There is vast potential for digital screens to support early bilingualism. For the most part, however, young children require human mediation with what is generated by screens in order for language and pre-literacy learning to occur. What does that mediation look like when multimodal elements are designed to support children's language and culture…

The growing popularity of online language learning means that both experienced language professionals and novices are developing and delivering all or part of their language classes online. This study set out to query practicing online language educators as to how they view themselves; that is, their professional vision of themselves and their…

As more distance education courses broaden their reach across borders, the chances of online classes being multicultural are high. This means that more often students may find themselves in courses designed for and by a host culture that differs from their own regarding its approach to teaching and learning. Compounding the difficulties inherent…

This article describes the anatomy and dynamics of an online professional development activity, the Moodle fishbowl. The fishbowl was designed as an opportunity for experienced EFL educators to witness and make sense of instructional conversation strategies that they might themselves use as they migrate their EFL courses to blended and eventually…

In the past decade, providing language instruction via computer-mediated communication (CMC) has seen tremendous growth throughout the world. With this increase in asynchronous instruction have come questions concerning the role of the instructor as it determines the quality and impact of learning and of what optimal faculty development might…

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is being used widely to support and extend foreign language instruction. Language learners are practicing the target language by communicating with their instructors, peers, and native speakers at a distance. This study examines high-beginning and low-intermediate learners of Russian and their uses of, and…

Where the role of instructor discourse has been the focus of much recent research on asynchronous online instruction, the anatomy of effective instructional discourse of foreign language educators has yet to be examined. Indeed, the majority of work in the area of foreign language and telecommunications has concentrated on student-student,…

The research articles in this special issue are authored by scholars who share as their common concern the ways in which technologies can best be used to support the acquisition of additional languages. Taken as a whole, the overall agenda of these studies is to capture what happens when language teachers and learners use technologies as part of…

This paper details a 2-year study of exemplary uses of electronic texts (information displayed electronically on a computer screen) in two English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learning contexts. Topics include the following: the need and desire to communicate; opportunities for topic control; and opportunities for planned and unplanned discourses.…

Presents preliminary research concerning learners whose native language is not English and who attend public school in New York State. Research focused on how English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in the state view and use technologies to help develop their students' literacy skills. Discusses data from a statewide survey and from initial…

Active communication with others is key to human learning. This straightforward premise currently undergirds much theory and research in student learning in general, and in second language and literacy learning in particular. Both of these academic areas have long acknowledged communication's central role in successful learning with the exact…

This report investigates how technologies such as computers, multimedia, and telecommunications can be effective tools for English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction. Both ESL and non-ESL teachers are coming to view these technologies as a means by which ESL learners who cannot otherwise participate in class activities can be actively involved…