Synchronous online chatting has been mundanely employed in language classrooms as a supporting instructional medium. To explore the current state of research and inform future studies, this article examines the past studies on the use of Synchronous online text chatting in English as second/foreign language courses. Using frequently referred databases for instructional language studies such as ProQuest, JSTOR, EBSCO, Web of Science, ERIC with additional papers from two language instructional-focused journals, CALICO and Language learning and technology (LLT), this study delves into twenty six past research-based articles published within 2010 to 2019. Explicitly, this article constructs an analysis that covers the designs, objectives, contexts, participants and instructional contents of the studies. The key topics are later described comprising; instructional strategies, effects on Language performance, socio-cultural interaction, motivation and potential areas for development. Finally, this article provides a summary of the pedagogical implications and identifies the potential areas for further studies in synchronous online text chatting in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL).