This week I have been working on using NVivo to code the language used by UVic French students in a peer tutoring relationship with French students in Brazil. Under the direction of Dr. Catherine Caws, I have sorted their transcribed discussions into the categories of “language”, “instrument” and “task”. Through these categories, certain qualitative trends have become more evident, such as the type of metalanguage used by UVic students while helping the Brazilians, the strategies that they use, and the sorts of tools that they use for searching and correcting language errors. Below is a diagram illustrating a frequent word in that category of “instrument” and the contexts in which it was employed.

After identifying the vocabulary associated with each category, diagrams like this, as well as the frequency of their occurrences can be easily generated. This coding helps us to see from the context of their own dialogue, what technology these second language learners use as support.

~ Ryleigh