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.

Lexis-based views of second or foreign language (L2) teaching place prime importance on the teaching of conventionalized multi-word lexical items, or unanalyzed chunks, as a useful mechanism for fostering learners’ creative production of forms and their subsequent development of L2 competence. This pretest/posttest quasi-experimental study probed the use of teacher-designed multi-purpose instructional lexis software, dubbed LexisBOARD, on L2 learners’ vocabulary achievement in an Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) context. A cohort of 50 Iranian junior-high-school students participated in the main instructional phase of the study. Instruction on L2 lexical items (e.g., concordances, polywords, or formulaic sequences) was mainly given to the experimental group using LexisBOARD, which was designed to be user-friendly and attuned to learners’ communicative and curricular needs. LexisBOARD offered further practice or feedback affordances through engaging students in lexical exercises (with word partnerships and collocations) for each unit and several quizzes for self-assessment. The control group was only taught using their mainstream EFL textbooks focusing on grammatical rules, discrete vocabulary items with fixed meanings, and reading texts, without any use of corpus-based activities. The results of the groups’ vocabulary test scores indicate that the lexis group significantly outperformed the control group, pointing to the superiority of practicing and learning L2 vocabulary when lexical items are seen in larger, more holistic ways and, especially, when engaging and experimenting with lexis is scaffolded through computer affordances.

Collaborative learning has attracted attention as pedagogic mediation to assist learners’ corpus consultation, but some studies have pointed to negative aspects of collaboration. Based on the two sides of collaboration in language learning, this study presents a qualitative investigation of different effects of collaboration depending on task types used in learners’ corpus consultation. This study examined two types of tasks: a conceptual task, which tested students’ competence to draw a generalizable conclusion through a meaning-making process of corpus consultation; and a procedural task, which asked students to complete problem-solving activities strategically through corpus analysis. Two groups of three students were given the same tasks of corpus consultation but asked to complete the tasks either collaboratively or individually. The students’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors during the task completion, pre-and post-interviews, and the instructor’s observation notes were the main sources of data for analysis. The results of this study showed that collaboration has significantly different effects depending on the task types of corpus consultation. The collaborative group (CG) outperformed the individual group (IG) in the conceptual corpus consultation task, but the procedural task was more efficiently completed by the IG than the CG. The underperformance of the CG in the procedural task seemed to be partly attributable to the role of established intersubjectivity and the power inequality in the CG. Despite some limitations, the findings of this study reveal task-dependent effects of collaboration in corpus consultation and suggest practical implications for more effective and pedagogically beneficial use of learners’ corpus consultation in second language (L2) instruction.

In webconferencing-supported teaching, the webcam mediates and organizes the pedagogical interaction. Previous research has provided a mixed picture of the use of the webcam: while it is seen as a useful medium to contribute to the personalization of the interlocutors’ relationship, help regulate interaction and facilitate learner comprehension and involvement, the limited access to visual cues provided by the webcam is felt to be useless or even disruptive.

This study examines the meaning-making potential of the webcam in pedagogical interactions from a semiotic perspective by exploring how trainee teachers use the affordances of the webcam to produce non-verbal cues that may be useful for mutual comprehension. The research context is a telecollaborative project where trainee teachers of French as a foreign language (FFL) met for online sessions in French with undergraduate Business students at an Irish university. Using multimodal transcriptions of the interaction data from these sessions, screen shot data, and students’ post-course interviews, it was found, firstly, that while a head and shoulders framing shot was favoured by the trainee teachers, there does not appear to be an optimal framing choice for desktop videoconferencing among the three framing types identified. Secondly, there was a loss between the number of gestures performed by the trainee teachers and those that were visible for the students. Thirdly, when trainee teachers were able to coordinate the audio and kinesic modalities, communicative gestures that were framed, and held long enough to be perceived by the learners, were more likely to be valuable for mutual comprehension.

The study highlights the need for trainee teachers to develop critical semiotic awareness to gain a better perception of the image they project of themselves in order to actualise the potential of the webcam and add more relief to their online teacher presence.

It has been suggested that current research in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) should seek to understand the conditions and circumstances that govern students’ use of technology (Steel & Levy, 2013). This paper attempts to identify critical factors accounting for student choices, first, by investigating advanced learners’ reported use as well as their views on the potential of specific technological resources for language learning, and, second, by widening the perspective and surveying students’ ideal learning environments. Learners’ reasons for preferring teacher-fronted classes, blended learning, immersion or technology-mediated settings yield useful information on how students perceive the strengths and weaknesses of interaction/engagement with material (i.e. technological) as well as social (i.e. human) resources, and how the roles of teachers/classes can be conceptualised today.

Data was collected via a survey of 175 Austrian university students which included Likert-type ratings and free text responses to open questions. Findings indicate that though the cohort routinely use a wide range of technology tools in their everyday lives and show awareness of the potential of ICT for language learning, a number of barriers exist based on learner beliefs/conceptions and learning aims. Thus the notion that enhancement of communicative competence is intrinsically tied to personal interaction with native speakers means that the potential of communication technologies such as Skype is not fully appreciated. It was further established that though many students are well versed in blending different technological resources in line with the criteria identified, thus displaying the hallmarks of autonomous learners, there was a clear preference for real-life compared to virtual environments.