Language Learning Opportunities in the Online Wild

Recent research has heralded the role of social interaction in learning a second language. While earlier cognitive approaches to language learning attracted attention to individual factors involved in the process, social approaches regard learning as a pluralistic attempt which is materialized through participation. This shift in focus is important because it entails the study of language learning as it occurs in its natural habitat of social interaction rather than limiting it to formal educational settings. Mainstream SLA research has suffered from this limitation, with most studies in the field opting for experimental or quasi-experimental designs. Although informative in many respects, such studies lack the ecological validity to explore how learners approach the task of language learning in the real world. To address this issue, the study of language learning in the wild (outside formal educational settings) has gained momentum. The present study takes a similar approach to explore the affordances online learner-learner interactions may offer for language learning. Rather than tracking and measuring learning, it seeks to understand the potentials such interactions may have for language learning particularly because they happen in the absence of teachers. It builds upon data collected from video calls among Japanese and Taiwanese learners of English, transcribed and analyzed with a conversation analytic lens. The findings indicate that online interactions outside classroom provide learners with opportunities for extended negotiations for meaning, besides being a space for developing awareness for how interactions are structured in conversations taking place in the real world.