The goal of this short-form article is to provide an overview of the opportunities and benefits for faculty and students who are considering the implementation of Virtual Exchange (VE) learning experiences to globalize the curriculum and their classrooms. The essay describes the benefits of students developing global competence, improving…

The computer-assisted language learning (CALL) field seems to change overnight with new technological affordances. Blake revisits his 2000 "LLT" article on computer-mediation communication (CMC) in order to reflect on how the field has examined this topic over the past decade or so. While the Interaction Hypothesis continues to guide…

At a recent TeCoLa3 project conference, Colpaert (2017) declared: "there is not enough evidence to suggest that technology has a direct effect on learning, not even virtual worlds. No, not even games… My hypothesis is… that the added value of technology depends on the designs of your learning environment on the one hand… and what I will talk…

This reflective practice will examine and report on students' experiences of three different bilingual (English-Spanish) task-based telecollaborative projects. The observations indicate that throughout these different projects the students were able to develop their intercultural awareness and their critical thinking skills via different online…

This paper describes a TeleTandem language exchange project between English speaking Spanish students at Georgia College, USA, and Spanish speaking English students at Universidad de Concepción, Chile. The aim of the project was to promote linguistic skills and intercultural competence through a TeleTandem exchange. Students used Skype and Google…

Although often neglected in language textbooks and classrooms, sociopragmatic and multiliteracy skills are crucial elements in language learning that language educators should not disregard. This article investigates whether a social networking community (SNC) website such as Facebook can be exploited in the context of an intermediate foreign…

The potential of computer-mediated communication (CMC) for language learning resides mainly in the possibility that learners have to engage with other speakers of the language, including L1 speakers. The inclusion of CMC in the L2 classroom provides an opportunity for students to utilize authentic language in real interaction, rather than the more…

The present study adds to the computer-mediated communication (CMC) literature by exploring oral learner-to-learner interaction using Skype, a free and widely used Internet software program. In particular, this task-based study has a two-fold goal. Firstly, it explores possible differences between two modes of oral CMC (audio and video) and…

The use of social technologies, such as wikis and chats, has brought a renewed attention to L2 collaborative writing. Yet, a question that still remains to be answered is the extent to which learners' writing is enhanced when using these tools. By analyzing learners' individual and collaborative writing, this study (a) explores L2 learners'…

Organizing and implementing telecollaboration projects in foreign language curricula is not an easy endeavour (Belz & Thorne, 2006; Guth & Helm, 2010), as pedagogical, organizational and technical issues have to be addressed before cross-cultural interaction sessions can be carried out (O'Dowd & Ritter, 2006). These issues make many teaching…

Online collaborative writing tasks are frequently undertaken in forums and wikis. Variation between these two communication modes has yet to be examined, particularly type of feedback and its effects. We investigated the type of feedback and the impact of English native-speakers' feedback on Spanish peers' discourse restructuring in the context of…

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…

We performed a two-phase, year-long research project that explored the impact of peer feedback on language development. We investigated specifically how and when post-secondary learners of English and Spanish provide corrective feedback on their partners' use of the target language in weekly asynchronous discussions by assigning them to one of two…

Many recent studies on computer-mediated communication (CMC) have addressed the question of orality and literacy. This article examines a relatively recent subgenre of CMC, that of written online sports commentary, that provides us with written CMC that is clearly based on firmly established oral genres, those of radio and television sports…

This study focuses on the use of the native language (L1) by second language (L2) learners when carrying out a collaborative jigsaw task in a computer chat environment. It investigates the extent and function of L1 use by means of a sociocultural theoretical framework. The research project was carried out in three languages: Chinese, German, and…