Rational choices among the numerous technological options available for foreign language teaching need to be based, in part, on psycholinguistic considerations. Which technological advances help create an optimal psycholinguistic environment for language learning, and which may be innovative but relatively unhelpful? One potential source of guidance is offered by the 10 methodological principles of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT; Long, 1985, and elsewhere), each realizable by a variety of pedagogic procedures. Interest in TBLT derives from several sources, including its responsiveness to learners ' precisely specified communicative needs, the potential it offers for developing functional language proficiency without sacrificing grammatical accuracy, and its attempt to harmonize the way languages are taught with what SLA research has revealed about how they are learned. TBLT's 10 methodological principles are briefly defined and motivated, and illustrations provided of how the principles can inform choices among technological options in the particular case of distance learning for the less commonly taught languages.

This article describes the evolution of communication technologies, accompanying transformations in everyday communicative activity, and pedagogical possibilities these tools support in second and foreign language (L2) settings. We begin with an overview of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and uses of the Internet to mediate intercultural communication for purposes of L2 learning. We then describe generational shifts in Internet technologies and their proliferation and uses, with the majority of our efforts focused on contemporary environments such as blogs, wikis, podcasting, device-agnostic forms of CMC, and advances in intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL). Throughout, we engage in a discussion of praxeological fusions of various media technologies and the implications of this nexus of practice for the transformation of what it means to teach, learn, and communicate in L2 contexts.

Despite the expanded use of the Internet for language learning and practice, little attention if any has been given to the quality of interaction among English L2 speakers in conversational text or voice chat rooms. This study explored the patterns of repair moves in synchronous non-native speaker (NNS) text chat rooms in comparison to voice chat rooms on the Internet. The following questions were posed: (a) Which types of repair moves occur in text and voice chats; and (b) what are the differences, if any, between the repair moves in text chats and voice chats when time is held constant? Repair moves made by anonymous NNSs in 10, 5-minute, synchronous chat room sessions (5 text-chat sessions, 5 voice-chat sessions) were counted and analyzed using chi-square with alpha set at.05. Significant differences were found between the higher number of total repair moves made in voice chats and the smaller number in text chats. Qualitative data analysis showed that repair work in voice chats was often pronunciation-related. The study includes discussion that may affect teachers ' and learners ' considerations of the value of NNS chat room interaction for second language development. LANGUAGE LEARNING VIA INTERACTION AND REPAIR MOVES Social interaction is essential to language learning, according to the arguments presented by studies based in the communicative approach to language teaching (see, e.g., Hall & Verplaetse, 2000; Lantolf, 2000; Long, 1983, 1996; Pica, 1994). Empirical evidence suggests that social interaction is a wellspring for negotiation of meaning, a communicative exchange that sustains and repairs conversations (Long 1983, 1996; Pica, 1994). Negotiation of meaning is a cognitive process that speakers use to better understand one another, that is, to increase the comprehensibility of language input. Furthermore, negotiation of

The potentials of elearning are likely to be explored for many years to come in view of some of its obvious logistical benefits for learners and apparent financial incentives for institutions. One would hope that such exploration of teaching practice would have a parallel research program to investigate the nature and effects of dialogue and communities of enquiry in elearning in higher education. The common sense approach to this issue is to compare outcomes of elearning with those of classroom learning, but this approach has proven to be too simplistic to satisfy those attempting to understand the characteristics and potentials of elearning. As Garrison and Anderson (2003) put it, “Why would we expect to find significant differences if we do exactly the same thing [in the two modes of learning]…? ” (p. 6). They conceptualize the changes prompted by elearning as more radical than what can be captured through assessment of outcomes and comparisons with outcomes from classroom learning. At the core of the issue, in their view, is that education is about ideas not facts, and that elearning provides more than access to information; it affords opportunities for communication and interaction. But how does one assess how well learners are formulating ideas through

Second language acquisition (SLA) researchers strive to understand the language and exchanges that learners generate in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). Doughty and Long (2003) advocate replacing open-ended SCMC with taskbased language teaching (TBLT) design principles. Since most task-based SCMC (TB-SCMC) research addresses an interactionist view (e.g., whether uptake occurs), we know little about holistic language units generated by learners even though research suggests that task demands make TB-SCMC communication notably different from general SCMC communication. This study documents and accounts for discourse-pragmatic and sociocultural behaviors learners exhibit in TB-SCMC. To capture a variety of such behaviors, it documents holistic language units produced by intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish during two multimodal, TB-SCMC activities. The study found that simple assertions were most prevalent (a) with dyads at the lower level of instruction and (b) when dyads had a relatively short amount of time to chat. Additionally, interpersonal, sociocultural behaviors (e.g., joking, off-task discussions) were more likely to occur (a) amongst dyads at the advanced level and (b) when they had relatively more time to chat. Implications explain how tasks might mitigate the potential processing overload that multimodal materials could incur.