Research Question
How are "social actions organized and locally produced, in the here and now"(76)?  

Participants
The subjects of the study were 8 ESL students.  All were graduate students in Foreign Languages and Literature from Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.  They were advanced learners of reading and writing and were intermediate in speaking and listening.  The students said that they were not confident in their "linguistic knowledge for communicative purposess"(78).  The participation and motivation of the students prompted the current study.  Also, native speakers of English and non-native speakers of English participated through Webchat.  A total of 36 subjects that included:  17 native speakers of English from U.S. and Australia and 19 non-native speakers of English from Brazil, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Spain.

Methods Used
"Webchat was used during a period of one month"(78).  The Webchat was introduced as an ESL resource and used to teach both English and Internet/computer skills.  A total of almost four hours of conversation was collected.  "Sperling's ESL Chat Central was chosen because its explicit purpose is to facilitate contact among native and non-native speakers of English"(78).  Of the four hours, 2 hours and 58 minutes were recorded interactions of the 8 ESL students and the native and non-native speakers of English.  The postings were "time-stamped" to ensure accurate time sequence and reliability.

Findings
Participants used many different ways to convey paralinguistic features such as upper case letters and Emoticons.  The study participants "clearly demostrate the context relevance of Webchat in their interactions"(86).

Usefulness
The study was useful in facilitating interactions among native speakers of English and non-native speakers of English and the ESL students gained more confidence in conversational skills in English.

My Evaluation
I was confused about who was doing what because the study indirectly answered the research question.  Were there two studies going on at the same time?