Communication in the void and communication avoided: A case study of on-line language teaching.

Abstract

International audience

More and more traditional courses are being supplemented with components posted on an inhouse web site. This particularly concerns language teaching, which is justifiably proud of a long history of pedagogical research compared to other disciplines. However, the skills involved in classroom teaching and those used through the medium of internet teaching are often highly dissimilar, which can lead to a number of problems. Our specific focus is on computer-mediated communication and on the way misunderstandings can arise. What kind of mediation is possible between learner and teacher in the internet void? What kind of general communication problems occur most frequently? And how can they be avoided? These are some of the questions we consider, with reference to an on-going survey of learner-teacher communication breakdowns in online courses at the Centre de Télé-enseignement— Université Nancy 2.