Distance language learners' perceptions of assessed, student-led speaking tasks via a synchronous audiographic conferencing tool

This paper describes a project conducted at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Open University of Catalonia) aimed at providing distance learners of English as a foreign language with real-time speaking practice. Due to the unfeasibility of scheduling tutor-led sessions, carefully structured speaking tasks were developed which did not require the presence of the teacher and which were to be used by small groups communicating via a synchronous audiographic conferencing tool. The details of the study will be presented, along with an exploration of learner perceptions of the experience based on the results of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews with some of the participants. Keywords: CALLcollaborative learningdistance educationlearner autonomyonline language learningvideoconferencing Acknowledgements The author would like to thank the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University UK for allowing him to use FlashMeeting for this project. Partial funding for the research was provided by the Vicerectorat d'Innovació at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. The author would also like to express his appreciation to Dr Regine Hampel and Dr Montse Guitert for their valuable feedback on a previous version of this paper. Notes 1. Welch's adjusted F, used in cases where the assumption of homogeneity of variance was not met. 2. Most of the student quotes were originally written in Catalan or Spanish and have been translated by the author. In cases where students wrote in English, these have been left in their original form.