Introduction
Second language (L2) researchers tend to frame learning in terms of the opportunities to engage in interactions or to respond to communication breakdowns in ways that prime the language acquisition pump (Gass, 1997). However, language instructors in the trenches—when they evaluate the curricular design of any textbook, course materials, or computer program—attend to more traditional measures and ask if the four skills have been adequately addressed: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Understandably, language instructors are primarily interested in the practical applications of any given technological tool or textbook, rather than the pursuit of an L2 research agenda. Within this context, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs and activities have drawn praise from all quarters for supporting online reading using multimedia glosses (for an excellent review of the literature on CALL glosses, see Chun, 2006) and stimulating cultural knowledge through authentic online materials and web quests, as has been well documented in the literature from the last two decades (e.g., Blake, 2013). CALL activities that support collaborative writing have also been examined carefully in the literature (Oskoz & Elola, 2014a). But instructors routinely voice serious doubts as to whether CALL activities can foster L2 speaking and listening development, preferring to believe that these activities are the exclusive domain of the classroom, where face-to-face language exchanges can occur. Even in the arena of computer-mediated communication (CMC), researchers have frequently emphasized the persistence of the text on the screen—which is to say, the act of reading—as one of the most important affordances offered by the computer (Kern, 2015). Nevertheless, videoconferencing contributes directly to improving L2 speech and is now being analyzed more closely by researchers for its benefits concerning L2 speech production.
Today’s synchronous CMC tools, or what many call videoconferencing (e.g., Adobe Connect, Big Blue Button, Blackboard Collaborate, Skype, Google Hangout, Zoom), typically allow learners to exchange video, images, and text in real time and are at center stage with respect to fostering L2 speaking practice. Videoconferencing has become the norm for most telecollaboration projects (O’Dowd, 2007), tandem learning experiments (Guillén, 2014), and social media exchanges (Lin, Warschauer, & Blake, 2016). Likewise, synchronous speaking tasks regularly form part of the hybrid or fully online language curriculum (Blake, 2011). Once again, the choice of task is all-important and needs to be carefully thought through by the instructor so as to balance the conflicting needs of achieving more L2 accuracy, complexity, and fluency (Hampel, 2006). Videoconferencing gives students an alternative to the type of speaking practice that is assumed to occur solely in the classroom. In actual fact, small group videoconferencing—for example, one instructor working with two or three students—can often evoke a more intensive speaking experience than sitting in class and responding only two or three times in an hour, which is the norm in most language classrooms. Naturally, the instructor must prepare the conversational tasks ahead of time so that the students know exactly what to expect and be primed with the appropriate vocabulary and grammar needed to successfully bring the task to completion. Some videoconference applications even allow recording of these synchronous conversations, which can be reviewed later for self-evaluations or peer and teacher feedback. In this way, students can gradually build up greater fluency and smoother discourse transitions, which are important components of speaking proficiency.
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