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 teaching practitioners reluctant to try to integrate telecollaboration in their teaching, as they are more aware of the burden such initiatives might impose than of the benefits they might have for language learners.

Within the European project NIFLAR1 we have tried to study the added value that integrating synchronous collaboration projects through video-web communication or Second Life might have in language learning. The study presented in this paper measures the oral communicative growth of language students, who were allocated at random to one of three research conditions: (1) the VC experimental group carried out interactions with native peers through video-web communication; (2) the SL experimental group carried out the same tasks with native peers in Second Life and (3) the control group performed the tasks face to face with classroom peers and had no opportunity to interact with native experts. Communicative growth was measured by comparing oral pre- and post-tests across conditions. Results show significant differences, the experimental groups outperforming the control group.

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) teacher trainees. The case study approach involved the exploration of online interactions of five cases (pairs) within an interpretivist paradigm. Data collection included interviews, questionnaires and analysis of DVC recordings. The study emphasizes the importance of eye-contact in online multimodal communication to facilitate the establishment of social presence. Five types of gaze that were observed in learner interactions and participants’ perspectives on eye-contact are reported. The conclusions include technical suggestions for the use of a webcam as well as pedagogical implications of online video interaction.

Many researchers have investigated learning through playing games. However, after playing games, players often go online to establish and participate in the online community where they enrich their game experiences, discuss game-related issues, and create fan-fictions, screenshots, or scenarios. Although these emerging activities are an essential part of gaming culture, they have not attracted much attention from researchers and only a few empirical studies have been done on learning through beyond-game culture. Language learning in particular has not been extensively researched despite the proliferation of game players who speak English as a foreign language within this community. To address how non-native English speaking (NNE) game players participate in language learning through game play and beyond-game culture, three generations of activity theories and a multiple-case study design were employed in this study. The asynchronous computer-mediated discourses were repeatedly reviewed, and email interviews with participants were conducted over three stages. The discourse analysis of interaction data and interview scripts showed how participants were engaged in language learning through gaming culture. First, words or phrases used in game play could be learned while playing games. Second, sentences or discourses could be practiced through interaction with native or more fluent peers in the online community after playing games. Third, these two types of engagement in gaming culture were closely related to influencing language learning through repeated practices and collaborative interactions. In conclusion, language learning through gaming is appropriately understood when ecological perspectives are adopted to look at both sides of gaming culture.

Our study aims to optimize a multimedia application for vocabulary learning for English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Our study is based on the concept that difficulty in reading a text in a second language is due to the need for more working memory for word decoding skills, although the working memory must also be used for text comprehension skills. This implies that the automatization of word decoding to free the working memory is indispensable. Therefore, developing a multimedia application for vocabulary learning with a time-control function, our study hypothesizes that vocabulary learning with this function brings about the automatization of word decoding or faster recall of the meanings, and, as a result of freeing more working memory, better comprehension of text. According to our research, multimedia application users not only retained more words and recalled their meanings more quickly but also obtained higher scores on reading comprehension tests that contained the words learned through the application. From this result, we conclude that multimedia vocabulary learning with a time-control function can automatize word decoding skills and therefore free more working memory, thereby leading to better comprehension of the text.