Examining beginner Spanish learners' interactions during text chat: Self-monitoring and the impact of metacognitive instruction

Abstract

Text chat facilitates L2 use by providing learners with extended time to plan, monitor, and process production during interactional tasks. However, learners may not naturally take advantage of these affordances, especially for providing peer feedback. This study used video-enhanced chat scripts to examine the behavior of beginner L2 Spanish learners (n = 46) completing decision-consensus tasks via text chat, investigating how learners interacted with the medium to self-monitor by deleting text before sending. Learners were also differentially assigned to receive metacognitive instruction (MI) to learn ways to provide corrective feedback to peers or engage in language-related episodes (LREs). Results showed that all learners frequently used text chat's affordances to self-correct and also integrated technology to resolve LREs (creating technology-assisted LREs). However, MI did not have a significant impact on the production of corrective feedback or LREs, potentially due to attentional resources expended during self-correction. These findings suggest that completing task-based activities within text chat may be beneficial for promoting beginner learners' linguistic processing and integrating technology to facilitate discussion of L2 form but less impactful for promoting peer feedback.