Abstract

The study focused on university students of English and their teachers appropriating an ecological perspective into language learning and teaching during a university course. The course involved designing and putting into practice an online language project for school children in Finland and Spain. The task was expected to pose challenges as the university students had no experience of the pedagogic approach applied. Two video-recorded wrap-up discussions and the students’ final reports were selected from the data resource for closer analysis. The qualitative analysis showed how the new/ecological approach was resemiotised through multimodal (inter)actions between the participants. Experiences of complexity were collaboratively negotiated through the metaphor of ‘chaos’, first as problematic, then normalised and even a desired part of language teaching. The study bears implications for language teacher education shedding light on changing understandings for pedagogical thinking.