Since the last decade, most studies in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) have highlighted how online synchronous learning environments implement a new literacy related to multimodal communication. The environment used in our experiment is based on a synchronous audio-graphic conferencing tool. This study concerns false-beginners in an English For Specific Purposes (ESP) course, presenting a high degree of heterogeneity in their proficiency levels. An original coding scheme was developed in order to transcribe the video data into a set of users' actions, part of them being speech acts, which occurred into the different modalities of the system (aural, textchat, text editing, websites).
The paper intends to shed further light on and increase our understanding of multimodal communication structures through learner participation and learning practices. On the basis of evidence from on ongoing research investigation into online CALL literacy, it will seek to identify how learners use different modalities to produce collectively a writing task, and how the multimodal learning interaction affects the learner's focus and engagement within the learning process. The adopted methodology combines quantitative analysis of learner's participation involved in a writing task in regards to the use of multimodal tools, and qualitative analysis focusing on how the multimodal dimension of communication enhances language and learning strategies. A particular attention will be paid to the benefits of a group producing process in writing task (whether collaborative or cooperative), in terms of metacognitive strategies and social learning strategies, through self and co-evaluation practices. By looking at the relationship between how the learning tasks are designed by tutors and how they are implemented by learners, that is to say taking into account the whole perception of multimodal communication for language learning purposes, it attempts to provide a framework for evaluating the potential of such an environment for language learning.