The current special issue is dedicated to studies exploring social interaction in second language educational environments that feature technology. In this introduction article, we contextualize the empirical studies included here with respect to the changing role of technology in education and situate them in the research tradition of multimodal…

This dissertation provides an in-depth linguistic description and analysis of the discourse in a target domain of digital games, a domain referred to as "single player offline role-playing games." Gaming discourse from this domain is represented by a 4.8-million-word corpus of spoken and written language extracted from the digital files…

Purpose: The study explored how Feifei, a 3-year-old trilingual girl living in England, uses touchscreens across her multiple languages (English, Mandarin, and Bahasa Indonesia), exploring how her languages and social interactions interact with her touchscreen use. Design/methodology/approach: The research adopts a case study approach, using…

The purpose of this study is to analyze newspaper articles from three publications ("Chosun Ilbo," "Donga Ilbo," and "JoongAng Ilbo") regarding a newly developed high-stakes English test in South Korea, the National English Ability Test (NEAT), from the viewpoint of critical discourse analysis. All of the articles…

This article presents a series of activities that are informed by research on conversation analysis and used for increasing the EFL [English as a Foreign Language] learners' awareness of interactional mechanisms of English language. The activity series consists of (1) lecture (e.g., turn taking, sequence and preference organization, repair), (2)…

This study aims to show how multimodality, that is, the mobilization of various communicative resources in social actions (Mondada, 2016), can be used to teach grammar. Drawing on ethnomethodological conversation analysis (Sacks, 1992), the article provides a detailed analysis of 2 corrective feedback sequences in a Swedish-as-a-second-language…

Despite its numerous benefits and potentialities for language learning and teaching, digital technology can also play a role in creating and maintaining inequality. While critical CALL often focuses on micro-level issues and contexts, macro-level perspectives, including discourses, are also essential to consider: From ecological and…

This article describes how the literature on game-based foreign language (FL) learning has demonstrated that player-game interactions have a strong potential for FL learning. However, little is known about the fine-grained dynamics of these interactions, or how they could facilitate FL learning. To address this gap, the researcher conducted a…

Teletandem is a telecollaborative learning context that involves pairs of native (or competent) speakers of different languages interacting through voice, text and webcam image. Using Skype, each participant plays the role of learner for half an hour, speaking and practising the language of his/her partner. This paper focuses on a teletandem…

This study focuses on the social actions taken around English language by a 12-year-old Finnish schoolboy, Simo, and his family members in the course of living their everyday life at home. The paper asks how everyday life learning opportunities are related to both in-class and out-of-class English-language learning. The multiple data (e.g. media…

Using a data-driven qualitative approach and drawing from language socialization and communities of practice theories, this dissertation study examines the second language (L2) identity-building strategies of 22 American learners of Russian who engaged in a six-week telecollaborative project with Russian native speakers in two genres of…

The purpose of this study is to examine participant's perception of the usefulness of the visual elements in 3D Virtual Learning Environments, which represent co-presence, in developing interpersonal emotional connections with their partners in the initial stage of telecollaboration. To fulfill the purpose, two Japanese students and two American…

"Happy Chinese" or kuaile hanyu is an educational melodrama produced by the Chinese TV channel CCTV in 2009. Aiming to improve foreign learners' Chinese language skills, the plot revolves around Susan, an American, staying with her former Chinese classmate's family. "Happy Chinese" proposes both language and cultural learning.…

This exploratory study investigates the linguistic and social interaction of four intermediate EFL learners during game play in a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). Twelve illustrative episodes drawn from the participants' text chat, collected in four 70-minute sessions held over a one-month period, are analyzed from a…

Applying Communicative Project theory (Linell, 2009), we identify and distinguish between the different coordination and language activities that emerged during an episode of "World of Warcraft" ("WoW") gameplay involving English Language learners (ELLs). We further investigate ELLs' coordinations between killing and caring, self and others, in…