Computer-assisted discussion over local area networks has been especially popular in the United States, in foreign language, ESL, and English composition classes. During synchronous computer-assisted discussion, each student sits at an individual computer. With programs such as Daedalus Interchange, the screen is divided into two parts. Students compose their messages on the bottom half of the screen. After hitting the send, the message appears almost instantly on the top half of the all the other computers in the class. The messages are listed in chronological order, with easy scrolling for re-examining previous messages. Such discussion can be carried out among the whole class or among smaller specialized conferences.
Research on the use of computer-assisted discussion for language teaching has focused on the questions of participation, language use, and writing improvement. Numerous studies have found that computer-assisted discussion features participation which is dramatically more balanced than face-to-face discussion, with far less domination either by the teacher or by particularly vocal students (Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992; Kern, 1995; Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996a). This is likely due to the fact that everyone can "speak" at once, without having to seize the floor.
The language used in computer-assisted discussion has been shown to be more lexically and syntactically complex than in face-to face discussion (Warschauer, 1996a). This is likely due to the written nature of computer-mediated communication, which allows more planning time than oral communication and adopts more written syntactical features. For whatever reasons, computer-mediated discussion seems to be a good vehicle for helping students push their language to greater levels of complexity. Printed transcripts of computer-mediated discussions can also be used later for grammatical analysis or lessons (Kelm, 1992; Kelm, 1995). Finally, there has been at least one study that claims that semester-long participation in computer-assisted discussion was more beneficial to the development of student writing than was participation in oral discussion (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996).
For these reasons, many teachers of general language classes have found computer-assisted discussion advantageous on an occasional basis as a supplement to oral discussion. Writing teachers have used it on a more frequent basis, even daily.
Synchronous communication at a distance can be carried out via MOOs, Internet Relay Chat, or Web-based chat programs. MOOs have been the most popular to date, but they will likely be supplanted by web-based chatting in the future. The particular interfaces of these programs tend to result in shorter, simpler sentences than does Daedalus Interchange, which allows users to easily write longer sentences or paragraphs. MOOs and chat seem most beneficial either when there is a particular need for long-distance partners to communicate, or as an out-of-class activity to give students additional time on task (Pinto, 1996).
E-mail and other forms of asynchronous computer-mediated communication have been used for a variety of purposes in second language classes. Many teachers in college and university writing classes have used e-mail discussion groups within their classes to give students opportunities for authentic writing assignments (see, for example, a series of articles by Janda in Warschauer, 1995). Teachers at all levels, from primary to tertiary have used long-distance e-mail exchanges to give students greater opportunities for authentic communication (either with native speakers or with other learners of the language) and for carrying out collaborative projects, such as comparisons of film and literature (Soh & Soon, 1991), compilations of folklore (Gaer, 1995), business simulations (Feldman, 1995), and survey-based research (Kendall, 1995).
Researching the uses of e-mail in the language classroom is complicated by the fact that much of the communication takes place outside class hours and in uncontrolled conditions. At least two ethnographic studies have attempted to describe the processes and results of using e-mail over the period of a semester. Tella (1991; 1992a; 1992b) followed several Finnish high school classes as they carried out an exchange with classrooms in England. He found that, compared to the ordinary English classes in Finland, these classes became much more learner-centered, with learners' time and effort devoted to authentic reading and writing tasks related to the authentic communication with partners in England. Warschauer (1997) looked at the use of e-mail between a teacher and her students in a graduate ESL writing class; he found that e-mail was a powerful medium for apprenticeship learning, with the teacher able to provide students with detailed and rapid feedback on the immediate problems and questions that they had. This benefit, though, seemed largely due to the teachers' willingness to put a lot of time and effort into reading and responding to students' e-mail messages, a luxury that many teachers might not have. Finally a study by Wang (1993) compared dialogue journals written with paper and pencil (by one group of ESL students) and transmitted over e-mail (by a second group) . She found that the e-mail group communicated more frequently, asked more questions, responded to more questions, and used a greater variety of language functions than did the paper-and-pencil group
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