Can videoconferencing
substitute for face-to-face contact sufficiently well for collaborative task-based learning to take place at a distance? The paper reports on the use of videoconferencing in the context of remote users' learning of a foreign language. Video-mediated communication was placed at the centre of an integrated system for the learning of business French, and students used it in performing collaborative role-plays, leading to the joint enactment of a communication task (such as the setting up of a subsidiary company in the Nord Pas de Calais). Observations of the system in real use are reported, and some positive conclusions are drawn about the potential role of videoconferencing in language learning.
Keywords: collaborative task-based learning, videoconferencing
Broadband communications allow many users to communicate, but there are few applications that depend crucially on this. In that sense, broadband communications can sometimes appear to be a technology looking for an application. However, where human communication is central to the performance of a task, and especially where the quality of that communication is a determinant of task performance, then we may expect to find a real added-value. The project described here has developed an application for language learning in which video-mediated communication is central. The main point of the trial described below was to demonstrate that the system is effective and acceptable as an alternative to face-to-face communication in the learning of a language. It is worth noting that it was not an aim of the project to demonstrate that there was no difference between face-to-face and video-mediated communication, but that the overall system of material and communication was sufficient for effective task performance. Since there are obvious advantages in being able to substitute Institute for Computer Based Learning,