Supporting Language Students' Interactions in Web-Based Conferencing

In this study we look at on-line tutor strategies for the support of students learning a second language with the help of a Web-based asynchronous textual conference. Our previous research has shown us that, in such a conference environment, communicative activities can be mixed with reflective tasks, where students are encouraged to exchange reflections on the language being studied, and on their own learning experience. While we have found that such a mix can be beneficial for language learning, nevertheless there are further efforts to be made in persuading learners to integrate linguistic task completion with reflective work, in an interactive mode. Online tutors have an important role to play in furthering this aim, and in this study we look at the strategies used by three tutors who participated in a project with students of French at the Open University in 1998. First we propose a categorization—according to message-type—of interactions found in the project's three conferences. Then we compare inte...