Janine Knight, a lecturer at UIC Barcelona and a researcher at the university's Department of Applied Linguistics, has published an article on the British academic journals and books portal Taylor and Francis titled “But the computer say me the time is up: The shaping of oral turns mediated with and through the screen”.

Together with two other researchers, Melinda Dooly (UAB) and Elena Barberà (UOC), they have carried out a study on how different sophisticated digital resources (such as images, text boxes and pop-ups) that appear on an interface, can act as participants in students’ oral interaction.

As part of their research, they made audio recordings of dyads (interactions between two people) and analysed the results, which have shown that messages in a foreign language (short texts, visual signs, pop-up messages, etc.) that appear on the students' screens while they perform a task, can help bolster their oral uptake of that language. 

As such, the article reflects upon how different modes of interaction between students and technology might be harnessed to facilitate language learning and, also, the different ways in which these types of digital resources influence learners’ oral turns.

The study highlights the importance of taking these screen-based resources into account when language teachers and designers create online language learning activities to develop students’ ​conversation skills.