The facilitation of peer feedback on academic writing is often lauded for its myriad cognitive, affective, social, and linguistic benefits. However, educators face conflicting research results when seeking empirical guidance on efficient methods to support peer feedback, particularly for their English language learners. This study contributes to…

Institutions of higher education realise the importance of the role of learning organisations in terms of providing personnel training and updating. Yet further consideration should be given to flexible and accessible means for meeting the growing request for continuous learning. Jason Hughes describes an organization's capability to "learn how to…

For language learning, online environments allowing for user generated content are becoming increasingly important since they offer possibilities for learners to elaborate on assignments and projects. This study investigates what wikis can do as a means to enhance group interaction, when students are encouraged to participate in constructing text…

This study reports on attention to meaning among 40 NNS pre-service EFL teachers as they collaboratively constructed a wiki in a 16-week online course. Focus is placed upon the nature of individual and group behavior when attending to meaning in a long-term wiki-based collaborative activity as well as the students' collaborative autonomous…

This paper reports on a qualitative study that investigated learner interaction in a type of real time computer-mediated communication (CMC) where the communication is carried out within a user-created virtual world. The study, which involved undergraduate EFL learners based at two universities in Japan, examined from an interactionist perspective…

This article reports on a classroom-based study on the use of a Mandarin Chinese WebCT discussion board to support essay writing in a second-year Chinese language class consisting of mostly heritage learners at a midwestern U.S. university. The researcher describes the design and the implementation of essay writing and evaluates its effectiveness.…

This paper presents a macro speech act analysis of computer-mediated conferencing on a university course on language pedagogy. Students read scholarly articles on language learning and discussed them online, in order to make sense of them collaboratively in preparation for a reflective essay. The study explores how the course participants made use…

As Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) supported by synchronous technologies such as Synchronous Learning Management Systems (SLMSs) are still new to distance language professionals, criteria guiding the evaluation of the appropriate SLMSs for Distance Language Education (DLE) are urgently needed. This article proposes and discusses such criteria.…

This study aimed to clarify the relationship between media, learners' perception of social presence, and output in communicative learning using synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). In this study, we developed four types of SCMC: videoconferencing (image and voice), audioconferencing (voice but no image), text chat with image (image…

Integrating Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) technology (personal multimedia players, cell phones, and handheld devices) into the foreign language curriculum is becoming commonplace in many secondary and higher education institutions. Current research has identified both pedagogically sound applications and important benefits to students.…

Computer technology improves the process of SLA by providing access to an ample amount of input within a communicative context in which participants can engage in synchronous and asynchronous conversations (Payne & Whitney, 2002; Sykes, 2005). This research project aims to investigate the role of alignment in learning a second language within the…

This study investigates preservice teachers' discourse about CALL in a required CALL class which combines theory and practice. Thirty-three students in a Linguistics MA program CALL course were observed over a 10-week quarter. For all of these students, it was their first formal exposure to CALL as a discipline. Communication in the class…

The challenge of providing authentic experiences and interactions for fostering oral proficiency and motivation in foreign languages is an opportunity for innovation in educational technology and instructional design. Although several recent innovations have received the attention of scholars, empirical investigation and validation is often…

Employing a mixed-method explorative approach, this study examined the in situ use of and opinions about an educational computer game for learning English introduced in three schools offering different levels of freedom to choose school activities. The results indicated that the general behaviour of the children with the game was very different…

The framework of this study is cooperation between students of English at a Chinese university and their counterparts at a Danish university, i.e. neither group of students are native speakers of English. The theoretical framework for the study is Vygotsky's sociocultural approach combined with the work by a number of researchers on the link…