“Please tell me” – The sequential organisation of audience participation in language learning livestreams

Abstract

In language learning livestreams, streamers integrate self-directed learning and community engagement with audience members in the chat who may, e.g., assist with language learning activities. This study analyses the sequential organisation of audience participation for language learning support in order to understand joint learning-related practices of streamers and audience members. Our analysis shows that livestreamers particularly recruit learning-related audience assistance when questions arise within their trajectory of self-directed learning. The form of audience participation ranges from brief informings, which frequently occur in larger-size livestreams, to scaffolding sequences in which one audience member engages with the livestreamer over the course of solving a learning task. When moving out of audience participation, livestreamers may perform assessments of the learnable or the learning process and/or praise the audience members who provided help, before moving back to expository talk. Streamers and audience members co-create a new hybrid format between self-directed learning and interactive learning with others who assume positions of peers, teachers, and spectators.