ASSIGNMENT 1: SUMMARY
Group Members: Naheed Binti Azhari (0715986)
Nik Izyani Bt Nik Nordin (0715784)
Melati Binti Mohd Noor (0718098)
Raihan Binti Mansor (0719576)
Section : 1
Course Code : ENGL 4740
Course Title : Computer Applications in Language Studies
Instructor : Dr. Rozina Bt. Abdul Ghani
Date Submitted: 18th January 2011
Kuliyyah : IRKHS, IIUM
According to Sanders (2006), the study of “A Comparison of Chat Room Productivity: In-class Versus Out-of-class” is purposely to evaluate out-of-class, electronic contact as an alternative to some face-to-face contact on the students who took the Spanish course at a US university. Plus, out of class participation could provide significant cost savings through distributed resource utilisation.
Methodology
In this study, students were divided into a control group and experimental group. Student in the control group spent 30 minutes of their weekly class time to complete a chat room assignment in the computer labs while students in the experimental group spent the same amount of time in chat rooms but outside of their class time. Both groups of students were asked to exchange their personal information in groups and lastly report the information on their own in formal compositions as in paper writing for the control group. As for the control group, they completed the chat room assignments during the class time, under the supervision of the instructor, in self-selected groups by using a WebCT chat room (SCMS) whereas the experimental groups needed to find their own chat sessions outside of class time and form own work groups. In contrast, this group posted their compositions in a WebCT electronic bulletin board (ACMC). For the control groups of students, their grades were based on their writing compositions not the transcripts but it was vice versa for the experimental groups. They were graded using the transcripts of their chat discussions. The instructor also did not participate in the activity although the instructors for the control group were there to help the students. They only interfered in class with direct instruction whenever grammatical errors done by majority of the students were spotted. The instructors for both groups were different. The control students were taught by three different non-native instructors while the experimental students got three instructors and the course coordinator (the author). One of the instructors was a native Spanish speaker.
Literature Review
As mentioned by Beauvois (1992), Biesenbach-Lucas & Weasenforth (2001), Chun (1994), Kelm (1992), Kern (1995), Kiesler, Siegel & McGuire (1984), and Warschaeur (1996), they agreed that text-based Computer-mediated Communication increases the students’ production by facilitating greater students’ participation, greater participation by “shy” students (Beauvois, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992) and reduces the anxiety (Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995). Then, according to Sotillo (2000), the interaction in SCMC is more interpersonal whereas it becomes more presentational in ACMC. However, there is a hindrance on the effectiveness of CALL which is the limited technology resources in the classroom.
Findings
The results were tested based on several points namely, social interaction and focus on task, spelling accuracy, and production and time on task. As a whole, both groups were equally attentive to the assigned task yet on the social interaction part, the experimental group engaged electronically more in social communication. Then, both groups were identified to have the same degree of spelling accuracy by comparing each student’s the ratio of correctly spelled Spanish words with the recognizable Spanish words. As for the production and time on task, the experimental group did better than the control group in 11 of the 16 “per-minute” calculations. Finally, the study showed an implication that greater student collaboration and responsibility resulted in greater production, in this case, the Spanish language, while preserving the class time and technology resources.
Implication to Language Learning in General
Sanders highlighted the differences between SCMC (Synchronous CMC) and ACMC (Asynchronous CMC) of which “synchronous electric communication elicits an interactive style set upon information exchange and social cohesion, whereas asynchronous electronic communication elicits formal analysis and synthesis of information.” (Sanders, 2006) and found out that ACMC resulted in the lowest oral production of all when compared to SCMC and face-to-face preparation. Hence, chat room which is performed simultaneously by students in classroom or computer lab and with the instructor presented is claimed to be more helpful and effective in Language Learning.
Apart from enhancing vocabularies, the findings of this research has basically brought forward the idea that language learning becoming more interesting to learners and give some sort of self-trust and confidence to use language naturally while at the same time enhancing vocabularies and correcting sentence structure and spelling during the lesson. Real-time CMC or SCMC not only agreeable to face-to-face context of communication, it also enables instructors or teachers to evaluate the writing skill of the learners and the learners to learn to write better.
Computer Assisted Language Learning as a Discovery Learning
Discovery learning, as suggested by numbers of learning theorists and psychologists including Jean Piaget, is a method of inquiry-based instruction and considered as a constructive approach of learning in education. Focusing on language learning though the use of technology i.e. CMC leads students to be more natural and creative yet abide by the instructions given by the teacher.
Sanders illustrated in his research that although computer and internet is used to facilitate the learning, it has found to gain effectiveness in oral achievement and proficiency (Sanders, 2006). Text-based CMC including email, chat room, etc. appears to offer several different advantages over oral discussion and writing. Students who completed the tasks of text-based CMC shown to produce an average of 58% more words during oral testing.
CMC is the process by which people create, exchange, and perceive information using networked telecommunications systems that facilitate encoding, transmitting, and decoding messages (December, 1996). Examples of CMC are e-mail, chat room, bulletin boards, computer conferencing environments, and the growing number of Web-mediated manifestations of these types of communication (Romiszowski & Mason). Some forms of CMC are purely synchronous - parties communicating at the same time such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC) - some purely asynchronous – parties communicating with a time delay such as Email, web-based bulletin boards and news group- while others discussing the possibility of combining the capabilities of virtual environments with capabilities of CMC tools to allow collaborative learning within a distributed virtual world as both facilitate the learning task (Dalgarno, 2001).
CMC justified the notion of Communicative approaches stressed that learning was a creative process of discovery, expression and development where computer based activities should focus on the use of forms rather than the forms themselves. Other than that, according to Underwood (1984), communicative CALL should also focus on teaches grammar implicitly rather than explicitly and allow student to generate original utterances rather than the prefabricated language.
Communicative CALL allows instructor not to judge student’s performance and avoid telling what is wrong and right in language use. While practicing the target language on screen will also encourage students to create an environment which using target language feels natural in face to face communication too. Discovery learning not only focuses on finding the right answer but also to stimulate student’s discussion, writing skills, and critical thinking. New way of learning motivates students to participate in class discussion, improve writing skills and develop new ideas by using computers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the chat room as one of the tool tool of CMC aided developmental of oral proficiency as the online discussion group showed significant gains when compared to the face-to-face discussion groups. The participants in chat room were conscious of the language they produced as they able to revise what they typed and that conversations in chat rooms may help students with lower memory capacities because the text remains available for review during chat sessions.
This early reseach has been discussed by previous studies by locating students in the same room while later an increasing number of CMC studies focus on allocating students from different physical locations to investigate the distance learning environments as well. Unfortunately, studies of distance learning generally show many weaknesses in reliability and validity such as a failure to control for extraneous variables and subjects who are not randomly assigned Chenoweth& Murday (2003) similarly found in this Sander’s research.
Bibliography
Dalgarno, B. (2001). Intrepertation of Constructivism and Consequences for Computer Assisted Learning. British Journal of Educational Technology , 32 (2), 183-194.
N. A. Chenoweth & K. Murday (2003). Measuring Student Learning in an Online French Course. CALICO , 20 (2), 285-314.
Sanders, R. (2006). A Comparison of Chat Room Productivity: In Class Versus Out-of- Class. CALICO , 24 (1), 59- 76.
A good summary of an interesting article. You managed to relate the findings to the important aspects of CALL ie. discovery learning. Well done.
ReplyDeleteThank You Dr. =)
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