Mü ge Satar is Reader in Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University, UK. She is interested in communicative and pedagogical aspects of multimodal interaction for online language learning and teaching, focusing on social presence and meaning-making. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Virtual Exchange and General Council member of UNICollaboration.

Ciara R. Wigham is Senior Lecturer in English Language Teaching at Université Clermont Auvergne . Her research interests include multimodal pedagogical communication in online language learning, teacher education in computer-assisted language learning, and methodologies for multimodal CMC corpora. She is a member of the the Activité, Connaissance, Transmission, éducation research laboratory.

Preface and introduction

Chapter 1 Online language teaching and giving task instructions

1.1 Online language teaching as a semio-pedagogical activity

1.2 What are instructions and why are they important in task-based multimodal online language teaching?

1.3 Previous studies that set the ground work

1.4 Research gap

1.5 Chapter summary

Chapter 2 Methods

2.1 Context

2.2 Methodological framework

2.3 Chapter summary

Chapter 3 Task repetition: Do teachers' instructions change when they repeat the same lesson with different learners?

3.1 Task repetition: Higher-level actions in task instructions-as-process

3.2 Task repetition: Lower-level actions in task instructions-as-process

3.3 Modal configuration and modal density

3.4 Semiotic misalignment and modal density misalignment

3.5 Chapter summary

Chapter 4 Number of learners: Do teachers' instructions change when they repeat the same lesson with only one learner?

4.1 Number of learners: Site of engagement

4.2 Number of learners: Higher-level actions in task instructions-as-process

4.3 Number of learners: Lower-level actions in task instructions-as-process

4.4 Modal configuration and modal density misalignment: managing resources

4.5 Chapter summary

Chapter 5 Task type: Do teachers' instructions change when they give instructions for a different type of task?

5.1 Divergent task micro-tasks: Task-as-workplan versus Task-as-process

5.2 Teacher perspectives on the impact of task type on their instruction-giving behaviour

5.3 Comparison of higher-level actions used in convergent and divergent tasks

5.4 Multimodal configuration of higher-level actions and lower-level actions in different task types

5.5 New higher-level actions observed in the divergent task for managing resources

5.6 Chapter summary

Chapter 6 Contributions, pedagogical reflections, and future perspectives

6.1 Contributions to methodology and knowledge

6.2 Instruction giving and task repetition

6.3 Instruction giving and number of learners

6.4 Instruction giving and task type

6.5 A heuristic framework of higher-level actions in task instructions-as-process

6.6 Pedagogical reflections for language teachers

6.7 Limitations and future research

6.8 Final thoughts

Appendices