An Investigation Into Students’ Evaluation of and Attitudes Towards Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication on Language Skills Development in Vietnamese Institutional Context

Abstract

The study explored students’ evaluation of and attitudes towards synchronous computermediated communication (SCMC) on language skills development after a fifteen-week semester ofinstruction, using quantitative and qualitative approach. One class of English level 3 of CEFR – Vietnamesestandard (B1) participated in oral role plays and one class engaged in synchronous online discussions. Theresearch participants filled out the pre- and post- questionnaires and the participants from the SCMC groupwere called for semi-structured interviews to obtain their evaluation and attitudes towards synchronouscomputer-mediated communication on language development. Analysis of the questionnaires and semistructured interviews exposed that the fifteen-week semester English intensive course contributed tostudents’ language skills development. They had positive attitudes towards SCMC and were contented withthe activities in the computer lab. Remarkably, the SCMC group felt more confident in chatting in computerlab than the role play group. It showed that doing written online discussions would intrigue learners in theirlearning English. SCMC is thus shown to be a valuable addition to the foreign language classroom.

Factors Influencing Interaction in an Online English Course in Vietnam

“…While some researchers (Chang, Liu, Sung, Lin, Chen & Cheng, 2013;Chen, 2014) claimed that learners' technical prior experience or computer/internet selfefficacy was significantly associated with course satisfaction and confidence, studies by have suggested that computer and internet self-efficacy was not a significant predictor of learners' satisfaction or perceived usefulness of an online course. Other learner-related factors were learners' availability of time, their self-regulated learning, feedback and online presence from peers and instructors Chen, 2014;Mekheimer, 2017, Pham, 2019.…”