for primary schools and had a twofold aim.First, we wanted to explore its strengths and weaknesses, and second, to measure what impact AlpConnectar had on motivational, intercultural, linguistic and digital literacy aspects.We can affirm that AlpConnectar was well received by teachers: They emphasized its impact in motivating pupils to learn the foreign language and in enriching the language class through opportunities of authentic communication.Another positive point is that AlpConnectar allowed pupils to improve both their technological skills and transversal skills such as group work.Only technology-related issues were seen sometimes as problematic (e.g., too slow or unstable internet-connection).These issues were largely solved during the second year of experimentation, not reported in this paper.The pupils liked the project as well, indicating how it allowed them not only to improve their language skills but also to get to know other regions of Switzerland and to make new friends.Their enthusiasm throughout all project activities confirmed their positive experience.
On the other hand, the quantitative data analyzed here provided a more nuanced picture, in some respects even in contradiction to the statements gathered during the focus groups or in open items.
First of all, there seemed to be a significant variation across classes from the different linguistic regions, for example, concerning the motivation to study the foreign language: Pupils in the French-speaking and Italian-speaking regions of Switzerland seemed more motivated than those in the German-speaking regions, where motivation even decreased during the project.Moreover, the results indicated that girls, pupils with multilingual background and those who had already had a prolonged stay in the foreign language region were more likely to enjoy learning a foreign language.A similar picture was also found in relation to intercultural aspects: Pupils from the Italian-speaking and French-speaking regions had positively changed their attitude towards the foreign language region, and they more consistently declared that "it is not enough to know how to speak only one language."These first two results make us ponder on the status of national foreign languages in the various language regions in Switzerland and seem to suggest that speakers of linguistic minorities (like French and Italian) are more motivated to learn the other languages and are more open to the exchange.On a general level, these results suggest that (a) the actual impact of (digital) LE heavily depend on the perceived status and desirability of foreign language learning in the reference community, and that (b) micro-variables related to class composition and possibly teaching style play a major role.
As for language skills, the results indicated that in general these had improved, even if there were differences between the classes, especially considering the results of Poschiavo, which stood out in a negative way, as more than half of the pupils said that they had not improved.The results obtained from the teachers showed how they tend to attribute better language skills to students coming from families with a higher socioeconomic status.While this result is not surprising, it clearly indicates that the introduction of digital technologies in language learning does not automatically bring a democratization of learning.
Finally, the results suggested that in general the project had brought about an improvement of digital skills.Also in this case, however, we found classes with small perceived improvement, like Poschiavo, and others with greater improvement.This suggests that the availability and use of digital devices is not enough to influence the development of digital self-efficacy and that local variables (e.g., the in-class teacher's procedures or pupils' attitude in general) are also important.
The results presented in this paper were based on a limited number of classes which were not randomly selected and do not therefore support any generalization.Further data should be collected in the future years of the project to provide a stronger analysis base and to allow a better understanding of the impact of AlpConnectar.Nonetheless, evidence so far suggests that AlpConnectar provides an interesting model of engaging primary school classes in digitally-supported LEs: They allow to increase the motivation to learn a foreign language, to improve the language and digital skills and to encounter the various regions and cultures of Switzerland.

Conclusions
AlpConnectar can be considered a positive case where the two approaches described by O'Dowd (2016) are blended, namely the e-tandem model to foster language competences and the intercultural model, and where the focus is on getting in touch with a different culture.Furthermore, with the AlpConnectar activities teachers and pupils moved beyond the borders of foreign language learning embracing a cross-disciplinary approaches along the lines of CLIL (Mehisto, Marsh, & Frigols, 2008).
On the other hand, our data clearly dispels any temptation of a grand narrative.AlpConnectar, and possibly online LE in general, is no single silver bullet for language and intercultural education.The AlpConnectar experience emphasizes the importance of the contextual elements for a successful LE, which emerge in the form of important differences across school classes.Differently from most other studies referenced in this paper, our data suggest that the introduction of technology-enhanced learning methodologies in language learning does not overcome, but rather depends heavily on, a variety of contextual elements, including the socio-economic context in which the school is located, the cultural environment and attitude towards foreign languages, the socio-economic status of the family, previous experiences in a different linguistic region, and also the teacher.From this perspective, digital technologies should be understood as a single positive element in a more complex environment, and no ground-breaking improvement can be expected through the use of technologies alone (this is also supported by the findings of OECD, 2015).

Figure 2
Figure 2 AlpConnectar bilateral and trilateral models (elaboration on the original map by Tschubby, 2010; CC-BY-SA-3.0; the colors in each dot indicate the schooling language of the pupils [the largest share] and the second language they were learning in the exchange)

Figure 3
Figure 3 Phases of the didactic intervention and examples

Figure 6 Figure 7
Figure 6 Results of the trilateral model: It is enough to know only their own language

Figure 8 Figure 9
Figure 8Results of the trilateral model: Did your language skills improve during the project?

Figure 10 Figure 11
Figure 10Results of the trilateral model: Did your digital skills improve during the project?

Table 1
Class profiles in the 2015/16 school year

Table 2
How much do you like the foreign language?(Nagelkerke's R squared = .262)

Table 3
Has your attitude towards the foreign language region changed positively?(Nagelkerke's R squared= .131)