Conversational elements of online chatting: speaking practice for distance language learners?

A critical issue in the delivery of language courses at a distance is to provide adequate scaffolding and monitoring1 of learners to assist them in the development of their interlanguage. As well as being one of the main reasons students enroll in language courses, oral interaction is considered beneficial to interlanguage development since it provides opportunities for negotiation of meaning. In the case of campus-based students, learners' progress in speaking the target language is supported and monitored mainly in the classroom. If non campus-based or online students do not attend face-to-face classes, how do they find opportunities for oral interaction? Using a Conversational Analysis and Second Language Acquisition perspective, the author considers elements which are common to both face-to-face oral interactions and chatting via a computer, with a view to assessing the potential of synchronous text-based communication tools to support the development of the speaking skills and interlanguage of distance language learners. This is done by reviewing findings of previous studies on synchronous text-based communication tools and identifying selected characteristics of oral interaction which are present in the chat sessions of two groups of campus-based intermediate level learners of Italian. In particular, the study focuses on repairs and incorporation of target forms, variety of speech acts, particularly questions and clarification requests, and the presence of discourse markers

Using Native Speakers in Chat

SLA research indicates that negotiation promotes interlanguage development and that learners are most likely to negotiate if opportunities for oral interaction are provided. In the case of campus-based students, learners ' progress is supported and monitored mainly through classroom interactions. If students do not attend classes on campus, how do they gain the reported benefits of oral interaction? Recent studies indicate that chatting provides opportunities for the negotiation of meaning, as occurs in oral interaction. However, most of these have been conducted on interactions between learners, with teacher supervision, often in task-based instructional settings. This study considers implications for distance language learning of negotiations by a group of intermediate learners of Italian interacting in dyads on a Web based Italian native speaker (NS) chat program. The research specifically explores (a) whether live chat with native speakers offers opportunities for negotiation of meaning in open ended tasks carried out in single session interactions with unfamiliar NS without teacher supervision, (b) the principal triggers for negotiation and modification of interlanguage in these interactions, and (c) whether public NS chat rooms are likely to offer an optimal environment for SLA, even for learners studying at a distance who need to chat without supervision. Chat logs indicate that learners do in fact negotiate for meaning and modify their interlanguage when engaged in open ended conversational tasks with unfamiliar interlocutors, with lexical and structural difficulties triggering most negotiations. Though further research needs to probe whether these negotiations and modifications lead to acquisition in the longer term, they would be particularly valuable for distance learners who need opportunities to negotiate within authentic target language contexts

We should google that : the dynamics of knowledge-in-interaction in an online student meeting

Funding: This work was supported by the European Union H2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, grant agreement No 845783 and Erasmus+ [VALIANT (626134-EPP-1-2020-2-ESEPPKA3-PIPOLICY)]This paper takes a multimodal conversation analytic approach to explore knowledge-in-interaction in a technology-mediated online environment (Skype videoconference) during a meeting between eight university students studying to become language teachers. The analysis considers the ways in which the studentteachers demonstrate their knowledge or understanding of telecollaborative project-based language learning while taking part in a telecollaborative exchange themselves. Given the growing predominance of online teaching and learning, it is increasingly relevant to have a deep understanding of the ongoing learner interaction that takes place in these environments, particularly considering that interaction can be understood as a trajectory of knowledge building. The study examines how the student-teachers make use of the different technological features of a videoconferencing platform to manage the assigned task, which is to complete a collaborative exam. These features include camera, shared links, parallel text chats and editing tools. Findings imply that the student-teachers sequentially organise their knowledge synthesis and co-construction of pedagogical understanding through technologically-supported mutually coordinated interaction. Although the analysis is contextually bound, the task-focused interaction that is highlighted is relevant to higher education teachers in a variety of contexts, apart from teacher education

Éléments conversationnels du clavardage : un entraînement à l´expression orale pour les apprenants de langues à distance ? Conversational elements of online chatting: speaking practice for distance language learners?

L'un des enjeux fondamentaux d'un cours de langue à distance est de pouvoir fournir un étayage, un accompagnement et une évaluation qui soient adaptés aux apprenants, et susceptibles de les aider à développer leur interlangue. Tout en constituant l'une des motivations principales du choix des étudiants pour un cours de langue, l'interaction orale est censée contribuer au développement de l'interlangue dans la mesure où elle favorise le processus de négociation du sens. Dans le cas des étudiants en présentiel, les progrès en expression orale en langue cible sont favorisés principalement grâce aux aides fournies en classe lors du cours. On se demandera comment les étudiants à distance/en ligne, qui ne peuvent pas être présents sur le site, peuvent pratiquer l'interaction orale. Dans une perspective conversationnelle et acquisitionnelle en langue seconde, l'auteure envisage les aspects qui sont communs aux interactions en face à face et au clavardage, dans le but d'évaluer le potentiel des outils de communication synchrone à base textuelle comme vecteurs du développement de la compétence d'expression orale et de l'interlangue, chez des apprenants de langue à distance. Pour ce faire, l'auteure propose une synthèse des résultats d'études antérieures portant sur les outils de communication synchrone à base textuelle et procède à l'identification de certaines caractéristiques de l'interaction orale, présentes dans les sessions de clavardage de deux groupes d'apprenants d'italien de niveau intermédiaire. L'étude porte en particulier sur les stratégies de réparation et d'intégration de formes cibles, sur la variété des actes de langage, notamment les questions et les demandes de clarifications, ainsi que sur la présence de marqueurs discursifs.<br>A critical issue in the delivery of language courses at a distance is to provide adequate scaffolding and monitoring1 of learners to assist them in the development of their interlanguage. As well as being one of the main reasons students enroll in language courses, oral interaction is considered beneficial to interlanguage development since it provides opportunities for negotiation of meaning. In the case of campus-based students, learners' progress in speaking the target language is supported and monitored mainly in the classroom. If non campus-based or online students do not attend face-to-face classes, how do they find opportunities for oral interaction? Using a Conversational Analysis and Second Language Acquisition perspective, the author considers elements which are common to both face-to-face oral interactions and chatting via a computer, with a view to assessing the potential of synchronous text-based communication tools to support the development of the speaking skills and interlanguage of distance language learners. This is done by reviewing findings of previous studies on synchronous text-based communication tools and identifying selected characteristics of oral interaction which are present in the chat sessions of two groups of campus-based intermediate level learners of Italian. In particular, the study focuses on repairs and incorporation of target forms, variety of speech acts, particularly questions and clarification requests, and the presence of discourse markers

Form-focused social repertoires in an online language learning partnership

This study explores how mutual language learning partners, a native speaker (NS) and learner of Italian as a foreign language, use conversational repair as an authentic resource for out-of-class social interaction and focus-on-form during online text chat sessions. Specifically, it analyses the sequential organization of prototypical form-focused exposed correction sequences where the NS both initiates and completes repair of the learner’s non-target grammar in the same turn, also known as recast. Findings indicate that despite the face-threatening nature of exposed correction within an unequal speech exchange system, participants maintain social solidarity by orienting to expert-novice roles and integrating recasts into phatic action-accepting and appreciation routines to bring form-focused trajectories to a polite conclusion prior to returning to topical talk. The learner’s role as interaction manager is evident in her regular transformation of NS-initiated pedagogical actions-in-progress into social ones. Comparison of these form-focused pedagogical-social trajectories with a prototypical teacher-fronted instructional repertoire, the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) sequence, reveals previously unidentified differences in how participants manage their interactions, especially exposed correction, in a formal-pedagogical and an informal social-pedagogical environment. While IRF is only one of many instructional repertoires in which correction activity is nested, fundamental structural differences suggest that online dyadic chat within language learning partnerships provides a potentially empowering and spontaneous alternative to classroom-based instructional repertoires, in preparation for real-life interaction in the target language.