Interactional behavior of foreign language learners in synchronous CMC: Are they really interacting?

Abstract

The aim of this exploratory study was to better understand some of the factors that influenced language learning using asynchronous computer-mediated communication, by analysing interactional behaviour of foreign language learners. The participants were learners of Japanese at an Australian secondary school and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners at a Japanese high school, who communicated through a bulletin board system (BBS) using Japanese and English, to complete weekly tasks designed to develop understanding of the participants’ cultures. The messages on a BBS were analysed to see if meaningful interactions occurred between the participants, by determining whether the learners actually referred back to previous messages to provide appropriate answers, or whether learners simply wrote a series of monologues without reference to messages written by their interlocutors. The findings show that the threads of messages were often incoherent, and students did not always reply to requests for information posted by their overseas counterparts.

Online intercultural collaborations using wikis: An analysis of students’ comments and factors affective project success

“…The students followed these instructions and made only one correction -a visitor to an English-language page noticed a spelling error in their own understanding of the abbreviated name of the Japanese university from HiruGaku to HiroGaku. Perhaps it can be assumed that the errors were not serious enough to affect the communications and understanding of the participants' posts, but this survey supports the findings of Brandl (2012), Lee (2011), andTanaka-Ellis (2011) that students rarely correct one another's linguistic errors within such collaborations.…”

“…In contrast, asynchronous collaborations have been demonstrated to be overwhelmingly beneficial to all students, especially beginners (Chun, 2011;Hirotani, & Lyddon, 2013;Ito, 2011;Nielsen, 2013;and Tanaka-Ellis, 2011). Asynchronous collaborations allow students to plan, create, and revise their work prior to posting it to the collaboration platform; often the posts are much longer than those seen in synchronous interactions (Chun, 2011).…”

“…Having time to thoroughly consider their input affords students the opportunity to expand their language skills because they can learn new vocabulary or new grammatical constructs which allow them to say what they want to in the interaction (Hirotani & Lyddon, 2013). Having time to consider and plan one's posts is especially beneficial for beginning language learners who may not have developed sufficient language abilities to express themselves as required by the collaboration tasks (Nielsen, 2013;Tanaka-Ellis, 2011).…”

“…In analyzing how students responded to their tasks and the language they used, Brandl (2012), Lee (2011), andTanaka-Ellis (2011) found that students rarely corrected one another's linguistic errors within the collaborations, nor did students' language improve when their errors were pointed out by others. These findings suggest that online collaborations are more beneficial for learning about target cultures than for directly improving one's language abilities; however, the positive effects of the opportunity for students to interact with native speakers cannot be discounted.…”

“…All of the project wiki pages and comments can be viewed at <http://aomoriuwrf.pbworks.com>. An explanation of the project's beginning and conduct from 2011 to 2013 will be provided along with a discussion of the success of the communications based on the presence of unanswered questions (as in Tanaka-Ellis, 2011), and then a review of the types of comments and interactions conducted by the students in both their native language (l1) and their l2. Finally, lessons learned will be shared with suggestions of how language teachers can begin successful, online intercultural collaborations in their own classrooms.…”