Oral Computer-Mediated Interaction Between L2 Learners: It's About Time!(Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Research investigating computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the context of second language acquisition (SLA) has proliferated since the early 1990s. Several scholars at that time embarked on investigations that assessed second language (L2) learners' interactions using local networked computers and the Daedalus interchange software (e.g., Beauvois, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992; Kern, 1995). Since then and after the appearance of several Web-based chat programs such as Yahoo and MSN Messenger, several studies have been published investigating various aspects of CMC such as teacher strategies (Meskill & Anthony, 2005), socialization (Sengupta, 2001; Shin, 2006), individual differences (Payne & Ross, 2005), or studies that compared synchronous versus asynchronous CMC (Perez, 2003; Sotillo, 2000).