ABSTRACT
Computers are progressively becoming a medium of communication for many kinds of classes and courses throughout the world. As a consequence, students are increasingly called on to participate in new ways, to construct new forms of discourse, and to interact through the computer in ways that have a new potential for learning in general and language learning in particular. The previous excerpt, written by an English as a second language (ESL) writer (whom we have given the pseudonym Dania), shows her participating in online discussion (OD), a social practice that is new to her. When we inquire what she and her peers make of online discussion, we find a variety of different interpretations, with important implications for learning. For
instance, many ESL learners prefer OD to class discussion, a social practice that is familiar but often challenging. We also find that these students have rather different views on how to write appropriately in this new form of discourse and in fact negotiate and co-construct new registers of discourse together (Luo forthcoming). Learners wonder whether should they choose academic or personal topics and, interpersonally, how far they should support or disagree with their online peers. Should they write formally or informally? Dania chose an academic topic, was supportive to Natasha, and was somewhat formal. Turning to interaction at the sentence level, how should they respond to each other’s discourse? Dania offers a functional recast of Natasha’s main point, modeling more advanced academic discourse. In effect, Dania’s message raises issues at three levels: the social practice level, the discourse or text level, and the sentence or clause level.
