This paper presents IdiomsTube (https://www.idiomstube.com), the first-ever computer-assisted language learning tool for facilitating the learning of English idiomatic expressions from YouTube videos. The web-based tool is designed to automatically (1) assess the speech rate and lexical difficulty level of any learner-chosen English-captioned…

With the immense presence of English language video content in the online digital environment and students' everyday exposure to multimedia content, this project aims to explore how to replace traditional in-class presentation with video presentation within an autonomous learning environment, examine the impact of doing so on the development of…

Drawing upon research on narrative and speech styles and on digital and multimodal communication, the author proposes multimodal narrative discourse analysis (MNDA) with associated pedagogical and analytical procedures to teach and study storytelling. The second language (L2) students first participated in multimodal narrative simulations in the…

Captioned video is widely used to enhance second language (L2) learners' exposure to oral input beyond the classroom setting, and captioning has been found to provide an instantaneous, useful visual aid for parsing and understanding L2 oral discourse. Nevertheless, a meta-analysis has shown that captioning exerts a selective effect on L2 learners…

Even though current technologies allow for automated feedback, evaluating content and generating discourse-specific feedback is still a challenge for automated systems, which explains the gap in research investigating the effect of such feedback. This study explores the impact of automated formative feedback on the improvement of English as a…

As shown by several studies, successful integration of technology in language learning requires a holistic approach in order to scientifically understand what learners do when working with web-based technology (cf. Raby, 2007). Additionally, a growing body of research in computer assisted language learning (CALL) evaluation, design and…

The aim of this study was to provide adaptive assistance to improve the listening comprehension of eleventh grade students. This study developed a video-based language learning system for handheld devices, using three levels of caption filtering adapted to student needs. Elementary level captioning excluded 220 English sight words (see Section 1…

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; O'Dowd, 2011). These issues make many…

This case study explores how a Chinese-American novice teacher acted as mediator in a telecollaboration with student teacher (ST) peers in the USA who designed tasks for his English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in China. The novice teacher was instrumental in mediating the student teachers' task design process by providing feedback…

Desktop videoconferencing (DVC) offers many opportunities for language learning through its multimodal features. However, it also brings some challenges such as gaze and mutual gaze, that is, eye-contact. This paper reports some of the findings of a PhD study investigating social presence in DVC interactions of English as a Foreign Language (EFL)…

This paper presents research findings of a longitudinal empirical case study that investigated an innovative Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) professional development program for pre-service English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The conceptualization of the program was based on the assumption that pre-service language teachers…

Many studies about listening strategies are based on what learners report while listening to an oral message in the second language (Vandergrift, 2003; Graham, 2006). By recording a video of the computer screen while L2 learners (L1 French) were listening to an MP3-track in German, this study uses a novel approach and recent developments in…

This study adopts a case study approach to investigate the impacts of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) learning environments on learners' perception of social presence. The participants were twelve French as a foreign language (FFL) beginners in a Taiwanese university. Divided into three groups, they conducted some tasks in three…

This paper explores how language teachers learn to teach with a synchronous multimodal setup ("Skype"), and it focuses on their use of the webcam during the pedagogical interaction. First, we analyze the ways that French graduate students learning to teach online use the multimodal resources available in a desktop videoconferencing (DVC)…

Several authors (e.g., Mcniff & Whitehead, 2006; Wallace, 1998) defend the idea that teachers' own involvement in research has the potential to encourage professional growth. Journal writing, teacher logs, written narratives and stimulated recall are some examples of methods that have been used by researchers to encourage and support teachers'…