Synchronous computer -mediated communication in the intermediate foreign language class: A sociocultural case study

Synchronous computer-mediated communication (also known as chatting ) has become an extremely popular Internet application in contemporary society, as a way to communicate electronically with persons from all corners of the globe. While members of academic and business communities are increasingly using synchronous CMC to hold serious discussions, conferences and classes, chat communication is still for the most part recreational in character (Werry, 1996). Only recently have educators come to realize that chatting may provide valuable learning experiences to its participants.;The purpose of this study was to investigate interactional and linguistic features of communication among intermediate-level Spanish learners and their teacher in a synchronous CMC context. The study evoked some fundamental constructs of Vygotskian sociocultural theory in order to describe and explain how learners and their teacher collaborated with each other to co-construct meaning in chat rooms. General patterns of learner-learner and learner-teacher interaction were analyzed, as well as learner and teacher perceptions of the use of chat as a language learning tool, and finally, changes in learner output over time. First, it was found that learners appropriated the chat room environment to create their own community of language practice in which they transformed tasks that were assigned to them, went off-task when they wanted to, and had the opportunity to make use of language functions that are not typical of the L2 classroom environment. Second, the learners and the teacher put forth a great deal of perceptions regarding the use of chat rooms in the L2 class, which brought an emic perspective to the study. Third, the Spanish verbal morphology system served as a springboard for illustration and discussion of changes in learner output over time. Specifically, learners made unique uses of the Spanish verbal morphology system, which the emergent grammar perspective was called upon to explain. Also, learners branched out from overuse of the Spanish present tense, gradually using the other available verb tenses and moods more of the time. The study suggests pedagogical uses for synchronous CMC, as well as future research directions.