Oracy skills in a digital environment: what do foreign language undergraduate students need?

ABSTRACT

Foreign language learning is highly interactive and requires opportunities for academic speaking. The focus of this paper is how foreign language undergraduate students experienced this process in an online learning context. Through semi-structured interviews with seven undergraduate French, German and Spanish students, participants highlighted the challenges of speaking in a foreign language in an online environment and articulated the need for speaking skills which could compensate for the lack of visual clues. Drawing on the Oracy Skills Framework, this study suggests that certain skills were particularly pertinent and others could be added to fully reflect the reality of engaging in oral communication in an online environment. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we propose an adapted Oracy Skills Framework for a foreign language learning context which is timely and relevant for both online and face-to-face contexts. Second, we suggest ways in which teachers and students in higher education can support foreign language learners in speaking in online spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Oracy skills
• Oracy Skills Framework
• foreign language learning
• undergraduate
• online learning

Introduction

In this paper we explore foreign language undergraduate students’ experiences of academic speaking in an online environment. Online speaking experiences are pertinent in a foreign language learning context as interaction is a fundamental part of second language acquisition (Loewen and Sato 2018), with the foreign language being both the object of learning as well as the means of communicating (Walsh 2006). Interaction allows foreign language learners to negotiate input and produce output with the guidance of a teacher (Loewen and Sato 2018). Learners need to be able to produce language in order to notice gaps in knowledge, whilst negotiation between learners and teacher involves clarification, checking meaning, asking questions and repair. In a foreign language classroom the teacher needs to be able to elicit, correct and maintain some control over the interaction (Walsh 2014).

With the pivot to online learning due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and with recent technological developments, the online space has become part of the educational landscape for students in higher education. During the global pandemic, teachers turned to emergency remote teaching (ERT) (Hodges et al. 2020: 6) which involved a ‘temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances’. Teachers and students had to adapt to this new mode of learning and teaching (Trust and Whalen 2021), and whilst many students experienced challenges, online learning was particularly problematic for foreign language students as the need to manage a new modality increased the cognitive load, resulting in less attention to linguistic output (Payne 2020).

The term ‘oracy’ was coined by Wilkinson (1965) to refer to speaking and listening, with the aim of distinguishing these skills from the traditionally emphasised literacy skills (reading and writing). In this study we draw on the Oracy Skills Framework (Mercer, Warwick, and Ahmed 2017) to help us understand how academic speaking works in an online context. Although originally developed in a compulsory school setting with English L1 speakers, there is growing evidence that the conceptual framework is highly applicable to a higher education context (Dippold et al. 2019; Hill 2021). Oracy skills are fundamental to effective participation in learning events, academic achievement and success (Speak for Change 2020), as well as for demonstrating disciplinary understanding (Arkoudis and Doughney 2014). Studies have also highlighted the relevance of oracy skills to foreign language learning contexts (Bobkina and Romero 2022; Mah 2016). ‘L2 oracy is essential for academic learning, creative and critical thinking, collaboration and innovation in our globalised world of the twenty-first century’ (Goh 2014: 1). However, whilst the framework identifies skills required for effective oral communication in a range of contexts, it currently fails to recognise which oracy skills are crucial in an online context, and of significance to this study, which skills are necessary for learning a foreign language. Online interaction in L2 learning can be particularly challenging due to a lack of body language and visual cues, technical issues and potential for distractions (Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh 2023; Qi, Liao, and Zhao 2021). These challenges can impact on crucial language learning speaking skills such as conversational turn-taking (Payne 2020).

Whilst there is a rich body of literature in understanding how interaction supports language learning in a face-to-face context, there is little understanding of how academic speaking and interaction supports the development of foreign language learning in an online context (Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh 2023). This study aimed to foreground students’ voices in identifying which oracy skills foreign language undergraduate students need to participate in their online seminars, lectures, and oral presentations. In doing so, we examine the challenges students face in online oral participation and make recommendations for adapting the Oracy Skills Framework to reflect those skills needed for effective online communication in an L2 learning context. We conclude with practical implications for how to support students and mitigate some of the challenges caused by communicating orally in digital environments.

Background

Oracy skills

Higher education pedagogy has embraced more participatory and interactive approaches in recent years (Heron 2019). There has also been a corresponding focus on oral assessments such as group and individual oral presentations (Huxham, Campbell, and Westwood 2012) where oracy is both performed and assessed (Doherty et al. 2011). Oracy skills are both a vehicle for communication and a tool for thinking (Mah 2016) and have been found to support academic achievement and provide access to democratic engagement in the educational and professional context (Gaunt and Stott 2018; Hill 2021). Students share their opinions, build on others’ ideas, and are given a voice, all of which are essential to academic performance. Similarly, oracy skills are vital in professional contexts, with strong evidence to support the value ascribed to them by future employers (Jackson 2014).

This study is informed by the Oracy Skills Framework (Table 1 below) developed by Mercer and colleagues (Mercer, Warwick, and Ahmed 2017: 51) as a way of ‘identifying the different aspects of spoken language use that young people need for the range of communication situations they will encounter’. Although not specifically developed for L2 learning contexts, the starting point for identifying dimensions of oracy was the concept of communicative competence which comprises linguistic, actional, sociolinguistic, strategic and discourse competences (Celce-Murcia, Dörnyei, and Thurrell 1995). The framework has been used in recent studies exploring experiences of English L2 learning (Bobkina and Romero 2022; Dippold et al. 2020). The term ‘skills’ has been critiqued by some scholars as reductive (Heron et al. 2023) and unhelpful (Lea and Street 1998). However, the framework was developed to be teacher and student-facing as well as accessible and useful and, in doing so, Mercer, Warwick, and Ahmed (2014: 11) recognise that the framework ‘might not satisfy the rigorous criteria of an academic linguist’. In this study our aim was to foreground student voices in understanding undergraduate L2 learners’ experiences of online academic speaking in learning an L2. We drew on the Oracy Skills Framework as a starting point to provide a shared understanding of the dimensions of academic speaking. In an L2 learning context, language is both the medium and object of instruction. This means learners are expected to engage in communicative activities, such as seminar discussions, debates and presentations, to develop both L2 proficiency and communicate the discipline in an L2 (Goh 2014). In this study learners studied all core modules in their L2. For example, the module Spain: Introduction to its History, Culture and Society is both taught and assessed in Spanish.

Table 1. The Oracy Skills Framework (Mercer, Warwick, and Ahmed 2017).

Physical
Voice Body language	Fluency and pace of speech, tonal variation, clarity of pronunciation, voice projection Gesture, posture, facial expression, eye contact
Linguistic
Vocabulary Language variety Structure Rhetorical techniques	Appropriate vocabulary choice Register, grammar Structure and organisation of talk Metaphor, humour, irony, mimicry
Cognitive
Content Clarifying and summarising Self-regulation Reasoning Audience awareness	Choice of content, building on the views of others Seeking information and clarification through questions, summarising Maintaining focus on task, time-management Giving reasons to support views, critically examining ideas and views expressed Taking into account level of understanding of audience
Social and emotional
Working with others Listening and responding Confidence in speaking	Guiding or managing the interactions, turn-taking Listening actively and responding appropriately Self-assurance, liveliness and flair

Language learning in a digital environment

With technological developments for hybrid working and hybrid learning emerging, we need to re-examine oracy skills in an increasingly online world. In an L2 learning context, Bobkina and Romero (2022) built on Mercer, Warwick, and Ahmed’s (2017) Oracy Skills Framework to identify what they call ‘digital oracy skills’ for Spanish learners of English which encompass the following: building communication skills, performing communication skills, and creating digital content skills. Building communication skills comprises the cognitive and linguistic domains of the Oracy Skills Framework and performing communication skills comprises the physical and social-emotional domains of the framework. Creating digital content skills involves understanding how to use sound, camera and visual techniques. Whilst the focus on the need to re-examine oracy skills for foreign language learners in a digital environment is encouraging, Bobkina and Romero’s (2022) definition of digital oracy skills merely adds on technical skills and fails to recognise the extent to which the framework reflects the skills required for online interaction, such as asking questions, clarification and negotiation.

As identified in the Oracy Skills Framework above, effective oral communication involves a number of interactional skills, all crucial in an L2 learning context. An online environment can render some of these skills difficult to perform (Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia 2021; Payne 2020; Qi, Liao, and Zhao 2021). For example, Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh (2023) highlight several crucial differences between in-person and online L2 classroom interaction. First, they identify the difference in the operation of body language, gestures, and facial expressions. The lack of visual cues (particularly if some participants have their camera off) make turn-taking challenging as ‘teachers and learners may not be able to see who wants to take a speaking turn’. They go on to state: ‘Multimodal actions (gesture, facial expression, etc.) that aid teaching and interaction in F2F [face-to-face] classrooms can operate in a very different way in SOLs [synchronous online lessons] depending on the access and position of cameras and participants’ screen size ratio’ (115). Second, they point out that students experience a number of distractions which may impede participation. Third, as others have emphasised, both teachers and students can find it difficult to manage technical issues. Whilst these challenges can be true for any learning environment, their impact on learners’ opportunities to interact, and therefore negotiate meaning, is particularly detrimental to second language acquisition.

In an online environment, teachers must also assume new roles and need to develop additional skills. Rehn, Maor, and McConney (2018) identify a comprehensive and rather overwhelming list of such skills. Those relevant to teaching L2 academic speaking online include the ability to elicit and answer questions, engage learners, and facilitate interactions between students. Technical concerns, such as the use (or not) of cameras, microphones, and other software, can hinder academic speaking online. Cameras can be particularly significant in online speaking events, hindering interaction in group work or seminars, and yet the netiquette surrounding the use of cameras is often unknown, ignored, or misunderstood (Hampel 2009).

Given the weight of the research above, we argue for the need to re-examine and update the Oracy Skills Framework to reflect oracy skills to foster interaction in an online environment. In much of the literature, the focus has been placed on teachers’ experiences and skills needs (Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh 2023). Here, we foreground the students’ experiences of communicating in an online environment and provide an understanding of which oracy skills students feel they need to participate effectively and fully in online speaking events, such as seminars and group work.

Methodology

Participants

Participants were third-year foreign language undergraduate students studying for a degree in two languages out of Spanish, French, and German at the site of the study. All modules, including both language-focused and content-specific, are studied in the L2. All participants had experienced their degree studies in a hybrid format during the academic years 2020-2023. All students in the third year cohort were invited to participate in an interview through an email sent by the degree programme director. Included with the email was a participant information sheet which outlined the research activities. All participants provided consent prior to starting the semi-structured interviews. No incentives were offered but participants were encouraged to offer their personal reflections on their online academic speaking experiences.

Context

Participants had experienced L2 learning both online and in person. During 2020 - 2021, all lectures, seminars, and exams were delivered online via Zoom. These sessions replaced the traditional face-to-face teaching and involved answering and asking questions, sharing responses to homework, using the ‘breakout room’ function for smaller group discussions, and delivering PowerPoint presentations either alone or with a peer. The online oral exams took multiple forms. One exam consisted of a recorded video answering a lecturer’s prompt, uploaded to the university platform. Others were more real-time discussions, recorded using Zoom, in the style of interviews or focus-groups, where students had to respond spontaneously to questions. In the academic year 2021–2022, the university moved to a more hybrid learning approach, in which most seminars and lecturers returned to classrooms, but exams continued to be recorded and uploaded online.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were carried out by the first author, a member of the third year foreign language cohort. Seven participants agreed to participate. Participants were interviewed and recorded on Microsoft Teams (see Appendix). Of the seven participants, six were female and one was male, reflecting the female-dominated composition of the degree course. The interviews lasted between 10 and 31 minutes, providing an average of 15 mins per interview. The transcripts generated by the Teams software were checked for accuracy and redacted for any identifying information. As mentioned earlier, few studies have put students’ voices at the centre of exploring online speaking, and the interviews allowed the researcher to explore experiences with the opportunity for further probing as required (Cohen, Manion, and Morrison 2013).

Data analysis

Interview data were analysed through deductive and inductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2019). We took a predominantly deductive approach (Byrne 2022), with the Oracy Skills Framework driving our deductive analysis. Despite some limitations with the framework as outlined in the literature review, we felt it provided a useful heuristic to examine the data. At the same time, an inductive analysis allowed further themes to emerge (Fereday and Muir-Cochrane 2006). The first author read the transcripts several times and noted positive and negative themes regarding academic speaking online following the procedures set out by Braun and Clarke (2019) and described by Byrne (2022). In further readings of the transcripts both authors identified key recurring themes, such as confidence, and references to additional skills needed for digital oracy. These themes were collated in a shared document, discussed and agreed upon. In the final stage the first author mapped the agreed list of themes onto the Oracy Skills Framework, identifying those digital oracy skills which are reflected in the framework, and those which are additional to the framework.

Ethical considerations

The study was granted institutional ethical approval.¹ Participants were assured of confidentiality and anonymity. They were given the opportunity to withdraw from the study at any time. The authors were aware that the interview questions invited participants to evaluate pedagogic practices and aspects of the curriculum. Since the second author is a member of the academic teaching staff, the first author (a third-year student in the foreign language department) conducted the interviews, in order to avoid potential power dynamics impacting on the interviews. This allowed the participants to speak freely about their online experiences in academic speaking (Foreman and Musawi 2021).

Researcher positionality

As noted above, we were aware of potential bias and the limitations of researching within our own institution and with undergraduate students who studied with the first author. Although we felt that our insider perspective gave us valuable resources in terms of understanding the context, we have addressed transparency by showing ‘the workings’ (Holliday 2007) through our data analysis procedures.

Findings

In this section we present our findings from the interview with reference to the four domains of the Oracy Skills Framework. In doing so, we emphasise the core skills students highlighted when discussing oracy in an online environment. We also identify further themes which highlight L2 oracy in online contexts. It is worth noting that participants identified both positive and negative aspects of L2 speaking online. Participants are represented by a number e.g. (6).

Physical domain

Clarity of speech and articulation was an area in which participants experienced some challenges. In L2 learning, interaction is core, so participants need to be able to hear each other. Technology can impact on this clarity. For example, one participant noted: ‘If there’s a connection issue then you might not be able to hear something’ (7). Students may feel the need to speak more clearly, loudly and enunciate more, and similarly expect others to do the same in order to counteract these challenges. This was confirmed by one participant who commented: ‘We’ve gotten used to … being clear when we’re speaking’ (6) which interconnects with the theme of body language below.

Body language, in particular gestures, was a theme which was overlapped and impacted many of the other domains. The lack of cameras or small screen space can make gestures/facial expressions/eye contact difficult over Zoom, both to demonstrate and to recognise. For example, one participant commented: ‘There’s a lot that’s communicated through … gestures and if you’re sitting at your laptops … you don’t get all of it’ (1). Gestures were also seen as crucial to demonstrating enthusiasm and keeping the audience engaged. For example, a participant noted: A big part of [keeping people engaged] might be gesturing (6). Here we can see how body language as part of physical domain overlaps with the skills in the socio-emotional domain in terms of listening and audience awareness.

When sound quality is poor, body language such as gestures becomes increasingly helpful. This was pointed out by one of the participants: ‘In difference to being in person, I would say you have to be quite animated probably. So, exaggerating facial expressions’ (6).

Linguistic domain

Interestingly, although the participants were foreign language undergraduates, and the interviews centred around their experiences of learning an L2 in an online context, there was little reference to features in the linguistic domain. The few references were predominantly related to the register of speaking in an online context. This does have implications for linguistic choices, although this was not specifically addressed. For example, one participant commented: ‘Speaking on these Zoom things … everything’s a lot more polite … It’s a bit more of … a detachment from the personal side of things’ (4). This notion of politeness in online communication was compared to interaction in a face-to-face context where: In person … it’s more like you’re just having a conversation rather than being asked questions (3). The sense of needing to communicate in a 'polite' register may be due to the ‘awkwardness’ or inauthentic interaction which can take place in the ERT context, where F2F interactions and activities were often merely moved online. It is also connected to the themes of interactional communication which we discuss below.

Although participants did not reflect on accuracy of language, the theme of choice of appropriate language, such as grammar or vocabulary, is implicitly referenced across a number of domains in the framework. In particular, choice of language is connected to engaging an audience and interactional skills which we refer to below.

I think it’s so important to keep the audience engaged and a big part of that might be … changing slides often … changing the topics or changing the imagery a lot … introducing different medias … variation of … discussion topics. (6)

Cognitive domain

A crucial dimension of foreign language learning is the opportunity to ask questions and ask for clarification. This overlaps to a certain extent with interaction and turn-taking, part of the socio-emotional domain below, which was the predominant theme in the study. Participants generally found that the online space restricted or inhibited this important part of language learning. For example, one participant commented: I find it more awkward to ask to repeat or … ask for more clarification … In person, it’s a lot easier … for the teachers to ask for just follow up questions (4). There is a sense here that the interaction online is transactional rather than interactional and the student feels unable or is reluctant to ask for clarification, potentially impacting on their language learning process.

As part of the online learning, students made presentations either individually or in groups. Asking questions as part of the presentation activity was maintained in the online context. One student commented: We’ve had group presentations that are assessed, where you have to … listen to other people’s and … be able to ask questions about it (7). Structure was referred to in terms of engaging the audience, again part of interactional skills which we will include in the socio-emotional domain below.

Social-emotional domain

The strongest theme found in the data with respect to language learning was the social-emotional domain. In particular, interaction, turn-taking and confidence to interact overlapped with each other and the challenges highlighted were often as a result of the technological constraints of the online space. For example, technical issues could impact on the ability to hear and listen to others. As noted above, interaction is fundamental in SLA. Learners need to be able to try out language and receive feedback from peers or teachers. However, one participant highlighted their experiences of what they refer to as 'transactional' (i.e. to convey information, Brown and Yule 1983) online interaction. ‘In person … it’s a lot easier to bounce off other people rather than online, you kind of have to wait for someone to speak and … that is very transactional’ (4). In this case, transactional communication limited learning potential by restricting opportunities for online interaction.

Participants also commented further on the challenges of interacting in an online environment. In particular, the lack of visual cues made it difficult for students to be aware of turn-taking, i.e. who is about to speak, or who wants to speak. Students may have been concerned about interrupting their peers and lecturers. This was highlighted by one of the participants:

I find it more embarrassing online because of the awkward silences in between who’s going to talk, if anyone’s going to talk. In person, you can kind of judge … if someone’s … looking like they’re gonna say something. But online … you know, the delay, you might say something and overcut someone. (2)

Whilst these challenges may be true for students of any discipline learning online, as noted throughout this paper, reluctance to interact and speak can impede the development of L2 oral skills. Students’ use of the technology led to further restrictions on interactional online communication (Brown and Yule 1983), in particular, to the building up of ideas as a whole group. One participant highlighted these challenges:

It’s hard to build on their [peers'] point because often online people would turn their microphone on and then just say everything they wanna say and then turn it off. And perhaps then it was harder to get involved in that question and conversation. (3)

Cumulative interaction was limited as students turned their microphones on and off, rendering interaction less spontaneous and potentially more stressful.

Participants highlighted the way in which confidence was connected with many of the challenges already presented, particularly audience awareness and turn-taking due to the online context. For example, one participant explains how confidence was contingent on turn-taking awareness and norms in the online context: ‘I think you need a little bit more confidence to be … the first person who talks’ (2). Furthermore, another participant felt that confidence in speaking was restricted by the inability to get a sense of the audience: ‘You can’t gauge the room like you could in person’ (7).

Lack of confidence was also linked to the sense of awkwardness that participants mentioned when considering the challenges of speaking online. If students feel embarrassed, or awkward, then this can impact on their confidence to participate in online activities. Participants again referenced the absence of body language, as well as the technical issues in time delays, which caused further awkwardness. One participant commented on the time delay and the awkward silences: ‘I definitely found that … when I’ve been online in classes that the teachers ask something, it takes a while for anyone to respond’ (4). The delay in response from students may well have been due to the awkwardness, and other reasons highlighted above relating to thelack of visual cues. This can inhibit confidence in participating online.

In this section we have presented foreign language learners’ experiences of speaking in an online context. In summary, it is clear that speaking in an online context is experienced as significantly and qualitatively different from academic speaking in the physical classroom. Although we have presented the results according to the four domains of the Oracy Skills Framework, the data suggests that they are interlinked, and it is difficult to isolate singular skills. In particular, a strong theme which is threaded across all the domains, and which has a considerable impact on students’ confidence, willingness, and ability to participate in online speaking activities is the lack of visual cues and the challenges of interactional skills such as turn-taking and initiating.

Discussion

In this section, we draw on these key findings to make two main adaptations to the current Oracy Skills Framework. First, we highlight which of the current identified oracy skills foreign language learners need to draw on to be effective in online communication. Second, we suggest additional oracy skills within the four domains which can enhance foreign language learners’ online communication and mitigate some of the challenges highlighted in the data.

Oracy skills

In this study we set out to explore undergraduate foreign language students’ experiences of L2 academic speaking in an online environment, particularly in online synchronous learning. The most striking finding was the impact of the absence of visual cues, body language and other physical features which we rely on in F2F communication, and which are important for students in interaction (Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia 2021) and particularly important for foreign language learners (Walsh 2006). The importance of interaction skills, such as turn-taking, were clearly articulated by our participants, and this was coupled with experiences of challenges and tensions in carrying out these crucial interaction skills in an online environment. Interaction in the online space was deemed more transactional than interactional, resulting in a more teacher-fronted learning environment, with students less willing to share opinions and engage in debate. In an L2 learning context, the teacher’s role in eliciting and guiding the interaction is key (Walsh 2014). However, in the online space, teachers may struggle to elicit responses from students (Qi, Liao, and Zhao 2021), thereby restricting opportunities for interaction. All these factors impact on students’ confidence in participating in academic speaking online. Confidence is a crucial aspect of language learning and is often underpinned by perceived abilities in other oracy skills. The classroom dynamics also affect students’ confidence and willingness to communicate resulting in a lack of interaction. The limitations of the online space for developing key oracy skills for foreign language learning can be summed up by Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia (2021, 9): ‘the lack of social contact impacts negatively on the atmosphere, which in turn has a negative effect on motivation, group dynamics, direct interaction, participation and agency, which ultimately hinders learning’.

Working towards a digital Oracy Skills Framework

Informed by the data from this study, we discuss those oracy skills for L2 learning which are pertinent in an online environment and those skills we believe are additional to the original framework (see Table 1 above). This is not to say that those we have excluded are not important. However, our aim here is to emphasise which oracy skills are particularly important for developing foreign language learning in an online environment.

Physical domain: Participants need to have a slower pace online -this includes both teachers and students - in orderto ensure comprehensibility (Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia 2021) and to take into account technical issues such as time-lapses. Similarly, clarity of pronunciation is important to compensate for connection issues. Gesture, and in particular facial expressions, need to be exaggerated as the face is often the only part of the body which can be seen when working online (in Zoom, for example) (Heron et al. 2021a; Kohnke and Moorhouse 2022).

Linguistic domain: Although accurate and appropriate vocabulary is in general important, what may be more significant is register. As a result of the potentially less relaxed and familiar environment, our participants felt the need to be more polite, more professional, and less personal.

Cognitive domain: Many of the skills in this domain are contingent upon the interaction skills such as turn-taking and initiating conversations, which are themselves impacted by the presence or absence of visual cues (Heron, Dippold, and Husain 2021b). Building on the views of others needs to be carried out more explicitly and with appropriate linguistic markers. This can avoid the need to wait for a turn. Similarly, asking questions is an important skill but requires some adaptation to the online context. Students need to be more confident and understand the importance of initiating communication in an online context (Qi, Liao, and Zhao 2021). Speakers need to be quick and concise. An additional skill is that of the ability to speak in an L2 to a screen. This is different to talking to an audience F2F and is a new skill to be developed. It can be destabilising and disconcerting to speak to a screen, particularly when other participants may have turned their cameras off (Bobkina and Romero 2020). Similarly, participants may not receive immediate feedback, either on content or language, and therefore must develop the skills to manage this (Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia 2021).

Social and emotional domain: Guiding and managing interactions are probably one of the most important digital oracy skills, as they underpin many other skills across the domains. Awareness of the difference between transactional and interactional online communication can help learners and teachers to understand when to turn on cameras and microphones, and can highlight the importance of developing skills such as interrupting and initiating to avoid awkwardness (Payne 2020). Equally, this awareness can help all participants understand that not all online learning is interactional and can allow for spaces where turning off microphones and cameras is acceptable. Tolerance for silence and wait time (Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh 2023) is an additional skill for the digital environment due to challenges with turn-taking (Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia 2021), as well as time-lapses and connection issues. Students need to develop confidence which can result from developing skills in other domains, in particular, turn-taking and having preparation time to ensure they have both the content and the language to participate.

Implications for practice

Based on the evidence above, we make a number of recommendations for practice. Whilst the context of this study is foreign language learning, the recommendations are not restricted to this particular disciplinary context and may resonate with other disciplines. First and foremost, academic speaking in an online environment requires clear and agreed classroom rules which can be part of a short induction to online learning. This involves explicit discussion and agreement about how to interact in online speaking activities. For example, due to the lack of visual cues, the desire to take a turn and nominating turns can be difficult. In such cases, a break from social norms is necessary and interrupting may need to be encouraged (Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh 2023). Second, due to a lack of spontaneity in online interaction, and the fact that many students described it as ‘awkward’, teachers need to be explicit about expectations and give preparation time (Harsch, Mueller-Karabil, and Buchminskaia 2021). This can be through pre-session preparation, or longer wait time after asking a question. Preparation time can also give students confidence in both their linguistic choices and mode of interaction. A third recommendation is that teachers and students develop a range of questioning techniques – again shared as part of the induction to online speaking – such as nomination and follow-up questions (Moorhouse, Li, and Walsh 2023). This may encourage students to respond and create a more interactive environment.

Conclusion

In this study we sought to explore foreign language undergraduate students’ experiences of academic speaking in an online environment. We have drawn on the concept of oracy and the heuristic of the Oracy Skills Framework to guide our examination of the skills students feel they need to effectively and actively interact in an online environment. A key feature of online contexts is the absence of body language which seems to have a considerable impact on the classroom dynamics, turn-taking norms, willingness to participate, and confidence. Recognising these challenges explicitly and acknowledging that students (and teachers) need certain oracy skills to compensate for the online environment can go some way to ensuring that all students have equitable access to the learning opportunities.

We recognise that this study is limited in a number of ways. First, the number of participants (seven) was small and we cannot make any strong generalisable claims based on our findings. However, our purpose in carrying out this research was to foreground students’ voices and we believe this was achievable with a small group of participants. A further limitation was the single discipline (foreign languages) represented by the data. We cannot assume that these findings reflect the experiences of undergraduate students from other disciplines, but we believe that some of the challenges highlighted in this paper will resonate across disciplines and educational contexts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Surrey Vacation Research Internship Scheme (2023).

Notes

1 FASS 22-23-071-EGA.

Appendix: Interview questions

• To what extent is your degree work is based on speaking/listening – conversations, presentations, speeches etc. Are these during lectures and seminars? Are any of these graded or part of exams? To what extent do you carry these out online?

• How did you find the online lectures and seminars – was it easy or difficult to participate, was it stressful, more/less embarrassing, successful or unsuccessful, was it hard/easy to have a fluid conversation etc. Did online lectures and seminars help or hinder your ability and confidence in academic speaking?

• Were there any specific challenges caused by online lectures/seminars that aren’t experience post online-learning? e.g. Are speeches/presentations etc. easier now, or no different?

• Have you noticed or experienced an increase in online spaces/platforms being used post-Covid? Is it something they think they will have to use/encounter in the future (in an academic or professional scope)? Do they find it important to be skilled in speaking and conversing online, or is it no different to speaking/conversing in person? Are there additional skills needed for ONLINE academic speaking?

• To what extent do you feel prepared to carry out any of these tasks online? Where / how might you get support for this? What kind of support would be useful? Would the support be different to speaking / listening in a F2F context?

• Are there any other skills you feel are important to fully participate in online speaking / listening educational events.