Affordances in the online interaction of English language learners in distance education

• Autor(a) principal: Turolo da Silva, Andreia
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Ilha do Desterro
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/2175-8026.2020v73n1p183

The main objective of this research was to describe the mechanisms for engagement with affordances that help to sustain written interpersonal interactions of students in online discussion forums of a virtual learning environment while they were learning English as a foreign language. The notion of affordance was discussed in this study according to three dimensions: (i) environmental, (ii) technological, and (iii) linguistic, associating a pragmatic theory to the latter (GREENO, 1994; VAN LIER, 2000; LAMY & HAMPEL, 2007). The research findings showed that the environmental and technological affordances contributed to the construction of students’ presence as well as of a learning community. New forms of online interactions afforded new forms of language learning, especially by the movement of relexicalization and gap-filling.