The Future of Education

Despite the widespread use of video-mediated learning platforms during the COVID-19 era and its post-pandemic potential to facilitate online or hybrid/hyflex teaching, research into its use in multiparty language learning classrooms is still in its infancy. The interaction patterns that unfold in synchronous online language lessons remain largely underexplored, making it difficult to ascertain in what ways pedagogical practices used in physical classrooms require modification in virtual classrooms. To narrow this research gap, this exploratory study aims to uncover the nuances of classroom interaction in a synchronous online language learning context and how such interaction compares to that in a face-to-face language learning context. This is achieved by closely examining the classroom interaction of a second language English class in a Hong Kong secondary school in both synchronous online and face-to-face lessons. A total of 5 hours and 26 minutes of classroom video data were transcribed and analysed following the principles and theoretical underpinnings of multimodal Conversation Analysis. Three main differences in classroom interaction between synchronous online language lessons and face-to-face language lessons are highlighted: (1) students’ response to first-position general questions, (2) teacher’s first response pursuit, and (3) teacher’s treatment of attributable silence. The results clearly indicate that classroom interaction in physical and virtual contexts are different. Therefore, to better support language learning in synchronous online contexts, face-to-face pedagogical practices need to be adapted and adjusted to enhance student participation in classroom interaction. This study contributes to research on synchronous online language teaching and learning by enriching our understanding of synchronous online classroom interaction. It provides insights for online teaching practices, teacher training, and further research.

Keywords: classroom interaction, computer-mediated communication, second language acquisition, conversation analysis