Internationalization of higher education has recently gained momentum, and many tertiary education institutions have felt it incumbent upon themselves to foster this trend. Due to lack of resources, student and faculty mobility has not always been a viable option, however. Thus, as an alternative to Internationalization Abroad, Internationalization at Home has gained popularity. Empowering learners by making them interculturally competent is one of the main concerns in this trend. Foreign language education within a curriculum that emphasizes intercultural interaction can, therefore, play significant roles in realizing the internationalization agenda. The present study was therefore designed to explore the nature of such intercultural interactions from a conversation analytic view. It builds upon data collected from audiovisual intercultural exchanges of 16 Japanese and 18 Taiwanese students engaged in a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program between a Japanese university and a university from Taiwan. The data is used to shed light on the less explored potentials of COIL in bringing together EFL classes from across borders and giving learners the opportunity to engage in intercultural interactions in a virtual multilingual context. The conversation analysis of the video recorded interactions of the learners indicates how they use a variety of multimodal resources to maintain intersubjectivity with their peers from a different cultural background when they evaluate their English proficiency as inadequate. The results also suggest that multimodal and translingual practices frequently occur in classes where learners do not share an L1 and therefore have to be systematically attended to.

Abstract-The role of the learners' first language (L1) in learning second language (L2) writing has recently become a focus in SLA research. There have been many studies focusing on different aspects of this phenomenon. The results of these studies have shown how L1 use may play facilitative roles in producing writing in the second language. Many variables, such as task type and language proficiency, have also been studied in this regard. Yet, there seems to be a paucity of research on whether L1 use can significantly improve the quality of written productions in L2. The present study was therefore designed to peruse this question and find what aspects of writing may improve with L1 use. To this end, the written productions of 36 Persianspeaking intermediate English learners writing an argumentative paragraph were analyzed. 6 of the 12 groups were asked to collaborate in their first language and the others were limited to using the second language in their collaborations. The results of statistical comparisons between the first language and second language groups revealed that L1 use can significantly improve the overall score gained by the L2 writers. It was also found that L1 use improves the quality of L2 written productions in terms of organization/unity, development, structure, and mechanics.

Teacher belief research has gone a long way to understand the complex mental lives of language teachers with regards to different aspects of the teaching profession. Little, however, is known about the teachers’ beliefs on the use of language teaching materials. Similarly, attempts to find literature on EFL teachers’ actual use of the materials based on systematic observation meets with great difficulty. The present case study research was therefore designed to contribute to the literature on teacher beliefs and materials use utilizing data from five Iranian and five Japanese teachers of English as a foreign language. Based on questionnaires, observations (50 sessions) and stimulated recall interviews (around 13 hours), it was found that while the Iranian teachers’ beliefs were rooted in their learning and teaching experiences besides the syllabus and context imposed standards, the Japanese teachers’ beliefs were mediated by their learning and teaching experiences, self-developed theories, SLA informed theories and colleague inspirations. The results of stimulated recall sessions making use of the construct of locus of control as interpretive lens also suggested that while the Iranian teachers mostly held other parties responsible for their pedagogic decisions, the Japanese teachers took responsibility for most of their decision on materials use.

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The construct of classroom interactional competence builds upon propositions made by the sociocultural theory of learning to explore the interactional consequences of teacher talk in the foreign language classroom. The sociocultural theory upholds learner participation as the key for learning to take place. Meanwhile, studies with a conversation analytic methodology have shown that learner participation depends in part on teachers' interactional practices or their classroom interactional competence. That is, teacher talk has the potential to shape learner contributions in the classroom and either facilitate or obstruct their participation. The present study has investigated how teacher talk can do so across question-answer sequences in two EFL classes in Japan and Taiwan in a Collaborative Online International Learning program. The microanalytic study of question-answer sequences in the data indicated that while referential questions, as opposed to display questions, are more likely to generate more elaborate learner responses, the interactional context in which questions are posed can influence their outcome as well. Among the interactional practices identified as facilitators of learners' participation were asking referential questions at TRPs, asking referential follow-up questions when a communicative breakdown emerges, teacher echoing of learner responses, and paraphrasing the referential question already asked. On the contrary, practices including self-elaboration, selfanswering, asking referential questions in or after extended teacher turns, teacher interruptions, and teacher turn completions were found to have obstructive effects on learners' responses.