‘Now we are teachers’: The role of small talk in student language teachers’ telecollaborative task development Melinda Dooly a, * , Vincenza Tudini b,1 a GREIP: Grup de Recerca en Ensenyament i Interaccio ´ Plurilingües (Research Centre in Teaching and Plurilingual Interaction), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, G5-107 Ciències de l’Educacio ´, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193 Barcelona, Spain b Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, School of Communication, International Studies and Languages, University of South Australia, Magill Campus, Magill 5072, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia Received 31 December 2015; received in revised form 31 May 2016; accepted 16 June 2016 Available online 16 July 2016 Abstract While a number of investigations of online language learning behaviours are available, there are currently few ‘micro’ analytic studies that explore the role of different types of small talk to complete institutional tasks online. This study focuses in particular on an institutionally- initiated, out-of-class telecollaborative Skype video exchange between two student teachers based in the US and Spain (studying to become Spanish as Foreign Language and English as Foreign Language teachers, respectively). Building upon Hudak and Maynard's (2011) proposal of four varieties of small talk (topicalized, co-topical, minimal and brief), this study looks at the way in which these student-- teachers deploy different varieties of small talk in order to advance towards a mutual, task-oriented goal during Skype sessions held over two days. The study highlights the important role of co-topical talk, which is at the same time pro-social and work-related, in preparing the ground for seemingly ‘off-topic’ topicalized small talk and the achievement of institutional teaching and learning objectives in a hybrid social-- institutional setting. It also provides evidence that topicalized small talk may promote creativity and epistemic change, leading to advancement of new ideas for elaboration during work-related talk, and implementation in a real life professional setting. © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Small talk; Telecollaboration; Conversation analysis; Social interaction; Institutional interaction; Online interaction 1. Introduction There is evidence that telecollaboration provides foreign language students with opportunities for target language use and intercultural exchange, which is likely to promote learning (Thomas et al., 2013). Online interaction between L1 and L2 speakers of foreign languages, using a range of technological tools, including dyadic and multiparty text, voice and video chat, is a core element of telecollaboration projects. Therefore researchers have begun to explore these interactions from a conversation analytic perspective, in a variety of technological--interactional settings to provide insights on how users www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Journal of Pragmatics 102 (2016) 38--53 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +34 93 581 3252. E-mail addresses: melindaann.dooly@uab.cat, melinda.dooly@gmail.com (M. Dooly), enza.tudini@unisa.edu.au (V. Tudini). 1 Tel.: +61 8 83024592; fax: +61 8 83024396. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2016.06.008 0378-2166/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.