Task-based research has investigated the learning opportunities (e.g. language related episodes) that emerge during heritage and second language learner interactions during writing tasks. However, to date, it is unknown how these peer interactions involving heritage language learners contribute to written texts. Further, given the rise of social…

Investigating task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) interaction has increasingly received scholarly attention. However, studies have focused on negotiation of meaning and the quantity, focus and resolution of language related episodes (LREs). This study aims to broaden our understanding of the role of audio, video, and text…

This study examines the language practices of Chinese visiting scholars on WeChat and explores the representational meanings of their translanguaging practices. An ethnographic approach combining with systematic observation, WeChat screenshot data and interviews with Chinese visiting scholars is adopted to get hold of the richness of situated…

The field of L2 pragmatics demonstrates the effect of instructional intervention on the development of L2 learners' pragmatic competence. Nevertheless, effective instruction requires knowledge of pragmatic performances of L2 learners in naturally occurring conversations, in comparison to those of the target community speakers. This study, using a…

This study was designed to determine if language acquisition can occur in a virtual situation in the absence of explicit instruction. After spending 1 year establishing a virtual community, the authors observed and analyzed interpersonal interactions and the development of Chinese communication competence, communication models, and interaction…

The importance of teachers' capacity to integrate and exploit computer mediated communication (CMC) in the foreign language classroom has been recognised by many of the leading publications in foreign language teacher education, including the European Profile for Language Teacher Education (2004) and the European portfolio for student teachers of…

This article describes the process by which the authors created a Virtual Learning Community for cultural and linguistic exchange between college students of Portuguese in the United States and undergraduate and graduate students of English in Brazil. In addition to describing the way the so-called tandem model for telecollaboration was adapted to…

This case study focuses on the feedback that is provided by tutors to learners in the course of synchronous online teaching. More specifically, we study how trainee tutors used the affordances of Visu, an experimental web videoconferencing system, to provide negative feedback. Visu features classical functionalities such as video and chat, and it…

This paper is based on an analysis of chat transcripts from an English-language telecollaboration project between students at universities in Chile and California. This research found that the richest intercultural interactions involved events that could not have been foreseen: the immigrant rights demonstrations in the USA and the massive student…

This study explores task-based, synchronous oral computer-mediated communication (CMC) among intermediate-level learners of Spanish. In particular, this paper examines (a) how learners in video and audio CMC groups negotiate for meaning during task-based interaction, (b) possible differences between both oral CMC modes and traditional face-to-face…

San Jose State University is planning to ban Skype, a popular Internet telephone service, from the campus network because of concerns about security and bandwidth. University administrators say that the technical aspects that make Skype effective also make it dangerous and potentially crippling to a university's network bandwidth. Skype has a…

This publication offers the 56th Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (NRC). This Yearbook begins with a preface and presents profiles of three awardees, Michael C. McKenna, Douglas K. Hartman, and Michael Kamil. Included in this Yearbook are the following papers: (1) What's It All About? Literacy Research and Civic Responsibility (Victoria…