Achieving Communication Through Multi-modal Language Exchange

Abstract

The continued development of computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools offers foreign language instructors numerous ways of helping language learners connect and communicate with internationally-situated peers who use their target language daily. This paper describes a language exchange project between English language learners at a Japanese university and Japanese language learners at a United States community college. Through the use of blogs, wikis, Skype text, voice, and video chat and the exchange of homemade DVDs movies, the authors found that learners communicated in qualitatively different ways and that each manner of CMC offered a valuable type of communication. Using the communication goal of the National Standards of Foreign Language Education of the United States as a measure, the authors found evidence of distinct communicative styles based on each separate CMC mode.