From the Special Issue Editor

It is a genuine pleasure to introduce this special issue of Language Learning & Technology on telecollaborative foreign language study. Telecollaboration involves the application of global computer networks to foreign (and second) language learning and teaching in institutionalized settings. In telecollaborative partnerships, internationally-dispersed learners in parallel language classes use Internet communication tools such as e-mail, synchronous chat, threaded discussion, and MOOs (as well as other forms of electronically mediated communication), in order to support social interaction, dialogue, debate, and intercultural exchange. The underlying rationale for this learning configuration is to provide the participants with cost-effective access to and engagement with representatives of the respective "languaculture" (Agar, 1994) under study. Telecollaboration might be of particular value for those students who may otherwise not have the opportunity for meaningful (teacher-guided) interaction with persons from other cultures. In sum, telecollaboration is characterized by institutionalized, electronically mediated intercultural communication under the guidance of a languacultural expert (i.e., a teacher) for the purposes of foreign language learning and the development of intercultural competence. In this issue, we bring you four articles which report telecollaborative exchanges between groups of students at institutions located in England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States. While the reported partnerships span the globe in terms of the geographical locations of the participating students, the scholarly interpretations of their outcomes similarly run the gamut in terms of theoretical approaches to foreign language learning and teaching. In the first contribution, "Artifacts and Cultures-of-Use in Intercultural Communication," Steven L. Thorne examines the impact of culturally embedded uses of particular Internet communication tools on the outcome of telecollaboration from a cultural-historical perspective (e.g., Bruner, 1995; Rommetveit, 1974). Thorne argues that Internet communication tools are not mere conduits for the facilitation of telecollaborative exchanges; instead, they and their corresponding cultures-of-use co-evolve over time in response to cultural, individual, and collective historical factors. By examining three French-American partnerships over a period of 5 years, Thorne demonstrates how e-mail and Instant Messenger co-evolve with respect to their users and, most importantly, how these developments influence intercultural communication and personal relationship building in the exchanges under study. In the next article, "Linguistic Perspectives on the Development of Intercultural Competence in Telecollaboration," Julie A. Belz presents one of the first linguistically grounded interpretations of the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Drawing on the relatively unsuccessful experiences of two Germans and one American in a Penn State-Gie[beta]en exchange, Belz examines the "attitudes" component of Byram's (1997) model of intercultural competence from the theoretical perspective of systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1994; Martin, 2000; White, 1998). In such an investigation, the analytical emphasis shifts from what learners say in telecollaboration to how they say it, since linguistic form is thought to be semiotic of attitudinal positioning. Belz concludes her study by suggesting that the importance of the teacher increases rather than diminishes in telecollaborative language learning because, in the text-only media of email and chat, he or she must be educated to discern, identify, explain, and model culturally-contingent patterns of interaction in the absence of paralinguistic meaning signals. Robert O'Dowd also examines the development of intercultural competence (Byram, 1997) in his contribution to the special issue, "Understanding the Other Side: Intercultural Learning in a Spanish-English E-Mail Exchange;" however, he explores the degree of intercultural learning in a range of intercultural dyads, rather than focusing on one relatively unsuccessful set of keypals. …