"Can you hear me, Hanoi?" Compensatory mechanisms employed in synchronous net-based English language learning

writes that the ability to remove the constraints of time and place is a major hallmark of computer-mediated communication (CMC) but that it also supports real-time synchronous forms of interaction. He suggests that "synchronous technologies create a strong network bond because each of the participants must be present at the same time in order to communicate" (Ahern, 2008, p. 99). Kenning (2010, p. 6), expanding on the work of Ciekanski and Chanier (2008, p. 173) would have us view the synchrony and asynchrony as a matter of degree where "face-to-face offers greater simultaneity than audio networks, audio than textchat and text chat than a shared word processor." At Dalarna University, Sweden, we offer modes of communication at many points of Kenning's continuum with a web-based learning platform, including asynchronous document exchange and collaborative writing tools, e-mail, recorded lectures in various formats, live streamed lectures with the possibility of text questions to the lecturer in real time, textchat, and our audiovisual seminars in Marratech or Adobe Connect. Our online students live in many countries around the world and come to our online learning spaces from profoundly different physical realities, so the synchronous seminar is a shared experience that is quite separate from the physical environment in which the students find themselves.