Teletandem (Telles, 2009) is a model of telecollaboration in which pairs of foreign language students from different countries meet regularly and virtually to learn each other's languages. Within this context, participants are expected to help their partners learn by providing feedback. The multimodal nature of this type of environment, however,…

This paper reports a study on politeness strategies of Brazilian Portuguese speakers and American English speakers regarding their responses to compliments. The aim of this research is to gain an insight into the politeness characteristics of Brazilian Portuguese speakers by analyzing how Brazilian students react when receiving compliments. It…

Teletandem is a telecollaborative learning context that involves pairs of native (or competent) speakers of different languages interacting through voice, text and webcam image. Using Skype, each participant plays the role of learner for half an hour, speaking and practising the language of his/her partner. This paper focuses on a teletandem…