Innovation in Language Learning

This mixed method study aims to clarify the relationship between task types and foreign language learners' perception of social presence, their feeling of ‘real’ in the online classroom (Willis, 2021) in synchronous online teaching (e.g. Tu & McIsaac, 2002). The participants in this study were 35 adults between 20 and 80 who were learning English in an adult education centre in Finland; their proficiency was A2-B1 level CEFR. The course met weekly over a period of 12 weeks and was delivered via Zoom. We identified five different types of tasks that were designed to cover each lesson’s topic. By designing the tasks, we looked at ways of stimulating richer learner interaction, giving more opportunities for genuine meaning-focused language use and maximising learner responses. We administered an online survey with multiple choice and open-ended questions at the end of the course to find out the perception of the students in regard to their social presence and perception of learning.The findings suggest that the task types affect learners' social presence development in the online classroom, with increased motivation and interaction. We are in line with the notion that task types could affect learners' interaction quality as well as quantity, which can increase or decrease learners' interaction level while completing tasks. However the level of social presence, directly associated with interaction level, is the key to task completion (Müller-Hartmann & Schocker-v. Ditfurth, 2010).