Italian Studies presents

Seminar | Online interaction for language learning: insights from conversation analysis

Dr Enza Tudini (University of South Australia)

When

Thursday 15 Sept 2022, 5pm AEST (Sydney time)

Abstract

Digital resources provide opportunities for rich, real-time interaction with university lecturers, other university students, and L1 speakers of the target language. The recent global crisis of COVID-19 has in fact propelled university teachers into unsolicited online teaching, aided mainly by Zoom, with mixed results. Foreign language programs across the globe have in fact embraced digital environments for language teaching because they extend learner interaction to naturalistic contexts beyond the classroom. These environments allow language learners to connect with multiple interlocutors in a variety of interactional configurations. Access to age-peer expert speakers of the target language is also known to be highly motivating, especially in one-to-one interaction (Tudini, 2010). Digital interactions need however to be adequately scaffolded and integrated in assessment to promote learners’ reflection and awareness of language learning processes. This paper explores technology-mediated language teaching in the tertiary context, using a conversation analytic methodological lens. Specifically, it will present research findings on affordances and constraints for language learning of two widely-adopted technologies in university language programs, namely, text chat and video-mediated interaction, and how these technologies might best be integrated to promote language learning.

About the presenter

Dr Vincenza Tudini lectures in Italian language and applied linguistics at the University of South Australia, where she is Program Director: Languages. Her research has pioneered the application of Conversation Analysis (CA) techniques to interaction in online multilingual settings. She has published her work in various book chapters, journals and reference works, including The Modern Language Journal, Discourse Processes and Journal of Pragmatics. She has also written a monograph on online language learning, Online second language acquisition: conversation analysis of online chat (Continuum, London/New York, 2010) and is currently completing a forthcoming volume entitled Children’s online language and interaction for Cambridge University Press.

Join online via Zoom

For more information, contact: Associate Professor Antonia Rubino (antonia.rubino@sydney.edu.au)

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