Asynchronous interactions can facilitate deeper communication among all participants in an L2 course. They can also push students to try out vocabulary and grammar structures that they might hesitate to use in the fast give-and-take of synchronous (real-time) interaction.
Canvas is capable of creating, organizing and disseminating not only textual messages but audio and video files, i.e., asynchronous interactions. This allows students to express their creativity and establish a personalized voice, both of which can heighten a sense of community in the group.
“Course instructors can think about moving part of the interaction from inside the classroom to online environments with activities and tools that facilitate interaction among peers, both synchronous and asynchronous: discussion boards (with written, audio, or audiovisual texts), collaborative writing tools, online survey tools, and video conferencing software.”
Girons and Swinehart, p. 34
The course can use Canvas Discussions to develop topically organized text threads, and VoiceThread to do the same with audio postings, including audio comments (from students and the instructor) on previously submitted submissions of all kinds.
Recent research in L2 pedagogy suggests that the strategic use of social media tools (Twitter, Instagram) can be “helpful in facilitating virtual communities for language learners and providing spaces to learn, share, and reflect.” (Anderson, p. 308)
A host of external programs are now available to generate content – audio / video / photo montages and narratives – that can be distributed and responded to asynchronously. To mention just a few:
- Google Docs: simple text files that can be added to and edited asynchronously by multiple users
- Flipgrid: student-generated videos that can be shared with everyone in the course
- Kahoot: a learning game with user-generated multiple choice quizzes
- Amara: a web application that allows users to create subtitles for videos
- Padlet: for creating storyboards, image- and text-based narratives
- Perusall: allows students and instructors to annotate readings, much like social media postings
Instructors can get help using these (as well as recommendations for others) at the McGraw Center, or go to the McGraw Center webpage for Designing for Online Instruction.
References & Resources
Covelli, B. J. (2017) Online discussion boards: The practice of building community for adult learners. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, (65)2. 139-145.
Girons, A. and Swinehart, N. (2020). Pedagogical Challenges (Ch. 3, 30-46). Teaching Languages in Blended Synchronous Learning Classrooms. Georgetown, MD: Georgetown University Press.
Lehman, R. and Conceição, C. (2010). Activities that create a sense of presence in your online course (Chapter 4, pp. 43-94). Creating a Sense of Presence in Online Teaching: How to “Be There” for Distance Learners. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.