This paper reports on the impact of computer-mediated input, output and feedback on the development of second language (L2) word recognition from speech (WRS). A quasi-experimental pre-test/treatment/post-test research design was used involving three intact tertiary level English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Classes were either assigned to a control group (n=31) or to one of two alternative treatment levels which used a web-based computer application enabling self-determined opportunities to repeatedly listen to and reconstruct spoken target text into its written form. Treatment group one (n=30) received text feedback after each of their efforts at target text reconstruction, whereas treatment group two (n=35) did not. Results indicated that word recognition gain scores of those who used the application, regardless of treatment level, were significantly higher than those of the control group. The relationship between the quantity of self-determined exposure to input and word recognition improvements was moderate but not linear, with those choosing moderate levels of speech input deriving the greatest measurable improvement. Neither increased levels of modified output nor the provision of text feedback were associated with significant improvements in word recognition gain scores. Implications for computer-mediated approaches for the development of L2 WRS are described and areas for future empirical research are suggested.

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 different learning environments (video/audio, audio and face-to-face) during an academic semester. Before each oral task, all the participants had to conduct the same task in synchronous text chat. The participants’ interview transcriptions, learning journals and the instructor's observation journal provided information about the impacts of each environment on their perception of social presence. The results of the study suggested that the differences in the environments are reflected in the learners’ perception of social presence.

Qualitative research focusing primarily on advanced-proficiency second language (L2) learners suggests that online corpora can function as useful reference tools for language learners, especially when addressing phraseological issues. However, the feasibility and effectiveness of online corpus consultation for learners at a basic level of L2 proficiency have been relatively unexplored. The current study of Japanese-L1 (first language) learners in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context (N=117) addresses these gaps in research. A preliminary investigation (Experiment 1) examined EFL learners (n=78) as they used the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA: Davies, 2008–) to revise essays. Experiment 2 (n=39) used a within-subjects comparison to determine whether participants attained greater accuracy in supplying the missing word in a gap-fill test when using an electronic dictionary or COCA. The survey results from the two experiments revealed that participants generally found using an online corpus difficult. In Experiment 2, a paired-samples t-test showed that participants, at an alpha of p=.05 two-tailed, were marginally better able to answer test questions when using the online corpus than they were when using an electronic dictionary, p=0.030. The implications of the study within the context of previous research are discussed along with pedagogical recommendations and possible avenues for future research.

Rapid changes in language form and function occurring in digital environments present teachers and students of second languages alike with conundrums as to language and discourse standards. Factors affecting the changes that are emerging in digital English include the spatial and temporal possibilities and constraints of the medium, digital facilitation of case-creativity and iconic incorporation, and new social network configurations. This paper analyzes evolving changes in orthographic, syntactic, discourse and sociocultural conventions occurring in English and Chinese in digital environments, based on a small scale study conducted at York University in 2002–2003, noting trends across these languages as well as more limited, culturally and linguistically specific evolutions. The converging conventional changes occurring in these two major world languages suggest that similar transitions are happening generally in languages used for online communication, which has serious implications for second language instruction.

This explanatory mixed-method study seeks to understand the relationships between second language (L2) motivation (including the ideal L2 self and the ought-to L2 self) and students’ informal digital learning of English (IDLE) and whether such relationships are mediated by the most prominent positive emotion – enjoyment. A total of 391 Chinese university students participated in the survey, and 15 of them were interviewed later. Quantitative analysis revealed a strong positive relationship between the ideal L2 self and participants’ IDLE, which was partially mediated by foreign language enjoyment (FLE), while the hypotheses that the ought-to L2 self significantly predicted FLE and IDLE were rejected. The qualitative data added details to how a vivid and elaborate L2 vision contributed to enhanced English learning enjoyment and served as the most influential motivator for IDLE practices. Meanwhile, the external and instrumental motives could not predict Chinese university students’ enjoyment, disempowering them to invest in productive language learning practices in the informal and digitalized environment. The discussion of these findings and pedagogical implications helps to chart the path for utilizing the power of the ideal L2 self to engage Chinese university students with the extramural and digitalized language learning ecology.

Recently we have seen a shift of focus in using the Internet from often inappropriate human-computer interactivity to human-human interaction, based on collaborative learning concepts like learner autonomy and tandem learning. The renewed discussion of interface design has provoked a reconsideration of me traditional graphical user interface and a shift towards more intuitive interfaces like virtual reality, mainly building on the concept of constructionism. The MOO (multi-user domain, object oriented) system provides a flexible, easy-to-use multiple user virtual reality that allows for the integration of language learning tools and resources in a common environment, a third place.

In light of the growing popularity of the use of computer management systems (CMSs) in higher education today, this study critically evaluates CMS adoption through a content-specific lens. By employing a mixed-method approach, the study examines college teachers’ and students’ experiences and perceptions of CMS adoption for language learning and teaching purposes. The findings show that despite the users’ perceived advantages of using CMSs in language courses, the systems’ lack of content-area specificity undermines many of the potential benefits. The study calls for better-rounded professional training to assist language teachers in integrating CMS functions strategically into their disciplinary pedagogy and incorporating multimedia language resources selectively to maximize the benefit of CMSs. Furthermore, the findings demonstrate the importance of developing content-specific CMSs with functions tailored toward pedagogical needs in different contexts.

Driven by their affinity to popular culture, fans frequently engage in linguistic practices that may be conducive to language learning. This study seeks to find out how a group of Catalan-speaking gamers decided to start producing fan translations of video games from English into Catalan. Based on a digital ethnography (online interviews and observation of the group’s activity), two types of analysis were conducted: a content analysis for recurrent trends and a focused analysis of internal metalinguistic discussions on the quality of translations. Results indicate that fan translators (1) organize hierarchically with set roles and functions, (2) curate their group identity and care for the promotion of Catalan as a vehicle for cultural production, (3) learn language incidentally in three ways: while translating (ensuring the comprehension of English and the linguistic quality and creativity of the transfer into Catalan), through sharing language doubts with their peers on their Telegram group and dialogically agreeing on pragmatically acceptable English-Catalan translations, and through metalinguistic discussions on translation tests received from potential new members. The study resonates with a novel subfield in computer-assisted language learning: language learning in the digital wilds, which might be fertile ground for studies on incidental and informal language learning online. The study may also serve as inspiration for effective integration of translation into language classrooms in a manner that bridges vernacular fan translation and pedagogic translation, considering the importance of metalinguistic discussion for language learning and the sociocultural dimension of both translation and language learning.

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 regarding technological and institutional constraints, and the nuances of his target student population. He appropriated and adapted the tasks to make them relevant for his EFL learners. Against the backdrop of the three dimensions of professional capital – human, social, and decisional – the research questions explored how the novice teacher used the different types of knowledge of context (pedagogical, institutional, technical) in relation to task design, and his perception of his role as mediator. Within a sociocultural framework for telecollaboration studies, this exploratory case study shares characteristics of ethnography, action research, and narrative inquiry. Data triangulation included text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) data (Google Groups, emails), a narrative written by the novice teacher, and a semi-structured, reflective Skype interview with him. The findings indicate that he demonstrated high commitment, thorough preparation, continuous reflection, and development while navigating between his different roles of mediator, assessor, implementer, and field observer.

Success and failure in language learning are partly determined by the learners’ ability to regulate their emotions. Negative feelings are more likely to frustrate progress, while positive ones make the task of learning a second language (L2) a more effective experience. To date no significant body of research has been carried out into the role of anxiety in the field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). The present study adopts discursive psychology (DP) as its methodological approach to examine anxiety not as a psychological state, but as a social construct in the context of an audiographic conferencing tool. After interviewing a sample of learners of Spanish at the Open University (OU), our findings reveal a strong connection between emotion and learner beliefs.

Situated learning is often proposed as a model for CALL teacher education. However, we know little about how students perceive situated CALL coursework and activities, and the nature of the relationship between situated learning and CALL learning. This exploratory case study addresses these issues. Survey, questionnaire, and open-ended data were collected from 21 MA TESOL students enrolled in a CALL course in South Korea. The results showed that students perceived that the course offered many elements of situated learning environments, and that some course activities were more situated than others. Additionally, the relationship between situated learning and CALL was strong and positive. Implications for research into situated learning and CALL teacher education are discussed.

Despite the rapid development of virtual exchange in foreign language education, its use in the field of Chinese language education is still rather nascent. Adopting a mixed-methods research approach, this study focuses on examining the pedagogical benefits of a Chinese-American virtual exchange as mediated by students’ self-reported data. Two Chinese language classes (i.e. one at the elementary level and one at the intermediate level) at a small liberal arts college in the United States and a group of Chinese-speaking English majors at a Chinese university in Shanghai participated in the exchange. Analyses of four sources of qualitative data (i.e. WeChat group cultural discussion transcripts, Skype conversations, reflection journals, and end-of-program interviews) gave rise to four benefits of the exchange: promotion of cultural learning, improvement of Chinese language skills, enhancement of learning motivation, and establishment of a language learning community. Quantitative analyses of the end-of-semester questionnaire items show that the benefit regarding cultural learning, on average, received the highest rating, followed by community building and motivation enhancement, with improvement of Chinese skills being rated the lowest. Moreover, intermediate-level students evaluated all four benefits with higher ratings than elementary-level students. In particular, the two groups’ quantitative evaluations in terms of Chinese skills and motivation differed significantly. However, both groups enthusiastically endorsed the benefits of cultural learning and community building. The pedagogical implications of these results are also discussed.

The HoDoo English game was developed to take advantage of the benefits attributed to on-line games while teaching English to native Korean speakers. We expected to see that the improvements in the subjects’ English language abilities after playing the HoDoo English game would be associated with increased brain functional connectivity in the areas of the brain involved in the language production (Broca’s area) and the understanding (Wernicke’s area) networks. Twelve children, aged nine and ten, were asked to play the on-line English education game for 50 minutes per day, five days per week for twelve weeks. At baseline, and again at the end of twelve weeks of game play, each child’s English language ability was assessed and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan was conducted. The on-line English education game play effectively improved English language skills, especially in terms of non-verbal pragmatic skills. Following twelve weeks of on-line English education game play, the children showed positive connectivity between Broca’s area and the left frontal cortex as well as between Wernicke’s area and the left parahippocampal gyrus and the right medial frontal gyrus. Changes in pragmatic scores were positively correlated with average peak brain activity in the left parahippocampal gyrus. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to report an improvement in English ability and changes in brain activity within language areas after on-line language education game play.

In this work we set out to investigate the feasibility of applying measures of lexical frequency to the assessment of the writing of learners of French. A system developed for analysing the lexical knowledge of learners, according to their productive use of high and low frequency words (Laufer and Nation 1995), was adapted for French and used to analyse learners’ texts from an Open University French course. Whilst we found that this analysis could not be said to reflect the state of the learners’ vocabulary knowledge in the same way that Laufer and Nation’s study did, elements of the system’s output did correlate significantly with scores awarded by human markers for vocabulary use in these texts. This suggests that the approach could be used for self-assessment. However, the feedback that can be given to learners on the basis of the current analysis is very limited. Nevertheless, the approach has the potential for refinement and when enhanced with information derived from successive cohorts of learners performing similar writing tasks, could be a first step in the development of a viable aid for learners evaluating their own writing.

This qualitative study investigates the relationship between learning opportunities and teacher cognition in the context of a videoconferencing (VC) project for foreign languages (FL) in French primary schools. Six generalist primary teachers were followed throughout the initial six-month stage of the initiative, and data were collected from learners, teachers, and trainers via questionnaire, video and audio recordings of class and feedback sessions, online teacher and trainer discussion, and video-stimulated recall interviews. Interview data revealed distinct teacher profiles involving differences in orientation to teaching and the teacher, learning and learners, and technology. These profiles corresponded to different teaching strategies and resulted in varying patterns of learner interaction in VC sessions. Teachers’ comments showed them to be guided by general rather than FL-specific pedagogical principles, and pedagogical concerns frequently intersected with technical issues as teachers learned to exploit the new VC technology. While most teachers valued spontaneous FL interaction as a key VC affordance, the filmed sessions revealed little unplanned learner-learner communication. This finding is related to teachers’ views of second language acquisition as product rather than a process; for more learner-centred teachers, spontaneity was affected by rehearsal, and for more teacher-oriented practitioners, sustained teacher intervention influenced patterns of learner participation. In addition to these classroom findings, the study highlights the value of this type of participant research in facilitating the exchange of resources and expertise, classroom video footage, and participants’ comments and queries, and thus contributing to professional development in CALL and CMC-based teacher education.

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 YouTube video; (2) generate a range of vocabulary-building and revision tasks (e.g. fill-in-the-blanks, the classic spelling game hangman, pronunciation, flashcards); and (3) recommend YouTube videos based on learners’ individual learning progress, class teachers’ instructions, and current trends. This paper describes the app’s current features in conjunction with the challenges endemic in the development of applications that automatically generate English language learning content out of internet video content. At the time of writing, the IdiomsTube app had over 8,000 registered users worldwide.

Automated writing evaluation (AWE) technologies are common supplementary tools for helping students improve their language accuracy using automated feedback. In most existing studies, AWE has been implemented as a class activity or an assignment requirement in English or academic writing classes. The potential of AWE as a voluntary language learning tool is unknown. This study reports on the voluntary use of Criterion by English as a foreign language students in two content courses for two assignments. We investigated (a) to what extent students used Criterion and (b) to what extent their revisions based on automated feedback increased the accuracy of their writing from the first submitted draft to the last in both assignments. We analyzed students’ performance summary reports from Criterion using descriptive statistics and non-parametric statistical tests. The findings showed that not all students used Criterion or resubmitted a revised draft. However, the findings also showed that engagement with automated feedback significantly reduced users’ errors from the first draft to the last in 11 error categories in total for the two assignments.

Commonly, low completion rates in massive open online courses have called into question the quality of their learning materials and instruction. This paper attempts to identify crucial factors of engagement and retention in language massive open online courses (LMOOCs) in the context of the open online program of Icelandic Online, a self-guided course for second language learners of Icelandic. The study seeks to explore the impact of factors associated with the course’s instructional design on engagement and retention and reveal crucial determinants of attrition. The study depends on survey and tracking data from 400 learners and qualitative data from 62 informants in one course. It builds on previous studies on student engagement and retention in LMOOCs (Friðriksdóttir, 2018, 2019). The present study identified six content-specific factors that the majority of participants considered to be important for their motivation. Some factors, such as gradual and scaffolded presentation of input, had a positive impact on retention. Furthermore, statements from learners in the study who disengaged before completing show that non-course-related factors, such as time constraints, affect LMOOC retention. The study provides a new framework for how to promote student engagement and suggests specific strategies for other LMOOC developers.

Promoting speaking interaction remains a challenge for language massive open online courses (LMOOCs), both from a pedagogical and technological standpoint. This paper describes the design process of the tandemMOOC, which exploits the massive, open and online features of MOOCs in order to offer language learners online speaking interaction practice with native speakers of their target language. The course is based on eTandem language learning principles and equips learners with the necessary competences to be able to cope with online second language (L2) speaking opportunities. Following a design-based research approach, this paper presents an analysis and discussion of seven components of the design: learning environment, facilitation dynamics, dyad configuration, task types, task topics, feedback provision, and gamification components. The analysis of the implementation of these elements results in a set of key features for the integration of L2 speaking interaction activities in LMOOCs.

In this study, we used a data-mining approach to identify hidden groups in a corpus-based second-language (L2) vocabulary experiment. After a vocabulary pre-test, a total of 132 participants performed three online reading tasks (in random orders) equipped with the following glossary types: (1) concordance lines and definitions of target lexical items, (2) concordance lines of target lexical items, and (3) no glossary information. Although the results of a previous study based on variable-centred analysis (i.e. multiple regression analysis) revealed that more glossary information could lead to better learning outcomes (Lee, Warschauer & Lee, 2017), using a model-based clustering technique in the present study allowed us to unearth learner types not identified in the previous analysis. Instead of the performance pattern found in the previous study (more glossary led to higher gains), we identified one learner group who exhibited their ability to make successful use of concordance lines (and thus are optimized for data-driven learning, or DDL; Johns, 1991), and another group who showed limited L2 vocabulary learning when exposed to concordance lines only. Further, our results revealed that L2 proficiency intersects with vocabulary gains of different learner types in complex ways. Therefore, using this technique in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research to understand differential effects of accommodations can help us better identify hidden learner types and provide personalized CALL instruction.