Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0958344008000426How to cite this article: Maud Ciekanski and Thierry Chanier (2008). Developing online multimodal verbal communication to enhance the writing process in an audio-graphic conferencing environment. ReCALL, 20, pp 162-182 AbstractOver the last decade, most studies in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) have highlighted how online synchronous learning environments implement a new literacy related to multimodal communication. The environment used in our experiment is based on a synchronous audio-graphic conferencing tool. This study concerns false beginners in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, presenting a high degree of heterogeneity in their proficiency levels. A coding scheme was developed to translate the video data into user actions and speech acts that occurred in the various modalities of the system (aural, textchat, text editing, websites). The paper intends to shed further light on and increase our understanding of multimodal communication structures through learner participation and learning practices. On the basis of evidence from an ongoing research investigation into online CALL literacy, we identify how learners use different modalities to produce collectively a writing task, and how the multimodal learning interaction affects the learners' focus and engagement within the learning process. The adopted methodology combines a quantitative analysis of the learners' participation in a writing task with regard to the use of multimodal tools, and a qualitative analysis focusing on how the multimodal dimension of communication enhances language and learning strategies. By looking at the relationship between how the learning tasks are designed by tutors and how they are implemented by learners, that is to say taking into account the whole perception of multimodal communication for language learning purposes, we provide a framework for evaluating the potential of such an environment for language learning.

Developments in lifelong learning and learner autonomy have given fresh impetus to the debate about learning without formal teaching. This paper concerns the educational relationship between learner and adviser in self-directed schemes. Two French self-directed language learning set-ups were observed, one situated at university level (Système d'apprentissage autodirigé avec soutien, Université Nancy 2), the second in a lifelong learning institution (Apprentissage en semiautonomie, CNAM 1 , Paris), and both dealing with adult language learners. Observations of 31 advising sessions between four learners and four experienced advisers suggest that the latter assume multiple modified pedagogical roles when assisting learners and that they switch between these roles frequently with the same learner. To understand the nature and the purpose of these variations in advising, the study focuses on the linguistic and educational aspects which characterize the advising sessions. Interviews with the advisers and learners were also carried out. These were designed to analyze the nature of advising practices viewed as professional practice. Their analysis highlights the determinants of the advisers' educational strategies, the perception of advising standards and the maintenance and evolution of their 'professional gestures'. The concept of educational reciprocity provides a useful framework for an understanding of the specific pedagogical relationship of language advising sessions.

The importance of the affective dimension and the role of beliefs, self-efficacy and learners’ voices in language learning are recognized in the literature (Arnold, 1999; Brewer, 2006; Ogasa, 2010). Although emotions and feelings seem to play an important role in self-directed language learning (Bown & White, 2010; Candas & Eneau, 2010), little is still known about how to support the affective dimension throughout the self-directed learning process (Aoki, 1999). Clearly, the cognitive and the metacognitive, the subjective and affective dimensions of learning need to be addressed, in a self-access centre, in order to support learners on their road to autonomy. Language advising provides the appropriate arena for this. Within the professional and interpersonal relationship between advisors and learners (Ciekanski, 2007), it is easier to reflect on the affective implications of learning and to help learners to cope with them. Ongoing research into emotions and feelings in advising contexts shows that affect and subjectivity occupy a large proportion of learners’ (and advisors’) discourse. This paper makes a case for integrating reflection on the affective and subjective dimensions of learning, both in the research and in the practice of language advising.

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