Computer Assisted Language Learning

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ncal20

An exploratory study of English-language

learners’ text chat interaction in synchronous
computer-mediated communication: functions
and change over time

Yining Zhang, Binbin Zheng & Yuan Tian

To cite this article: Yining Zhang, Binbin Zheng & Yuan Tian (21 Oct 2022): An exploratory
study of English-language learners’ text chat interaction in synchronous computer-mediated
communication: functions and change over time, Computer Assisted Language Learning, DOI:
10.1080/09588221.2022.2136202

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2022.2136202

Published online: 21 Oct 2022.

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Computer Assisted Language Learning
https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2022.2136202

An exploratory study of English-language

learners’ text chat interaction in synchronous
computer-mediated communication: functions
and change over time
Yining Zhanga , Binbin Zhengb and Yuan Tiana
a
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China; bThe University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong,
China

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The use of text chat in synchronous computer-mediated SCMC; interaction; text
communication (SCMC) could help remedy the widely chat
reported lack of active involvement in online language learn-
ing. However, the nuances and complexities of learners’
text-chat actions warrant further examination. This explor-
atory study used observational data collected from 40 stu-
dents in a graduate-level Academic English course at eight
time points across a semester to analyze the functions of
text-chat interaction in an SCMC setting and to capture how
their text chat changed over time. This led to the identifi-
cation of five functions of text-chat interaction (i.e. cognition,
metacognition, socio-affect, organization, and technology),
suggesting that cognitively meaningful learning occurred
immediately through such interaction. Over time, there was
a decline in the quantity of text-chat interactions. In addi-
tion, the patterns of chat between students and the teacher
were somewhat different from those observed among stu-
dents. In the former case, text quantity diminished, especially
in the category of cognition; but in the latter, students
engaged in more text chat with their peers to show affect,
cognitive agreement, and disagreement over time. The
study’s findings regarding the complex dynamics of an
authentic process in SCMC language classrooms have con-
siderable practical value in facilitating interaction in similar
language-learning contexts.

1. Introduction
Perhaps the most enduring challenge for online language learners is a
lack of interaction with their teachers and/or peers (e.g. Author, 2020;

CONTACT Yining Zhang yiningzhang@tsinghua.edu.cn Tsinghua University, Room 202 Wennan

Building, Beijing, 100084, China
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

Cheung, 2021a; Harsch et al., 2021; Lin et al., 2016; Maican & Cocoradă,
2021; Moorhouse et al., 2021; Zou et al., 2021), despite interaction
playing a pivotal role in language learning (e.g. Lantolf & Thorne, 2007;
Long, 1996; Walsh, 2006; Warschauer, 1997). To some degree, synchro-
nous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) (Hoffman, 2018; Kim,
2012; Lin & Gao, 2020), especially the use of text chat that supplements
audio and visual interaction (Côté & Gaffney, 2018; Vu & Fadde, 2013;
Wang & Chen, 2009; Wigham & Chanier, 2015), could remedy the lack
of such active involvement in learning. This may be because it allows
students not only to make content-related contributions, but also to feel
a strong sense of co-presence with their classmates, while experiencing
rapid information delivery (Bower et al., 2015). However, the functions
that text-chat interaction plays in online language learning warrant
further examination, aimed at developing a clearer understanding of the
interaction patterns during such learning (Cheung, 2021b; Peeters, 2018;
Sato & Ballinger, 2016; Shi & Stickler, 2018; White et al., 2020). Moreover,
the establishment and sustainment of such learning experiences (Gacs
et al., 2020) calls for more research into evolving patterns of interaction,
which can only be carried out through data collection and analysis at
different time points (Peeters, 2019; Zheng & Warschauer, 2015). We
believe that analyzing changes in data over time could capture the
nuances and complexities of learners’ actions in online language learning,
rather than simply producing hard-to-interpret research snapshots of
single time-points (Jung et al., 2019; White et al., 2020). The answers
to the above two concerns are expected not only to inform new instruc-
tional designs and teaching approaches that are better suited to SCMC
(Cheung, 2021b; Vu & Fadde, 2013), but also to enlighten teaching and
learning in broader, sustained online language-learning contexts beyond
SCMC (Maican & Cocoradă, 2021; Moorhouse & Kohnke, 2021).
Accordingly, this exploratory study was designed to capture
English-language learners’ text-chat interaction in an SCMC context,
and used a content-analysis approach to identify the functions that
text-chat interaction fulfilled. Additionally, changes in the participants’
patterns of interaction were studied across a semester, both holistically,
and broken down into teacher-student and student-student interaction.

2. Literature review
2.1. Language teaching and learning in SCMC

SCMC is one of the two major modes of delivering computer-assisted

language learning (CALL), the other being asynchronous
computer-mediated communication (Jonassen et al., 1995). Early SCMC
studies mainly focused on the use of text chat in online learning, and
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 3

demonstrated the efficiency of SCMC instruction (e.g. Smith, 2003). In

SCMC language classrooms in recent years, learners and their teachers
have tended to be co-present in shared virtual networks, in which they
converse mainly through various combinations of text chat, audiocon-
ferencing, videoconferencing, interactive whiteboards, instant polling,
webcams, virtual subgroups, and emoticons (e.g. Jung et al., 2019; Martin
& Alvarez Valdivia, 2017; O’Rourke & Stickler, 2017; Wang & Chen,
2009; Zeng, 2017). Some recent studies have reported that second-language
(L2) teachers are using new SCMC tools that are more innovative,
interactive, user-friendly, and direct than others used in the recent past
(e.g. Gruber & Bauer, 2020; Kohnke & Moorhouse, 2022; Ma, 2020).
Generally, SCMC has been considered an effective means of enhancing
online language learning. Learners in SCMC settings exhibit less anxiety
and more motivation; respond to others in a more timely fashion; are
more likely to follow turn-taking rules; give greater consideration to
their conversations’ social and affective functions; and generate more
cognitive meaning than their counterparts in face-to-face classrooms
(e.g. Kohnke & Moorhouse, 2022; Maican & Cocoradă, 2021; Murphy,
2010; Peeters, 2018). In a recent study by Harsch et al. (2021), when
students and teachers were asked about ways to improve the quality of
online learning, ‘using synchronous activities’ was the top suggestion
from both groups.
However, the SCMC context also poses distinctive challenges. For
instance, research by Ma (2020) reported that Chinese EFL students had
a hard time focusing on and maintaining learning interest in SCMC,
the major reasons for this being feelings of loneliness and lack of timely
feedback. Lin and Gao (2020), meanwhile, found that online learners
taking synchronous L2 classes complained about inactive students who
never participated, deeming them a distraction from learning. Kohnke
and Moorhouse (2022) noted a similar issue, and pointed out that stu-
dents often became less willing to participate in synchronous whole-class
sessions due to a lack of paralinguistic cues. Another study from an
EFL teacher’s perspective (Cheung, 2021a) similarly reported a restricted
chance for interaction when using an SCMC platform. So, rather than
simply being optimistic about the advantages of SCMC for language
learning (Kohnke & Moorhouse, 2022), there is an ever-present need
to ensure that SCMC learning environments remain collaborative, inter-
active, and supportive (Belda-Medina, 2021; Cheung, 2021b; Zeng, 2017).

2.2. Text chat in SCMC language-classroom interaction

L2 acquisition research grounded in sociocultural theory (Vygotsky,

1978) has highlighted the nature of learners and their environments
4 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

(Ellis, 2000; Warschauer, 1997). As Hampel (2006) noted, language learn-

ing arises ‘not through but in interaction’ (p. 109). In other words, it
is during socially mediated collaboration that language learning takes
place (Long, 1996; White et al., 2020; Zeng, 2017). Moreover, the positive
effects of such interaction can be maximized when it generates mean-
ingful, shared outputs, such as written work (Lantolf & Thorne, 2007;
Peeters & Pretorius, 2020), and a prominent mode of such work is
real-time text chat (Hampel, 2006; Kohnke & Moorhouse, 2022;
Moorhouse et al., 2021; Wang & Chen, 2009). From a sociocultural
perspective, such chat not only reflects the interactional function of
language, which can facilitate the construction of meaning, but also
functions as a thinking device, highlighting the reflective nature of
language (Payne, 2020; Warschauer, 1997). For these reasons, using text
chat has been identified as a primary means of providing engaging and
interactive synchronous lessons (Peachey, 2017). Considered as a sup-
plementary tool to the audio and video functions in an SCMC classroom
(Wang & Chen, 2009), it should be inserted into teaching plans following
a low to high cognitive sequence (Moorhouse et al., 2021; Payne, 2020).
Many previous CALL studies have suggested that text chat has five
key characteristics. First, it increases learner participation and generates
more turn-taking (Côté & Gaffney, 2018), with Cheung (2021b) arguing
that text chat maximizes class participation by providing equal chances
for learners to make contributions to synchronous discussions without
being interrupted by peers. Second, it encompasses aspects of both speak-
ing (i.e. real-time communication) and writing (i.e. reflection and revi-
sion) (Côté & Gaffney, 2018). Third, it allows learners to spend more
time processing (Ziegler, 2016) and to focus on the cognitive use of
language, which may stimulate further interaction (Kern et al., 2004).
Fourth, it increases learners’ noticing of target-language traits and enables
them to become more aware of their learning gaps (Wang & Chen, 2009;
Ziegler et al., 2020); and lastly, it serves as a channel for learners and
teachers to socialize and provide support to one another (Chen et al., 2009).
It is believed that text chat could become especially helpful in facil-
itating interaction in SCMC classrooms. The EFL teacher that Cheung
(2021b) observed explicitly asked his students to make extensive use of
the chatroom function in Zoom, by participating at least nine times per
class via text chat. The same teacher was also reported to have skillfully
solicited both verbal and text-chat responses from his class when posing
questions. The author made a comparison between this teacher and
another EFL teacher observed in a previous study (Cheung, 2021a), who
felt that teaching on Zoom was like ‘talking to the air’ (p. 10). Such a
feeling could be largely attributed to that teacher’s practice of muting
all her students during SCMC sessions, in effect turning the class into
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 5

a monologue, and taking little or no advantage of Zoom’s text-chat

functions. Belda-Medina (2021), meanwhile, found that synchronous
text in a chat box played a crucial part in keeping class interaction
alive, over and above the use of video and audio. Similarly, in a study
by Kohnke and Jarvis (2021), nine out of 17 English for Academic
Purposes teachers reported that their students felt more confident when
using the chat function in Zoom to express their ideas, especially when
they were reluctant to turn on their speakers or cameras.
A closer look at the above studies, however, indicates that most focused
on either proposing text chat as one of several potential ways to enhance
interaction (Belda-Medina, 2021; Kohnke & Jarvis, 2021; Kohnke &
Moorhouse, 2022; Moorhouse et al., 2021; Wang & Chen, 2009), or study-
ing the benefits of real-time text chat in language learning (e.g. Chen
et al., 2009; Côté & Gaffney, 2018; Kern et al., 2004; Kessler et al., 2020).
Moreover, almost all of them treated text chat as essentially monolithic,
without exploring the variety of functions that it could fulfill (the key
exception being Cheung, 2021b). Thus, it is still unclear how interaction
via text chat occurs in the SCMC context. In the absence of a thorough
and nuanced understanding of the nature of text chat in that context, it
is no wonder that, despite the chat function’s clear status as ‘a positive
development’, the ‘distraction’ caused by the need to continuously monitor
it ‘was reported as a negative consequence’ (Kohnke & Jarvis, 2021, p. 6).
Cheung (2021b), in possibly the only prior study to explicitly discuss
the multiple functions of text chat in SCMC classrooms, found that it
helped to boost the quantity of initial learner responses to questions,
but that it could not lead to final knowledge acquisition. In any case,
to assume that text chat functions merely as an information trigger is
to focus disproportionately on the cognitive process (Kim, 2012), and
to neglect its other potential roles, such as providing social cues or
aiding the development of metacognitive knowledge. Moreover, even
within its cognitive function, text chat may play roles other than as a
trigger. This is because its effectiveness is closely related to whether and
to what degree a teacher takes advantage of it (e.g. Cheung, 2021a;
Harsch et al., 2021; Kohnke & Jarvis, 2021; Moorhouse et al., 2021).
Perhaps more importantly, from a social-constructivist perspective, stu-
dents’ knowledge-construction process occurs when they try to create
meaning in and through their surroundings (Jonassen et al., 1995).
During this meaning-making process, dialogue serves as the primary
instrument, as it fulfills functions such as triggering, explaining, clari-
fying, elaborating, judging, questioning, supporting, defending, reflecting,
and so forth (e.g. Garrison et al., 2000); and these functions can become
even stronger when the dialogue is carried out in written form (Pena-Shaff
et al., 2001). If we extend this idea to the use of text chat in SCMC,
6 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

it is reasonable to assume that such chat plays multiple roles that could
include any or all of the component functions of meaning-making, in
a cycle of practical inquiry that should include understanding, explora-
tion, integration and application (Garrison et al., 2000).
The above idea gains further support from prior examinations of the
functions that text chat plays in asynchronous language learning. Peeters
(2018) proposed a model to illustrate the nature and categories of asyn-
chronous text chat when using Web 2.0 technology. At the center of
this model is the purpose of fostering peer interaction for language
learning, which is enacted through four distinctive functions: cognition,
metacognition, organization, and socio-affect. In developing cognition,
learners were found to use text chat to compose text, make meaning,
and revise written output, in what the author regarded as a process of
‘producing, revising and adapting linguistic output’ (p. 922). Peeters’s
examples of socio-affect included, among others, acknowledging others’
contributions and showing gratitude; of organization, discussing assign-
ment and exam requirements; and of metacognition, identifying needs,
setting goals, and reflecting on the learning process.
Indeed, many of the functions identified by Peeters (2018) in an
asynchronous setting were implied in some recent SCMC studies, albeit
rarely and obliquely. For example, Wang and Chen (2009) and Strawbridge
(2021) found that text chat served the process of negotiating meaning,
while Moorhouse et al. (2021) and Ziegler et al. (2020) reported that
it facilitated recasts and metalinguistic feedback among peers. Other
studies have noted that it helped students to raise questions without
interrupting the whole class (e.g. Kohnke & Jarvis, 2021) and to establish
social presence (Lin & Gao, 2020), especially when they used it to hold
off-topic conversations aimed at receiving or providing emotional support
(Chen et al., 2009). It has also been argued that the chat function in
SCMC should be put to greater use in organizing classes, to offset the
lack of physical presence in online learning (Moorhouse et al., 2021).
Although metacognition has not been directly studied in SCMC text-chat
research, previous findings do reveal relatively poor self-discipline,
self-direction and time management among SCMC learners (e.g. Chen
et al., 2009; Zou et al., 2021), implying that future interventions via text
chat could be useful. Putting all these pieces together, it is evident that
a comprehensive and systematic investigation of the functions that
text-chat interaction plays in SCMC language classrooms is warranted.

2.3. Interaction patterns in SCMC text chat

It would also seem worthwhile to investigate developmental trends in

SCMC text chat over time, given that sequencing has been seen as
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 7

playing a crucial role in patterns of change in online discussion (Chen

et al., 2009). For example, Zheng and Warschauer (2015) study of an
asynchronous discussion forum found that, as time went on, more
posts were made by students and fewer by the teacher, indicating a
shift from a teacher-centered network to a student-centered one.
Interestingly, a number of studies have indicated that, amid increases
in the quantity of posts over time, their quality deteriorated. For
example, Guan et al. (2006) found that the proportion of off-topic
texts increased. Similarly, Yang et al. (2015) reported that students
posted more irrelevant topics in week three of a course than in its
first two weeks, and that such off-topic conversation fell into a repet-
itive cycle. And, in a synchronous class, Chen et al. (2009) observed
that the third discussion period included fewer cognitive and meta-
cognitive messages than the first two. Based on such findings, it would
seem worthwhile, on an exploratory basis, to examine how text-chat
use in SCMC language classrooms develops through time, as doing so
may enable us to understand the nuances and complexity of what is
happening in online language classrooms (Jung et al., 2019; White
et al., 2020) and to make pedagogical interventions accordingly (Guan
et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2015).
When evaluating such change, it is important to understand the struc-
tures, characteristics, and patterns of interaction (Wasserman & Faust,
1994). Usefully, previous literature measured 1) group density, i.e. how
well members of a network are interconnected with one another; 2)
group reciprocity, i.e. how likely such members are to be mutually con-
nected; and 3) centrality, i.e. the numbers of interactions that a member
initiates or is the target of (e.g. Peeters, 2019; Peeters & Pretorius, 2020;
Shi & Stickler, 2018). Other studies have used visual methods to demon-
strate the interrelationships of English learners interacting online (Sumi,
2011; Zheng & Warschauer, 2015). Another more direct approach is to
count the frequencies of different types of interaction (Peeters, 2018). It
is also worth noting that, in a synchronous online classroom, students
interact with both the teacher and their peers. To build on previous
literature, it will therefore be necessary to treat the observed network
both as an integral part and broken down into different types of inter-
action, i.e. teacher-student interaction, and student-student interaction.
Our research questions are as follows:
1. What functions did English-language learners’ text chat perform
during interaction in an SCMC context?
2. How did the pattern of text-based interaction evolve over time,
a) in general, b) at the level of teacher-student interaction, and c)
at the level of student-student interaction?
8 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

3. Methods
3.1. Research context

This exploratory study was carried out at a large research and teaching
university in China, in a graduate-level Academic English course that
used a videoconferencing tool, Tencent Meeting, as its synchronous
online-learning platform. The course lasted eight weeks, during each of
which the students met online for two 90-minute sessions. In each
90-minute period of synchronous class time, students logged in to
Tencent to attend the lectures and interact with the teacher and their
peers. We selected the first 90-minute session from the first through
eighth (i.e. final) weeks for analysis. Our reason for focusing on first
sessions was that the second sessions focused more on students’ group-
work presentations, and involved relatively scant teacher participation.
To assist our aim of exploring change over time, we chose to separate
the eight collected sessions into two phases: the first half of the semester
(i.e. Weeks 1–4) and the second half (Weeks 5–8).
The course comprised the following eight units: An introduction to
academic English, Abstracts, Introductions, Literature reviews,
Methodology sections, Results sections, Discussions, and Conclusions.
The structure of the selected course was quite consistent throughout
the semester, rendering the first sessions of each of these units highly
comparable. In each case, the teacher began by checking the network,
then spent five minutes conducting pop-up quizzes and another five on
students’ mini presentations. Then, she provided a summary of the
learning content from the previous week; and, during the remaining
class time, delivered the course material in a question-and-answer format.
That is, all questions and discussions were initiated by the teacher as
she lectured based on slides. The students were free to use text chat to
answer the questions she asked, and were also encouraged to use such
chat to ask their own questions or post comments. The number of slides
in each of the eight sessions was quite consistent, i.e. about 25.
Figure 1 is an example of a typical class slide and how students used
text chat to answer the teacher’s questions. While lecturing about citation
styles, the teacher first asked about the students’ understanding of citation
styles. The first three text-chat comments in the right-hand chat box in
the screenshot are students’ replies, in which they provided their own
understandings of what different citation styles mean. The teacher provided
further elaboration on the course content based on these student replies,
and asked whether the class had understood. One student posted that
she did understand. After that, the teacher encouraged the students to
think about what other scenarios worked best for author-prominent cita-
tion, and one posted ‘if the author is authoritative, maybe we can use
Author Prominent’ as a response to the teacher’s question. Overall, this
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 9

Figure 1. Screenshot of the SCMC classroom interface.

question-and-answer pattern during the lecture portion of each session

was quite stable throughout the semester. Also, it should be noted that
at all points in the semester, the main channel whereby the teacher com-
municated with students was audio, as her microphone was on almost
all the time. The most common way for students to interact with either
the instructor or their peers, on the other hand, was via synchronous
text chat in the videoconferencing software. The teacher used English to
teach the course, and also required students to reply in English. Almost
all the text-chat posts by students were written in English, although in
some very rare cases when students expressed their feelings, they chose
to use Chinese (for an example, see Table 1).

3.2. Participants
All 40 students who were enrolled in the target course consented to
participate in this study. Most (72.5%, n = 29) were male, and their
average age was 25.28 (SD = 1.93). Their majors included hydraulic engi-
neering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, computer sci-
ence, chemistry, and literature, among others, with 29 being in
STEM-related disciplines and the remaining 11 in the arts and human-
ities. Five were third-year doctoral students, and the rest, second-year
doctoral students. Just over a third of the participants (n = 14) had some
previous experience of SCMC classes.

3.3. Measures

3.3.1. Online classroom observation

The major data source for this study consisted of eight videos recorded
during the SCMC sessions via the online screen-recording software
10 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

Table 1. Functions of learners’ text-chat interaction.

Function Sub-function Indicators Total Sample
Cognition Assertion 6 But my high school teacher
(n = 520) taught me to use ‘Which’ to
refer to the whole sentence
QAQ (ID26)
Clarification Text analysis 78 (Omitted)
Grammar 78 (Omitted)
Vocabulary 105 (Omitted)
Describing personal 9 Yes, I have used it before. It is
experience not free (ID13)
Providing outside 7 You can find more explanations
resources about the difference in
chapter 3 (ID13)
Stating 5 Guess many non-native speakers
assumptions contribute the ‘researches’
(ID21)
Stating facts 4 America chemistry society (ID21)
Stating/explaining 88 It will make readers feel like that
ideas the author does not have
their own opinion (ID25)
Discussing questions 21 Is ‘researches’ a mistake? (ID21)
Showing understanding 42 (Omitted)
of the content
Disagreement Presenting a 35 If the author is authoritative,
different idea maybe we can use Author
Prominent (ID12)
Explicitly objecting 11 Can’t WHICH refer to the whole
sentence (ID26)
Agreement Endorsing 25 Yeah it’s also kind of my opinion’
someone’s idea (ID26).
Judgment on learning 6 The writing style of this paper is
content quite different from the other
one (ID26)
Meta-cognition Reflection Self-appraisal of 2 公开处刑TAT (ID18)
(n = 11) emotion
Self-appraisal of 10 I copied it wrong. It should be
learning ‘on the other hand’, not ‘on
the one hand’ (ID37)
Organization Functional agreement 117 (Omitted)
(n = 133) Providing an assignment 2 (Omitted)
reminder
Querying a learning task 14 (Omitted)
Socio-affect Expressing gratitude to 4 (Omitted)
(n = 129) students
Expressing gratitude to 106 (Omitted)
the teacher
Small talk 19 Oh, it’s XX [a Chinese singer]
(ID2)
Technology Querying technology 1 (Omitted)
(n = 115) Helping others with their 15 (Omitted)
technical problems
Reporting a technical 13 (Omitted)
problem
Reporting that a technical 4 (Omitted)
problem has been
solved
Reporting that the 82 (Omitted)
technology is working
well

ApowerREC. Two researchers transcribed this material manually, then

merged the participants’ textual comments and the video transcripts
into a single timeline.
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 11

3.3.2. Text chat

During the synchronous sessions, students’ chat-box posts included, but
were not limited to, answers to the teacher’s questions, posing their own
questions, reporting technical issues, and indicating agreement.

3.4. Data analysis

Content analysis was applied to answer our first research question. In

all, the students’ real-time text chat comprised 909 posts for data anal-
ysis, which for coding purposes were broken down into conversational
turns. In the first phase of the coding process, following the recom-
mendations of Peeters (2018) and Pena-Shaff et al. (2001), the lead
author read through all transcripts and classified each text-chat post as
fulfilling one or more of four broad functions identified based on our
review of the prior literature—i.e. cognition, technology, organization,
and socio-affect—and 36 sub-codes. Then, the first and second authors
used the coding schema arrived at in the first phase to code one week’s
class session randomly selected from among the eight, and exchanged
their coding results. Both coders then discussed the meaning, scope,
and indicators of each code. Based on that discussion, the lead author
revised the schema, mainly by (1) further differentiating among the
cognition-related codes; and (2) reducing the number of sub-codes for
socio-affect, by combining some of them. This resulted in a net decrease
in the number of sub-codes from 36 to 28. In the next phase, both
researchers coded another randomly chosen transcript independently
and exchanged their results. The ensuing discussion resulted in some
further revisions to the coding schema, mainly for the sake of clarity.
For example, the two coders decided that stating ideas and explaining
ideas, which had been deemed separate by Pena-Shaff et al. (2001),
should be combined due to the difficulty of distinguishing between them
in our data. Both coders also agreed to add a new function, assertion,
to reflect how students defended their own arguments by making further
assertions. In the final phase, the coders decided to use the version of
coding schema arrived at during the previous phase as their baseline
schema for recoding of the remaining five transcripts. This process also
involved further checks for agreement, disagreement, and errors, as well
as the calculation of inter-rater reliability. The average Cohen’s kappa
value was .84. Lastly, all disagreements were discussed between the
coders until final consensus was reached.
To answer our second research question regarding changes in patterns
of text-chat interaction over time, we utilized social network analysis
(SNA, Haythornthwaite, 1996; Hoppe & Reinelt, 2010). This involved,
firstly, generating two different sociograms to obtain a visual
12 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

understanding of the interactions that occurred in the synchronized

classrooms in our two four-week time periods. We then calculated group
cohesion using indices including group density (i.e. the proportion of
existing edges to all possible edges, to show how well the network’s
nodes are interconnected) and group reciprocity (i.e. the likelihood of
nodes being mutually connected). We also tested degree centrality using
two indicators: outdegree centrality (i.e. the total amount of edges that
a node sends) and indegree centrality (i.e. the total amount of edges
that a node receives). All SNA analyses were conducted with the R
package iGraph. In addition, we calculated and compared the frequencies
of each code in the two time periods.

4. Results
4.1. Functions of learners’ text-chat interaction

Five functions comprising 28 codes emerged from the 909 coded posts
(see Table 1). Each function is described in its own subsection below.

4.1.1. Cognition
The cognition function, which accounted for 57.2% of all student-generated
comments, can be identified in posts that aim to facilitate knowledge
construction at a cognitive level. It includes seven sub-functions: assertion,
clarification, discussing questions, showing understanding, disagreement,
agreement, and judgment. The first, assertion (n = 6), refers to students’
posts that defended or re-stated their previously articulated ideas or
assumptions. For instance, after student ID6 finished making a presenta-
tion, student ID26 asked about the use of grammar in one of the slides
(‘Can ‘Which’ refer to the whole sentence?’). After this objection by ID26,
two other students posted similar objections. ID26 then added: ‘But my
high school teacher taught me to use ‘Which’ to refer to the whole sen-
tence QAQ’, i.e. explicitly restated her argument by reference to what she
had learned in an earlier phase of her education. She also used the Asian
emoticon QAQ, which serves a similar function to ‘crying face’: ‘(, pre-
sumably to soften the tone of her comments.
The second sub-function, clarification, was the main way that the
students interacted with their teacher and peers at a cognitive level
(n = 374). We further identified eight indicators within this sub-function:
describing personal experience, language-related text analysis,
language-related grammar, language-related vocabulary, providing outside
resources, stating assumptions, stating facts, and stating/explaining ideas.
Around 93% of this sub-function was represented by four indicators,
i.e. using text chat to state an idea in response to a teacher’s question
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 13

(n = 88); and answering the teacher’s questions related to text-based

analysis (n = 78), grammar (n = 78), and vocabulary (n = 105). This reflects
the strong emphasis on specific usage of academic English by teacher
and students alike.
The third sub-function, discussing questions, refers to the 21 occasions
on which students spontaneously raised questions. Most were about con-
ducting research (e.g. ‘Why is an approach in which individuals are inter-
viewed personally considered ‘qualitative’?’, ‘Are citations needed in the
introduction?’, ‘Does neglecting some negative data constitute academic
misconduct?’), while the rest involved the linguistic use of academic English
vocabulary (e.g. ‘Is datum a singular form of data?’), grammar (e.g. ‘Shall
we use ‘is’ or ‘was’?’), and punctuation (e.g. ‘Is this comma necessary?’).
The fourth sub-function in the cognition category, showing under-
standing of the content (n = 42), generally took forms like ‘Yes’ or ‘No
problem’ as a short response to the teacher’s regular checking on whether
students understood the learning content. This usually took place when
the teacher finished clarifying a specific and difficult vocabulary or
grammar problem, and asked ‘Have I made myself clear?’ or ‘Do you
understand now?’ as a signal to elicit students’ feedback. To make sure
students really understood the content, the teacher also frequently told
them that they were free to answer ‘No’ to such questions, and to express
their confusion at any time.
The fifth through seventh sub-functions—disagreement, agreement,
and judgment—all reflected students’ higher-level meaning-making pro-
cesses. In disagreement, students either expressed their different opinions
in a gentle way, by just typing different answers (n = 35), or more explic-
itly (n = 11), e.g. by saying ‘Can’t WHICH refer to the whole sentence?’
In agreement (n = 25), students typed in ‘yes,’ ‘yeah’, or ‘I agree’ to endorse
others’ inputs. And in judgment (n = 6), students made evaluations and
criticisms of the learning content spontaneously: for example, ‘the writing
style of this paper is quite different from the other one’, and ‘surprising
result @ID26’.

4.1.2. Metacognition
The students’ text chat also revealed their metacognitive awareness, and
in particular, their ability to reflect upon their emotions (n = 2) and
their learning (n = 10). One example of the former was ‘公开处刑TAT’,
literally meaning ‘public execution’ plus the Asian emoticon TAT that
indicates a crying face. An example of reflection on learning was, ‘Aha,
it turns out to be emulsification! I didn’t get it until now’. Another,
which occurred after a student finished presenting, was ‘I copied it
wrong. It should be “on the other hand,” not “on the one hand”’ as
self-reflection about an error in his slides.
14 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

4.1.3. Organization
Students had a chance to express their functional agreement, and make
inquiries about learning tasks. Expressions of functional agreement
(n = 117) mostly occurred in the context of managing the pace of learn-
ing, such as when the teacher asked the entire class ‘Shall we move on?’
and the students would type ‘Yes’ or ‘OK’. Students also used text chat
to ask questions about assignments or other in-class learning tasks
(n = 14), and in some rare situations, to remind the teacher about upcom-
ing assignments (n = 2).

4.1.4. Socio-affect
Our data suggested that the students supported each other and estab-
lished social ties in three ways. The first (n = 4) was expressing their
gratitude to peers and the second (n = 106) was expressing their gratitude
to the teacher, especially at the end of a class session. Lastly, small talk
(n = 19) appeared sporadically during formal class sessions, and mainly
involved discussion of celebrities or TV shows that were felt to relate
to the teaching content in some way.

4.1.5. Technology
The final text-chat function, technology, involved checking whether the
videoconferencing software was working well and reporting any technical
issues. The teacher usually started a class session by asking whether the
technology was running smoothly, and multiple students typically responded.
If a new technical issue emerged later in a class session, various students
chose to use the chat box to inform the teacher. Some also offered poten-
tial solutions to such problems to the teacher or other students.

4.2. Change in patterns of text-chat interaction over time

First, to understand the general outline of how patterns of text-chat

interaction in the focal course changed over time, we compared the
sociogram of the first four sessions against that of sessions 5 through
8 (Figures 2 and 3). The changes in their edge widths revealed a decline
in the quantity of text-chat interactions. However, at the same time, the
proportion of such interactions that were student-student rather than
teacher-student increased, as shown by the second-half sociogram’s
greater number of edges between pairs of nodes. The emergence of
more, larger yellow dots between the first and second time periods,
meanwhile, indicated that a wider range of students were becoming
active (or more active) in posting and responding to text chat.
The above findings regarding a declining tendency in the quantity of
text-chat interaction and an increasing tendency for such interaction to
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 15

Figure 2. Sociogram of the first half of the semester.Note. Numbers represent students’
IDs, and T represents the teacher. The size of each node denotes its degree, and yellow is
used to mark high-degree nodes. The width of each line is proportional to the frequency
of text-chat interaction, and arrows indicate the direction of such interaction. The same
notation system is used in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Sociogram of the second half of the semester.

16 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

Table 2. Change in network characteristics between the first and

second halves of the semester.
First half Second half
Nodes 37 37
Silent students ID = 3, 16, 22, 37 ID = 3, 23, 34, 35
Edges 510 441
Edges per node 13.78 11.92
Density .05 .33
Reciprocity .09 .07
Indegree centrality Teacher 474 346
Student Mean 1 2.64
Student Max. 6 14
Outdegree centrality Student Mean 14.17 12.25
Student Max. 79 110

occur among students might seem contradictory at first sight. To better

understand these two trends, we calculated network cohesion for each
of the two time periods (see Table 2). At the node level, both periods
saw 36 students involved in interaction, either as information senders
or receivers, although the silent students were not always the same (i.e.
the only student who was silent in both periods was ID3). At the edge
level, there was a decline in the total number of connections in class,
as the number of edges in the semester’s first half was 510, and in its
second half, 441. Edges per node also dropped from 13.78 to 11.92,
and reciprocity dropped from .09 to .07. Regarding density of the net-
work, the number increased from .05 to .33, suggesting greater inter-
connectedness among class members.
As well as network cohesion, we checked network outdegree centrality
and indegree centrality. This revealed a decline in students’ average
outdegree centrality (i.e. from 14.17 to 12.25), indicating that fewer
text-chat posts were emitted in the second half of the semester. Regarding
indegree centrality, the teacher’s indegree index decreased from 474 to
346, but the students’ average indegree centrality increased from 1 to
2.64. This suggested that the teacher received less feedback from students
over time, but at the same time, students received more text-chat com-
munication from their peers.
The overall decline the total number of students’ text-chat interactions
was mainly ascribable to fewer being directed toward the teacher (as
evidenced by the decrease in teacher indegree and student average
outdegree).
To see how the above-mentioned changes in text chat related to its
identified functions, we first examined changes in the number of occur-
rences of each function being used (see Figure 4). Cognition exhibited
the sharpest decline, from 316 to 204. Technology, in contrast, showed
a 21% increase, from 52 to 63, albeit mainly because the teacher’s
microphone was working poorly for several minutes in Week 7. Another
increase occurred in organization, in which agreement and querying
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 17

Figure 4. Change over time by function.

about assignments drove such growth. The other two text-chat functions,
metacognition and socio-affect, exhibited little change.
To better understand the nuances of such change, especially in light of
our finding that the changes in patterns of student-teacher and
student-student interaction did not take place hand in hand, we divided
our data on each function into two subsets, according to whether it had
occurred as part of student-teacher or student-student interaction (Table
3). Separate examination of each subset revealed, in the case of
student-teacher interaction, 1) that all functions apart from technology
and organization decreased over time: from 292 to 153 in cognition, seven
to four in metacognition and 62 to 54 in socio-affect; 2) that five cognitive
sub-functions exhibited sharp declines, i.e. grammar (from 52 to 21),
vocabulary (from 64 to 38), stating/explaining ideas (from 43 to 24),
presenting a different idea (from 21 to 10), and showing understanding
of the content (from 33 to five); and 3) that socio-affect’s decline was
mainly due to a decline in the sub-function of expressing gratitude to the
teacher (from 59 to 47), whereas small talk increased (from two to seven).
In the case of student-student interaction, changing patterns over time
were somewhat different from those of student-teacher interaction, especially
for the cognition and socio-affect functions: with the former more than
doubling, from 22 to 49, and the latter increasing even more markedly, from
two to 11. In other words, as the number of text-chat posts directed from
students to the teacher fell, students directed more such posts to their peers,
and most of the latter were coded as cognition or socio-affect.
When we took a deeper look at change within the cognition function
in student-student interaction, we first found that the quantity of posts
embodying this function increased, from seven in the first time period
18 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

Table 3. Changes in functions over time, broken down into student-teacher and
student-student interactions.
First
First half half Second Second
Function Sub-function Indicators (s-t) (s-s) half (s-t) half (s-s)
Cognition Assertion 2 2 2 0
Clarification Text analysis 39 0 38 1
Grammar 52 2 21 3
Vocabulary 64 0 38 3
Describing 7 0 2 0
personal
experience
Providing outside 7 0 0 0
resources
Stating 3 0 0 2
assumptions
Stating facts 3 0 1 0
Stating/explaining 43 10 24 11
ideas
Discussing questions 10 1 8 2
Showing understanding of 33 2 5 2
the content
Disagreement Presenting a 21 0 10 4
different idea
Explicitly objecting 4 0 0 7
Agreement Endorsing 3 6 1 15
someone’s idea
Judgment on learning content 1 1 3 1
Sum 292 24 153 51
Metacognition Reflection Self-appraisal of 1 0 1 0
emotion
Self-appraisal of 6 0 3 1
learning
Sum 7 0 4 1
Organization Functional agreement 55 2 58 2
Providing an assignment 0 0 2 0
reminder
Querying a learning task 4 1 9 0
Sum 59 3 69 2
Socio-affect Expressing gratitude to 1 1 0 2
students
Expressing gratitude to the 59 0 47 0
teacher
Small talk 2 1 7 9
Sum 62 2 54 11
Technology Querying technology 1 0 0 0
Helping others with their 10 3 2 0
technical problems
Reporting a technical problem 2 0 11 0
Reporting that a technical 1 0 3 0
problem has been solved
Reporting that the technology 35 0 47 0
is working well
Sum 49 3 63 0
Note. s-t = student-teacher interaction; s-s = student-student interaction.

to 10 in the second. We also found that students became willing to

disagree with one another, either implicitly (with the number of such
occurrences rising from zero in the first half of the semester, to four
in the second) or explicitly (rising from zero to seven). On the other
hand, they also became more willing to support others’ ideas publicly
(rising from six to 15).
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 19

5. Discussion
The present exploratory study has expanded our understanding of the
functions text chat can fulfill in an SCMC classroom, and the nuances
and complexities of changes in the quantities and themes of such chat
over time. The following subsections discuss the key findings and their
implications in detail.

5.1. Functions of text-chat interaction in SCMC

Most studies involving interaction in SCMC contexts have focused on
its influence, rather than the interaction itself. In this study, we have
helped to redress that absence by using content analysis to identify five
functions (i.e. cognition, metacognition, socio-affect, organization, and
technology) that text-chat SCMC interaction fulfills. This coding scheme
reflects that cognitively meaningful and productive learning occurred
through real-time interaction between learner and instructor, learner
and learner, learner and content, and learner and technology (Gacs
et al., 2020; Kohnke & Moorhouse, 2022). These results are consistent
with previous studies that found text chat 1) is a major channel for
participation (Côté & Gaffney, 2018; Peachey, 2017); 2) incorporates
aspects of both speaking—e.g. when the student chooses to post, s/he
is engaging in real-time communication with an interlocutor—and writ-
ing, as the text chat allows him/her to process linguistic input and
produce output accordingly (Côté & Gaffney, 2018); 3) focuses on the
cognitive use of language (Cheung, 2021b; Kern et al., 2004; Moorhouse
et al., 2021; Payne, 2020; Strawbridge, 2021; Wang & Chen, 2009); 4)
enables mutual social and affective communication (Chen et al., 2009);
5) allows students to ask questions without interrupting the class (Kohne
& Jarvis, 2021; Wang & Chen, 2009); and 6) can be used for trouble-
shooting when students experience problems using SCMC technology
(Cheung, 2021b; Maican & Cocoradă, 2021; Zou et al., 2021).
Although the research context of our study differed in many ways
from those of Peeters (2018) and Pena-Shaff et al. (2001), we nevertheless
wanted to make a direct comparison between our taxonomy and theirs,
in the hope that this would yield new insights about the possible com-
municative functions played by text chat. In terms of the general com-
municative functions of text-chat interaction, our findings and those of
both these prior studies are consistent. Peeters’s four themes (i.e. cogni-
tion, metacognition, organization, and socio-affect) were fully reflected
in our study’s SCMC language-learning context. However, our study’s one
additional category, technology, was hardly negligible, with 12.7% of our
sampled students’ chat posts fulfilling this function. This reflects a unique
20 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

trait of educational SCMC: namely, that the stability of the technology

is fundamental to its smooth operation (Gacs et al., 2020). It should also
be noted that around 70% of the posts in this category consisted of
reports that the technology was working well, a further indication of the
prominence of technology in SCMC classroom routines.
Our taxonomy also differs from Peeters’s (2018) mainly in its
sub-function of cognition. That is, where Peeters used composing text
(i.e. language-related posts) and making meaning (i.e. discussing and
making arguments), we utilized a single term, clarification, comprising
eight indicators that covered students’ language-related and
meaning-making posts. In addition, we identified a more complex level
of students’ cognitive activities via the five sub-functions—assertion,
discussing questions, agreement, disagreement, and judgment—four of
which (i.e. all except judgment) implied distributed and dialogic inter-
action with others from a sociocultural perspective (Vygotsky, 1978).
This is important, given that learning tends to be more effective when
students’ interaction transcends simple monologues and reaches the level
of dialogical interaction (Pena-Shaff et al., 2001).
More specifically, we found it promising that our data included
sub-functions such as assertion and disagreement: signs of cognitive
conflict that were not evident in Peeters’s (2018) study. Assertion, which
was also only rarely detected in online interaction by Pena-Shaff et al.
(2001), requires that students pay attention to others’ posts and then
try to defend their own original statements by providing further expla-
nations. Our identification of episodes of assertion suggests that some
of the student participants were both aware of disagreements during
learning and willing to defend their own ideas when necessary. Notably,
all the topics they were defending were related to academic writing, e.g.
writing norms or word use, and their defenses confidently cited prior
knowledge. This behavior tends to signal higher levels of knowledge
construction, because it both stimulates discussions among multiple
participants, and stems from learning content (Raković et al., 2020). But
on the other hand, the overall amount of assertion was very limited
(n = 6), especially as compared to the amount of disagreement (n = 46),
suggesting that only a minority of the sampled students were willing to
engage in extended defenses of their initial ideas.
Looking more closely at the 46 posts that were coded as disagreement,
it is worth noting that—in contrast to the approach adopted by Raković
et al. (2020), who operationalized disagreement as simple negation such
as ‘I disagree’—all our codes reflected learners’ rationales. We regard
this as a sign of higher-order cognitive learning, as disagreement is
meaningful in educational contexts only when it acts as a premise for
the facilitation of in-depth learning (Darabi et al., 2011) and helps to
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 21

translate learning stimuli into higher-order cognitive-thinking skills (Côté

& Gaffney, 2018; Hampel, 2006; Yeh & Lai, 2019). When we reexamined
our findings on this topic in light of Garrison et al. (2000) Community
of Inquiry framework, we found that critical discourse occurred when
the learners we sampled resolved dissonance only through the first two
of the four phases of cognitive presence, i.e. triggering events and explo-
ration (the other two being integration and resolution). In our case, an
example of triggering was when a student first explicitly disagreed with
a previous post by another student regarding the use of which in a
sentence. We considered this to be high-level cognitive activity because
the expression of disagreement was spontaneous: students detected the
disagreement and showed their willingness to discuss it openly. The
same episode also indicates that the students were actively engaged in
SCMC learning and paying attention to others’ contributions to class.
In the second stage, exploration, more students joined in the discussion.
The exploration phase, it should be noted, was rather limited in our
study; i.e. almost all explorations were based on personal narration,
belief or judgment, without citations of authoritative sources (Park,
2009). To be sure, part of this was governed by the nature of SCMC:
all interactions occur in real time, affording students few opportunities
to seek additional resources. However, the lack of authoritative sources
in the exploration phase, coupled with the fact that the integration and
resolution phases were simply missing, suggest that higher-order cog-
nitive involvement among our student participants was fairly incomplete.
Theoretically, consensus-building is a necessary stage after conflicts
emerge, and involves clarifying misunderstanding, negotiating, and reach-
ing final consensus (Pena-Shaff et al., 2001). However, that stage is not
easy to arrive at without appropriate support from the instructor (for
a review, see Garrison, 2007). In our case, when disagreements occurred,
the teacher became involved immediately by reading the relevant parts
of the text chat and stating her own opinion on who was right. For
example, when several students disagreed about an earlier post on the
use of which, the teacher joined in the dialogue almost right away, which
led to the termination of further discussion via text chat on this topic.
We believe that this action in effect prevented students from learning
through exploring and arguing, while at the same time reinforcing the
belief, prevalent among Chinese students, that the teacher should be
treated as the sole authority in the classroom (Zhang, 2013).
In addition, contrary to Pena-Shaff et al. (2001) finding that people’s
tone may become aggressive during disagreements, and that this can
escalate into enduring interpersonal friction, 76% of the disagreements
in our data were classified as mild rather than explicit. Even those
classified as explicit, however, did not involve personal attacks or
22 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

expressions of strong emotion. The sampled students even used emot-

icons (e.g. QAQ as a means of expressing sadness) to soften the tone
of their disagreements. We attribute this to their Confucian-heritage
cultural background. Previous studies have likewise shown that Chinese
online learners tend to prioritize being polite, creating harmonious
relationships, and avoiding explicit conflicts (Liu et al., 2010; Zhang, 2013).
Last but not least, it is useful to compare Peeters’s (2018) taxonomical
category of metacognition with ours. Peeters recognized three commu-
nicative sub-functions under this category in online language learning—
reflecting, synthesizing reflections, and planning—and further pointed
out that, in the absence of such sub-functions, individuals would be
less likely to reflect upon and adjust their own learning when in online
settings. We, on the other hand, found that the only component of the
metacognition function during SCMC was students’ self-reflection on
learning and on their emotions: a situation that only partly represents
the cyclical process of metacognitive ability proposed by Zimmerman
(2000). Part of the reason for this discrepancy may be the asynchronous
nature of the environment in Peeters’s study, which allowed students
more time to engage in monologue-like, reflective and analytical thinking
processes (see also Pena-Shaff et al., 2001). Of course, this is not to say
that such functions could never be accomplished in SCMC. On the
contrary, the students in our sample made self-appraisals of their learning
on both cognitive and emotional levels, highlighting the importance of
self-regulation in online learning (Author, 2021). It should also be noted,
however, that observing self-reflection in SCMC interaction does not,
by itself, demonstrate that metacognition is occurring. Among the
numerous taxonomies of metacognition that are available (e.g. O’Malley
et al., 1990; Oxford, 1990; Wenden, 1998), a prominent one (Brown
et al., 1983) divides it into knowledge and strategies; and the self-appraisal
of learning and emotion captured in our study only reflect the latter,
and then only partially.

5.2. Change in patterns of learners’ text-chat interaction over time

When we traced quantitative change in text chat’s functions over time,

we noted a decline in the quantity of text-chat interactions in general.
In addition, we found that such communication directed from students
to the teacher exhibited a somewhat different pattern of change from
that exchanged between students. In the former case, there was a decline
in the total amount, especially in the cognition function. In the latter,
there was an increase: between the first half of the semester and the
second half, students sent more text-chat posts to their peers to show
socio-affect, agreement, and disagreement.
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 23

Within the category of student-student interaction, our finding of a

quantitative increase in interaction is well aligned with Zheng and
Warschauer (2015) finding that networks among students became denser
over time. We further found that this increase mainly resided in cogni-
tion- and affect-related text chat: a possible sign of improvement in the
quality of such chat among students. Although we did not specifically
test for what caused this increase in interactivity, we can surmise two
reasons for it. The primary one is that the increased interaction was a
direct embodiment of improvements in the teacher’s pedagogical approach
across the semester. That is, she regularly asked students to provide
feedback regarding their SCMC learning experience, and in response,
many of them expressed a desire to have more interaction with their
peers. The teacher then adjusted her instructional approach accordingly,
by explicitly encouraging students to use the chat window to make
comments to one another. Indeed, this endeavor to promote student-student
interaction was an excellent example of Interaction Competence by a
language teacher (Walsh, 2013), and especially noteworthy due to its
non-traditional language-learning context. The second possible explana-
tion is that, as students proceeded with the course, they became more
familiar with some or many of their peers through working jointly on
projects outside of class time. Thus, the course became a more coherent
and comfortable learning environment over time, as evidenced by the
observed increase in the amount of affect-related text chat; and this, in
turn, helped to foster a shared sense of community (Lin & Gao, 2020).
It is in part due to experiencing this shared sense of community that
students are able increase their cognitive output, especially at the explo-
ration level (Garrison, 2007). In our case, expressions of agreement and/
or disagreement mostly reflected students’ exploration and exchange of
information.
It is also worth noting that, at least at face value, our finding of
enhancement over time in student-student interaction contradicts those
of some previous studies (Chen et al., 2009; Guan et al., 2006; Yang
et al., 2015), in which the quality of text chat deteriorated. However,
this apparent discrepancy was likely because those earlier studies did not
include the participation of the teacher at all, whereas in ours, the teacher
played a central role in delivering, guiding, and adjusting the SCMC
course throughout. That being said, the teacher’s presence or responsibility
was nevertheless distributed to each student in those prior studies. In
language-learning cases without explicit guidance from the teacher, the
more-capable students will inevitably take some responsibility for teaching
and otherwise assisting their less-able counterparts (Sato, 2008). Therefore,
prior findings regarding a damage to interaction quality are indeed echoed
in our finding that, in the second half of the sampled semester, there
24 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

were fewer cognition-related student-teacher text-chat exchanges. The

sharp drop in this subcategory of the cognition function is not surprising
because, as noted in the Methods section, the routine of each class was
quite consistent throughout the semester. This means that how informa-
tion was introduced, how students responded to it, and how the teacher
provided feedback to those responses aligned stably with what Sinclair
and Coulthard (1975) labeled the Initiation-Response-Follow-up (IRF)
exchange structure. As Walsh and Sert (2019) have noted, simply fol-
lowing the IRF unchangingly and inflexibly may give rise to ‘a rather
mechanical, stilted type of interaction’ (p. 3). In our case, a fixed mode
of teacher-student IRF in SCMC sessions may have been partly to blame
for the observed deterioration in the quantity of student-initiated text
chat reflecting the cognition function.
Additionally, we would suggest that decrease in teacher-student inter-
action and increase in student-student interaction that we observed in
the second half of the course could have been a result of the nature of
the unit topics. That is, the first four units—An introduction to academic
English, Abstracts, Introductions, and Literature reviews—seemed to
merit lecture-based instruction, as students were unlikely to be familiar
with academic English at the beginning of the course. After several
weeks of learning, however, they were likely to have gained more knowl-
edge about it, and therefore to be more comfortable about exchanging
opinions about the learning material. In other words, growing topic
familiarity could at least partially explain why more teacher-student
interaction was seen during the first four units and more student-to-stu-
dent interactions in the last four.
Given our finding of a downward trend in the amount of student-teacher
text chat, and an upward one in its student-student counterpart, it would
be reasonable to assume that transforming the course into a wholly
student-centered one would be beneficial. However, we feel that this would
not work, for two reasons. First, such a change would mean that the
entire class would share a mutual teaching responsibility, and therefore
be likely to replicate the text-chat quality deterioration observed in pre-
vious studies (Chen et al., 2009; Guan et al., 2006; Yang et al., 2015).
Second, a predictable and stable teacher-centered approach was deemed
desirable and even necessary by the members of our sample themselves.
Though this is at variance with Peeters and Pretorius (2020) findings,
our student participants expressed appreciation for the focal course’s strong
teacher-centered network and the fact that such a network was maintained
throughout the semester. As the teacher in our study reflected in her
teaching notes, ‘the most valuable part to them was my showcasing and
interpretation of their common mistakes in written assignments. Also,
since many of those errors were quite isolated, I tried to organize them
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 25

into themes in order to present them systematically to students’. We believe

that the key to preventing deterioration in student-teacher text chat resides
mostly in 1) teachers’ metacognitive monitoring of their own teaching
practices (Walsh & Sert, 2019) and 2) class members’ behavior (Chen
et al., 2009). After all, as Gacs et al. (2020) recently pointed out, there
is no reason to avoid teacher-centered instruction, provided that it is
designed purposefully, consistently, and clearly.

5.3. Teaching implications

It is unrealistic to expect that learning in SCMC will ‘happen naturally

without facilitation’ (Chen et al., 2009, p. 1164). In light of the findings
of the current study, we recommend that more thoughtful and conscious
teaching designs aimed at facilitating interaction (Vu & Fadde, 2013)
be adopted in SCMC contexts. Specifically, we propose the following
design principles for SCMC language teaching. First, instead of treating
text chat in SCMC as a supplementary tool to the audio and video
functions (Wang & Chen, 2009), it should be reconsidered as a major
venue for classroom participation (Cheung, 2021b), and educators should
make full use of the text chat for fulfilling multiple purposes during
teaching, including but not limited to cognition, metacognition,
socio-affect, organization, and technology.
Second, more explicit instruction regarding metacognitive awareness
should be given to students, to develop both their metacognitive knowl-
edge and metacognitive strategies, and thus help them to better under-
stand both themselves and their learning tasks (Wenden, 1991). For
example, teachers could guide students to think about their individual
characteristics that may affect learning (Rahimi & Katal, 2012), or explic-
itly ask questions regarding the development of metacognitive strategies
and allow students to input their answers in the chat box.
Third, interactive activities that embed expressions of assertion, agree-
ment, disagreement, and/or synthesizing multiple learners’ ideas are
likely to strongly benefit students’ translation of learning stimuli into
higher-order cognitive thinking skills, as part of a meaningful
knowledge-exchange process (Côté & Gaffney, 2018; Hampel, 2006; Yeh
& Lai, 2019). Specifically, when students use text chat to express dis-
agreement, teachers should not jump in immediately; rather, if time
permits, they should allow their students to reach a final resolution of
the disagreement on their own. Or, if in-class time is limited, teachers
should design out-of-class activities that allow students to solve the
problem under distributed cognition (Sato, 2008).
Lastly, teachers need to be aware of a potential drop over time in
both the overall quantity of student-teacher interaction, and the
26 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

proportion of such interaction taken up by the cognition function. To

address this problem, they should give due attention to opportunities
to monitor their own interaction behavior and participate in more cog-
nitive, interactive and innovative activities in class.

5.4. Limitations and future directions

This study has several limitations that should be acknowledged. First,

the course we observed lasted only eight weeks, but met twice per week.
In light of previous findings that interaction patterns in SCMC vary
across long and short tutorial phases (Shi & Stickler, 2018), future
comparative studies of multiple courses could usefully address whether
course length is a significant variable in predicting different patterns of
interaction in SCMC. Second, the present study identified changes in
the focal course’s text-chat functions across time mainly by calculating
the frequency of each code. Future research could usefully adopt a
two-mode form of SNA that includes both nodes and types of text chat,
to visually reflect such longitudinal change (Wu & Nian, 2021). Third,
future studies should consider how learning performance is associated
with interaction patterns. Fourth, because the focal course was primarily
teacher-centered, the interaction patterns we observed might not have
been authentic, insofar as the instructor had the authority to control
how she interacted with students and how students interacted with each
other. This happened especially when students disagreed about a par-
ticular post, and the teacher intervened almost immediately, which had
the effect of terminating of further student-student text chat on the
disputed topic. And fifth, because this study took place in a real class-
room setting, we were not able to partial out external factors such as
sudden technical problems encountered by the teacher, or how much
of the improvement in student-student interaction was due to the teach-
er’s explicit encouragement. Therefore, when interpreting the results,
readers need to be aware that the changes in interaction over time that
we have described were not the result of learner behavior alone, but of
a combination of learners’ internal changes and various external factors
that inevitably coexist with such changes in real classroom settings.

6. Conclusion
To shed light on the complex dynamics of online language classrooms,
this exploratory study identified the functions fulfilled by Chinese post-
graduate English-language learners’ text chat during a semester-long
SCMC course, and further explored changes in patterns of their text-chat
interaction over the semester. Content analysis revealed that the text
 Computer Assisted Language Learning 27

chat could be classified into five functions (i.e. cognition, metacognition,

socio-affect, organization, and technology). The cognition function was
found to account for more than half of all student-generated comments,
and to have seven sub-functions: assertion, clarification, discussing ques-
tions, showing understanding, disagreement, agreement, and judgment.
On the one hand, we found promising signs of higher-order cognitive
involvement such as assertion, agreement, disagreement, and questioning
in the focal online-learning environment; but on the other, the overall
incidence of such involvement was limited. In addition, although the
text chat collected in this study showed signs of students’ metacognitive
reflection, other metacognitive abilities such as synthesizing and planning
were not observed in it. When we looked at changes in the text chat’s
functions over time, we observed a decline in the quantity of text-chat
interactions in general, which was driven entirely by a fall in the amount
of student-teacher interaction, which was especially marked when it
came to posts related to the cognition function; whereas student-student
interaction actually increased, as the learners directed more numerous
text-chat posts to their peers to show affect, cognitive agreement and
disagreement in the second half of the semester than in the first half.
Technology is continuously reshaping the ways we deliver language
education, and SCMC instruction—especially with the use of text chat—
should not be neglected. As a contribution to the debate on whether
synchronous online language teaching is ‘a blessing or a curse’ (Cheung,
2021b, p. 1), this study has attempted to capture the nuances and com-
plexities of English language learners’ text-chat interactions in a synchronous
L2 academic-English class, as a means of enriching current understandings
of the complexity of language learners’ interactions in SCMC contexts. The
findings also have a practical value, by pointing the way to more effective
SCMC language teaching that makes fuller use of text-chat interaction.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest has to be reported.

Funding
Youth Fund of Beijing Education Science Planning (BHCA211).

Notes on contributors
Yining Zhang is an associate professor in the department of Foreign Languages and
Literatures at Tsinghua University. Her research interests include online language teach-
ing and learning, individual differences in language learning, and learning analytics in
language teaching and learning.
28 Y. ZHANG ET AL.

Binbin Zheng is an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of

Hong Kong. Her research focuses on technology use for medical education and literacy
education. She is particularly interested in self-regulated learning and online learning
interactions.
Yuan Tian is a lecturer in the Language Center at Tsinghua University, where she
teaches Academic English for Graduate students, and English Reading and Writing for
Undergraduate students. She holds a Ph.D. in Foreign Languages and Literatures. Her
research primarily focuses on English for academic purposes, textual analysis, and
multimodal stylistics.

ORCID
Yining Zhang http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5468-9702
Binbin Zheng http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6160-0104
Yuan Tian http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2567-3343

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