Navigating Turn-Taking System in an Online Synchronous Course: The Case of Gender and Language Proficiency

English learners' turn-taking system has been impacted due to the sudden shift from traditional face-to-face classes to virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of the study was to obtain a closer understanding of how students and teachers constructed turns during their interactions. The data were collected from the audio transcripts of 55 students of two intermediate and two advanced EFL classrooms that were held on the Zoom platform. After collecting the data, they were transcribed through the modified version of Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson's Model and analyzed by the SPSS, through the Chi-Square tests. The results showed that the students were mostly addressed by their teachers. Moreover, the male students took more turns, and there was a meaningful difference in the turn-taking system of the intermediate and advanced EFL learners. Therefore, both gender and the level of proficiency influenced the patterns of turn-taking in online classrooms. The results might contribute to raising teacher awareness towards the preferred turn-taking patterns in a virtual synchronous classroom.