This study investigated the effects of synchronous and asynchronous CMC on the development of linguistic features of learners' speech in Japanese. Using learners from fourth-semester Japanese classes, the following research questions were examined: (a) Does CMC have positive effects on the development of oral proficiency among learners of Japanese? and (b) Are there any relationships between language use in CMC and the development of oral skills? The participants were divided into three groups: two CMC groups (synchronous and asynchronous) and one face-to-face group. They engaged in weekly discussions over the course of a semester, and the gain scores in terms of language output, linguistic complexity, accuracy, and cohesive devices between the pre-test and the post-test were compared. In addition, the relationship between language use in both types of CMC and the gain scores on the oral tests was examined, using Pearson correlation coefficients. The present study did not find any significant differences among gains in the linguistic indices. However, it found that CMC language use was correlated positively with the gain scores in several indices, and a relationship between CMC language use and the development of oral proficiency was observed.

Telecollaboration has been considered to have great potential for the development of L2 learners' intercultural communicative competence (ICC), so an examination of what benefits L2 learners receive through telecollaboration is necessary. Also, L2 learners' use of culturally specific expressions, such as proverbs, has not been adequately investigated. The present study investigated the effects of telecollaboration on L2 learners' perceptions of their ICC knowledge and skills in relation to one type of verbal communication (proverbs) in Japanese. Nineteen L2 novice learners of Japanese were involved in the study, and they telecollaborated with 23 native speakers of Japanese using Facebook. They learned Japanese proverbs through Facebook videos introduced by their Japanese peers, followed by in-class follow up sessions and a reflection log activity, and they then performed skits in Japanese. Their perceptions of their ICC knowledge and skills were compared using the pre-and the post-questionnaires, and their language production was analyzed. The study found that students gained a sense of accomplishment in learning the target element of verbal communication; however, they did not always execute the expressions in appropriate situations.

Computer‐mediated communication is an increasingly popular means of conducting classroom language exchanges, but those requiring asynchronous modes must generally forgo oral options in favor of text. This study explores the potential of asynchronous video, focusing on 15 university learners of Japanese in the United States in an interclass project with 26 English‐learning peers in Japan. Both groups performed online video self‐introductions in their second language (L2) before modeling the same task in their first language, completing a language awareness–raising activity on target language models of their choice, and performing a second self‐introduction in L2. The second L2 performances showed more elaborate discourse but no improvement in syntactic complexity. Implications are discussed for maximizing the pedagogical benefits of similar asynchronous online exchanges.

The present study examined various aspects of the development of learners' fluency in Japanese using a large set of speech samples collected over a long period, using an online speaking practice/assessment system called Speak Everywhere. The purpose of the present study was to examine: (1) how the fluency related measures changed over time, and (2) which linguistic factors were correlated with each fluency measure. This study used oral production of English-speaking learners enrolled in the first year Japanese courses at a university in the U.S. The students submitted two types of speaking assignments using Speak Everywhere: (1) sentence-level oral reading and (2) short Q&A. The assignments were collected at the end of each chapter for two quarters. The study used speech rate and pause related fluency measures adapted from Ginther, Dimova, and Yang (2010). For the data analysis, we used Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2011) for acoustic analysis and Mecab (Kudo, 2011) for morphological analysis. The results of one-way repeated measures ANOVA revealed that several measures of fluency deteriorated in both oral reading and Q&A tasks as expected from the previous research (Segalowitz & Freed, 2004). This study then examined what complexity factors affected these measures, using the mixed model approach. Overall, it was found that because various factors influence the development of fluency, temporal measures alone cannot explain fluency development.

Many studies on intercultural communication introduced how their collaborative projects were conducted. There are also several studies that discuss how intercultural collaborative activities can be integrated into a foreign language curriculum, as well as a big project (the INTENT project) that helps teachers integrate collaborative activities into their language curricula. Nonetheless, intercultural collaborative projects have not yet been mainstreamed for various reasons, such as insufficient pedagogical support from their institutions and a lack of interest in getting involved in projects among colleagues. We need to continuously examine and develop activities that can be relatively easily integrated into language curricula and that are appealing to more teachers to get involved in collaborative projects. Starting in the fall of 2013, we have been conducting a three-year experimental Facebook video project with learners of English in Japan and those of Japanese in the US. This paper will provide a brief overview of the Facebook collaboration projects and present the outcomes.