Managing synchronous polyfocality in new media/new learning: Online language educators' instructional strategies

As more formal academic coursework moves online, especially to synchronous, multimodal sessions, the issue of directing and ensuring learner attention becomes particularly problematic. Polyfocalilty – individual and group attention distributed between and among information and communication sources and their varying modalities – becomes particularly challenging for online language education. This study set out to determine what instructional strategies online instructors are employing during their live conferencing sessions to meet such challenges. Seven online Russian language educators were interviewed concerning their practices. These instructors report instructional strategies that are addressed in the context of new media and new learning practice.