Abstract:
Korean
secondary EFL
classrooms have suffered severely from limited
opportunities for authentic language interaction,
which Integrationists claim is necessary for
language acquisition. The literature and previous
research suggest that Computer Mediated Communication
(CMC) can provide many of the alleged benefits
ascribed to the Interaction Hypothesis. This
study focuses on the viability of CMC in the
Korean secondary EFL classroom and examines
how CMC can provide Korean learners with increased
opportunities to engage in meaningful negotiations
in English.
Twenty pre-intermediate EFL students
participated in eight rounds of CMC, which asked
them to chat in pairs using a synchronous chat
program MS Chat 3.0 and to solve a series of
tasks that required cooperation with their assigned
partner. They were also provided with a questionnaire
post survey, which gathered perceived advantages
and disadvantages of synchronous CMC using MS
Chat 3.0. Jigsaw and information gap tasks were
used to collect the data. All written transactions
from 10 dyads were recorded and printed out.
The results show that Korean learners
do engage in appropriate meaning negotiation
for their foreign language development through
task based synchronous CMC. The results also
provide further confirmation for Pica et al.'s
findings related to task types. Information
gap tasks appeared as productive in stimulating
negotiations of meaning as jigsaw tasks, and
picture-drawing tasks offered a significantly
higher occurrence of negotiations than other
tasks. The findings demonstrate that task based
synchronous CMC can provide Korean learners
with more opportunities to engage in meaning
negotiation in the target language, and illustrate
that pictures can play a significant role in
promoting negotiations. The findings also suggest
that CMC using a chat program can be an effective
method for facilitating the development of interactive
competence, but do also indicate that the effectiveness
of synchronous CMC on the development of grammatical
competence is uncertain.
This research thus suggests that task
based synchronous CMC is an effective way of
constructing an interactive learning environment
in which learners can communicate with each
other in the target language and generate meaning
negotiation, especially in the Korean EFL context.
Table
of Contents
Abstract
……………………………………………………………
Table of Contents …………………………………………………
Declaration …………………………………………………………
Acknowledgments…………………………………………………
Chapter
1. Introduction.
1.1 Background to research …………………………………..
1.2 Research Aims …………………………………………
1.3 Outline of thesis ……………………………………………
Chapter
2. Review of literature.
2.1 Classroom interaction ………………………………………
2.2 Comprehensible output in the Context of
Interaction……
2.3 Meaning negotiation and Language Learning
……………
2.4 CMC and Language Learning ……………………………
Chapter
3. Methodology.
3.1 Research Approach ………………………………………
3.2 The Setting ………………………………………………
3.3 Participants …………………………………………….
3.4 Instruments …………………………………………….
3.4.1 MS Chat 3.0 ………………………………………….
3.4.2 Communication Tasks …………………………………
3.5 Procedures ………………………………………………
3.6 Methods of data Analysis …………………………………
Chapter
4. Results.
4.1 Linguistic Features ………………………………………
4.1.1 Turns and Negotiations …………………………..
4.1.2 The Nature of Negotiation Routines ……………..
4.1.3.Other Features …………………………………….
4.2 Students' Engagement ……………………………………
4.3 Students Attitudes ………………………………………
Chapter
5. Discussion
5.1 The Negotiation of Meaning …………………..
5.2 Task Types and Meaning Negotiation …………
5.3 Interactive Competence ………………………..
5.4 Grammatical Competence …………………….
5.5 Increased Motivation and Participation ……….
Chapter
6. Conclusion
Tables.
Table 1.
Table 2
References
Appendices.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Chapter
1. Introduction.
1.1 Background to Research.
As international communication increases in
the trend towards globalization, the demand
for communicative competence in English is increasing
more and more in Korea. Teaching English in
Korean schools, however, fails to develop English
proficiency for communication. The deficiency
of communicative competence in English appears
to result from the lack of interpersonal interaction
in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning
context where English is not used as a means
of communication.
Interpersonal
Interaction is regarded as a fundamental requirement
of Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Many researchers
have claimed that language instruction requires
the development of interactional competence
and interaction is the key to language teaching
for communication (Kramsch, 1986; Rivers, 1987;
Ellis, 1988). The interactionist perspectives
in SLA have placed considerable attention on
the role of interaction in general, and meaning
negotiation in particular, with respect to the
conditions considered theoretically important
for SLA. In particular, Pica (1994) claims that
meaning negotiation, as a particular way of
modifying interaction, can accomplish a great
deal for SLA by helping learners make input
comprehensible and modify their own output,
and by providing opportunities for them to access
second language (L2) form and meaning. In accordance
with this Interactionist perspective, the conditions
for SLA are crucially enhanced by having L2
learners negotiate meaning with either native
speakers (NS) or non-native speakers (NNS) (Long
& Robinson, 1998). Therefore it is considered
very important for L2 teachers to construct
an interactive learning environment in which
learners can associate with each other in the
target language and negotiate meaning through
interaction.
However,
this kind of language interaction rarely appears
in the Korean EFL context. Especially, Korean
secondary classrooms have suffered severely
from large sizes and limited opportunities for
authentic language interaction, which is said
to be necessary for language acquisition. In
foreign language situations, it is very difficult
to have exposure to the target language outside
of the classroom. With this limitation, task
based activities are provided for Korean learners
to generate 'modified interaction.' In the Korean
homogenous class, however, students frequently
revert to their native language, L1, rather
than English to resolve miscommunications, even
in face-to-face oral exchanges. Consequently,
this often does not lead to meaningful negotiations
in English.
Another
consideration within the Korean teaching context
is that the advent of the computer has changed
educational environments. CALL (Computer Assisted
Language Learning) has been spotlighted in terms
of learner centered learning, interactive collaborative
learning and learner autonomy, which are based
on Constructivism in which learning is viewed
as an ongoing state, constructed through individuals'
cognition and social interaction. Currently
computer networks are being used in language
teaching and learning. The use of global communication
networks such as e-mail is increasingly significantly.
In particular, the secondary school students
in Korea, as a "computer generation",
have great interest in computer chatting and
enjoy networked communication even outside the
classroom, albeit in their first language.
These
aspects of the Korean teaching context generated
two ideas from which this research begins: 1)
how to provide Korean learners with more opportunities
to engage in meaning negotiation in English,
and 2) how to combine their interest in computer-mediated
chatting with their English learning.
The
literature and previous research in this area
suggests that Computer-Mediated Communication
(CMC) can provide many advantages over face-to-face
oral exchanges, such as strong motivation, equal
participation and the increase of target language
production (Kelm, 1992; Beauvois, 1992; Kern,
1995; Chun, 1998). In addition, it is suggested
that synchronous CMC can facilitate the development
of socio-linguistic and interactive competence
(Kern, 1995; Chun, 1998). Moreover, two recent
studies demonstrate that incidental negotiations
occur in networked NNS-NS discussions, i.e.
via CMC (Pellettieri, 1999; Blake, 2000). In
particular, Blake (2000) suggests that CMC can
provide many of the alleged benefits ascribed
to the Interaction Hypothesis (refer 2.3, p.19)
with greatly increased possibilities for access
outside the classroom environment.
With
respect to the Interactionist perspectives,
the discussion on the Korean EFL situation and
the advantages of CMC, it is anticipated that
CMC will meet the needs of the Korean secondary
EFL classrooms. Little research, however, has
been conducted into the effects of CMC in the
EFL context. Accordingly, it is necessary to
explore the viability of CMC in the Korean secondary
EFL classroom. The outcome of such exploration
is expected to suggest a way of constructing
an interactive learning environment within which
the learners can associate with each other in
the target language and generate meaning negotiation,
especial in the Korean EFL context.
1.2
Research Aims
This study therefore, examines how CMC may be
able to provide Korean learners with increased
opportunities to engage in meaningful negotiations
in English. For this purpose, this research
aims: 1) to identify how CMC may enhance Second
Language Acquisition, 2) to investigate whether
Korean learners engage in appropriate meaning
negotiation for SLA through CMC using a chat
program, 3) to describe the ways in which learners
engage in such meaning negotiations: 4) to investigate
the student's attitudes towards CMC.
1.3 Outline of Thesis
This thesis has six chapters. The first two
chapters provide a background for the research
and identify how CMC can enhance Second Language
Acquisition through the literature review on
Second Language Acquisition and Computer Mediated
Communication. The next two chapters discuss
the research methodology, with the focus on
mixed methods, and present findings of the experiments
and survey. The final two chapters discuss the
findings in light of the research literature
and set out the conclusion of the research and
suggestions for Korean secondary school teachers
of English.
Chapter
2. Review of the Literature.
2.1 Classroom Interaction
Many
researchers consider interpersonal interaction
a fundamental requirement of second language
acquisition. Kramsch (1986) claims that language
instruction requires the development of interactional
competence, and suggests a three-step approach
to improve natural discourse and to build interactional
competence in the classroom. The first step
is to work on teacher/student oriented interaction,
during which the students practice the target
language with their teacher as a conversational
partner. The second step is partner centered
interaction, during which students learn to
negotiate meaning with partners in the classroom
as well as how to generate meaning. In the third
step of the interactional approach, students
practice ways to interact without violating
social and cultural constraints that learners
meet in natural conversations.
Rivers
(1987) treats interaction as the key to language
teaching for communication. She defines interaction
as the facility in using a language when their
attention is focused on conveying and receiving
authentic messages. She suggests ways to promote
interaction in the language classroom such as,
for example, avoiding teacher-dominated classrooms,
being cooperative and considering affective
variables. Ellis (1988) also states that classroom
second language development can be successful
when a teacher not only provides an input with
x features of a target language, but when the
reciprocal interaction occurs as well.
Recently,
'genuine' or 'natural' discourse has become
a goal of communicative approaches in the second
or foreign language classroom. Kramsch (1986)
suggests that communicative competence must
include the ability to express, interpret and
negotiate meanings. She advocates that, for
as natural a communicative situation as possible,
students must be given opportunities in the
classroom to interact with both the teacher
and fellow students through turn-taking, giving
feedback to speakers, asking for clarification,
and starting and ending conversations. Nunan
(1987:137) also suggests that "genuine
communication is characterized by the uneven
distribution of information, the negotiation
of meaning through clarification requests and
confirmation checks, topic nomination and negotiation
by more than one speaker, and the right of interlocutors
to decide whether to contribute to an interaction
or not."
Genuine
conversations, however, rarely appear in typical
Korean classrooms of L2 learning. Typical classroom
exchanges are described as the sequence of the
classroom lesson; teacher initiation, student
response, and teacher follow up (IRF) (Nunan,
1987). According to Nunan (1987) the repetition
of the IRF cycle is a major reason for the absence
of genuine communication in classroom language
lessons. Dinsmore (1985) also reports that IRF
cycle dominates the interaction between student
and teacher, even in the EFL classrooms, and
argues that the IRF cycle is incompatible with
the communicative approach.
On
the whole, in traditional L2 classrooms, individual
language learners receive limited number of
speaking turns, partly because in most classrooms
a large number of language learners have to
share speaking turns. Especially in classrooms
where the teacher monopolizes the discourse
and in which the information predominantly flows
in one direction (from teacher to student learners),
the less assertive and less proficient learners
receive minimal output opportunities (Chaudron,
1988; Ellis, 1990; Johnson, 1995), In- particular,
language learners are rarely pushed through
negotiation of meaning (Lyster & Ranta,
1997; Van den Branden, 1997).
In
a study of the relationship between different
types of conversational interaction and SLA,
Mackey (1999) highlights the importance of active
participation in the interaction, suggesting
that one of the features that best interacts
with the learner-internal actors to facilitate
language development, is learner participation
in the interaction. The teacher's role in the
second language classroom, therefore, is to
construct an interactive learning environment
in which learners can associate with each other
and generate meaning in the target language.
2.2
Comprehensible Output in the Context of Interaction.
Whereas Krashen took the position that comprehensible
input is a necessary condition for SLA, Swain
(1985; 249) proposed the 'Comprehensible Output
Hypothesis', arguing that comprehensible input
is insufficient for successful SLA, and that
learners must also be given the opportunity
to produce compressible output. According to
Swain (1985:252), the role of output is "to
provide opportunities for contextualized, meaningful
use, to test out hypothesis about the target
language, and to move the learner form a purely
semantic analysis of the language to a syntactic
analysis of it." This hypothesis has been
refined and developed by Swain and Lapkin (1995),
who claim that the activity of producing the
target language is a mechanism that enables
learners to notice a gap (a linguistic problem)
in their existing interlanguage capacity. This
noticing pushes them to consciously reprocess
their performance in order to produce modified
output. Swain (1995, 1998) argues that language
production gives learners the opportunity to
reprocess and modify their performance toward
comprehensible output and prompts learners to
stretch their current interlanguage capacity
in order to fill the gap, and that having to
actually produce language forces learners to
think about syntax.
A
recent study (Izumi, Bigelow, Fujiwara, &
Fearnow, 1999) tested the Output Hypothesis
by examining the effects of output on noticing
and SLA. The results of this study failed to
reveal the effects of output on noticing of
linguistic form. The following study (Izumi
& Bigelow, 2000), investigated the noticing
function of output again, examining whether
output promotes noticing and SLA. The data shows
that output did not always succeed in drawing
the learner's attention to the target form.
Although the results show no unique effects
of output, extended opportunities to produce
output and receive relevant input were found
to be crucial in improving learners' use of
the grammatical structure.
Van
den Branden (1997) studied the effects of negotiation
on language learner's output. The results of
this study revealed the extent to which, and
the ways in which, the participants interactionally
modified their output during negotiations were
determined by the type of negative feedback
they received, and that negotiations also had
significant delayed effects. From these results
Van den Braden (1997; 626-627) argues that L2
learners enhanced performance is primarily determined
not by their level of language proficiency,
but by the frequency of negotiation routines
that they are engaged in. He emphasizes that
negotiations pushes the learners' production
level significantly higher. According to his
claim (19997; 630), during negotiations learners
can be pushed to the production of output that
is more complete and accurate, far more than
merely comprehensible. Similarly, Lyster and
Ranta (1997:42) maintain that "negotiation
involves… the provision of corrective feedback
that encourages self-repair involving accuracy
and precision and not merely comprehensibility."
On
the other hand, Shehadeh (1999) investigated
the role of NNS-NNS interaction and, more importantly,
the role of self-initiation in providing opportunities
for the production of comprehensible output.
He examined the ability of NNSs to modify their
output toward comprehensibility in the context
of NS-NNS and NNS-NNS interactions and the degree
to which such modified comprehensible output
was other or self initiated. The results showed
that most repairs were self initiated and that
NNS-NNS interactions produced more other initiations
and other initiated modified comprehensible
outputs. He claims that the frequencies of these
modified comprehensible outputs support the
importance of modification toward comprehensible
output as a process of SLA. In addition, he
maintains that the NNSs ability to accomplish
self adjusted comprehensible output rather than
other adjusted comprehensible output is evidence
that supports Swain's claim that the comprehensible
output forces the learner to move from semantic
analysis of the target language to a syntactic
analysis of it. From these findings, Shehadeh
(1999: 665) suggests important pedagogical implications
that "the role of L2 learner's output should
be extended beyond just being a source of obtaining
feedback in order to generate more comprehensible
input"' and that learner based adjustments
(modification) should be encourage over teacher
or peer based adjustments.
Based
on the output hypothesis, it would seem that,
for interaction to facilitate SLA, learners
need to have opportunities for output during
interaction. In many second language classrooms
as well as naturalistic contexts, however, learners
often observe the output without producing their
own output. Taking all the results from the
aforementioned empirical studies, whether they
support Swain's output hypothesis wholly or
partially, it seems that opportunities to produce
output are crucial in improving learner's use
of the target structure, and negotiation promotes
output production. The pedagogical implication
of these findings for language learning will
be that learners need to participate in interaction
that offers opportunities for negotiation to
take place.
2.3.
Meaning Negotiation and Language Learning.
With the advent of interactionist perspectives
in SLA, considerable attention has been placed
on the role of interaction in general, and meaning
negotiation in particular, with respect to the
conditions considered theoretically important
for SLA, such as the learner's comprehension
of input, access to feedback, and production
of modified output. (Gass, 1997: Long, 19996:
Pica, 1994). Many researchers have proposed
that negotiation of meaning is inevitable between
speaker and hearer, because the process of communication
needs expression of a message, its interpretation
and negotiation of its meaning. The term 'negotiation'
is defined as "the modification and restructuring
of interaction that occurs when learners and
interlocutors anticipate, perceive, or experience
difficulties in message comprehensibility"
(Pica, 1994:494). In Gass's words, "negotiation
refers to communication in which participants'
attention is focused on resolving a communication
problem as opposed to communication in which
there is a free flowing exchange of information"
(1997:107).
Pica
(1994) claims that meaning negotiation, as a
particular way of modifying interaction, can
accomplish a great deal of SLA by helping learners
make input comprehensible and modify their own
output and by providing opportunities for them
to access L2 form and meaning. Long also states
that negotiation of meaning benefits comprehension
and that negative feedback obtained during negotiation
may facilitate L2 development, at least for
vocabulary, morphology, and language specific
syntax. As cited above, these negotiations tend
to increase input comprehensibility through
language modifications such as simplifications,
elaboration's, confirmation and comprehension
checks, clarification requests, or recasts.
These language modifications provide the L2
learner with negative feedback to facilitate
L2 development (Gass, 1997: Long, 1996.) Long
and Robinson (1988:22) have subsumed this process
of negotiation of meaning under the Interaction
Hypothesis, which states that the conditions
for SLA are crucially enhanced by having L2
learners negotiate meaning with either an NS
or NNS.
In
accordance with the Interactionist Theory, linguistic
input needs to become intake in order to be
acquired by the learner. 'Intake' refers to
input that the learner has comprehended semantically
and syntactically (Schmidt, 1990). Second, input
is more likely to become intake if it is noticed,
and therefore Schmidt (1990) hypothesizes that
noticing is necessary for acquisition. Third,
learners are most likely to notice linguistic
form during interaction. The principles for
making intake from input through noticing have
bee introduced as the construct of focus on
form (Long, 1988). This type of negotiation
is also described in the literature as Focus
on Form, which is defined by Long and Robinson
as follows.
Focus on form refers to how [the learner's]
focal attentional resources are allocated. Although
there are degrees of attention, and although
attention to form and attention to meaning are
not always mutually exclusive, during an otherwise
meaning focused [interaction], focus on form
often consists of a shift of attention to linguistic
code features…triggered by perceived problems
with comprehension or production (19988:23).
Negotiated
interaction and the negotiation of meaning have
been taken as the basis for the provision of
comprehensible input (Gass & Varounis, 1994;
Holliday, 1995; Long, 1996; Pica, Young and
Doughty, 1987). Some other SLA researchers have
argued for the importance of negotiated interaction
and the negotiation of meaning for the production
of comprehensible output as well (Pica, Holliday,
Lewis, Berducci & Newman, 1991; Pica, 1994;
Van den Branden, 1997; Shehadeh, 1999). Putting
all academic arguments together, negotiations
of meaning in interaction are important, not
just because they provide NNSs with an opportunity
to receive input that they have made comprehensible
through negotiation, but also because they provide
them with an opportunity for interlanguage modification
and comprehensible output.
On
the other hand, Ellis (1990) indicates that
L2 acquisition occurs most efficiently when
learners have plentiful opportunities to negotiate
meaning whenever there is some kind of communication
difficulty, but that the evidence to support
this is indirect and meager. Sato (1986) argues
that the role of interaction in language acquisition
is far more complex than has been conceived
thus far. Pica (194) also mentions that negotiations
cannot account for all L2 learning, and therefore
it cannot be really counted on any more than
anything else can be counted on. Therefore,
as Long (1996) points out, it is advisable to
see the role of interaction, not as a cause
of acquisition but a facilitator. Taken as whole,
it seems that meaning negotiation can have positive
effects on L2 development. Then, what are the
conditions for promoting the negotiation of
meaning?
The
benefits of negotiation of meaning were first
demonstrated for NNS-NS oral exchanges (Holiday,
1995; Long, 1981), but further investigations
have shown that these benefits hold true for
NNS-NNS oral discussions as well (Gass &
Varounis, 1994). Gass & Varounis (1994)
examined NS-NS, NS-NNS, and NNS-NNS conversations,
noting that negotiation of meaning is most prevalent
among NNS-NNS pairs. Similarly, Shehadeh's study
(1999) shows that a greater amount of extended
negotiation work took place in NNS-NNS interactions
than in NS-NNS interactions for the modified
comprehensible outputs produced. According to
Shehadeh (1999: 685), " this reflects the
pressure placed on NNSs in the NNS-NNS interaction
to stretch and exploit their interlanguage capacity
to the limit in order to make themselves understood."
Furthermore, a study by Blake (2000) demonstrates
that incidental negotiations commonly occurred
in networked NNS-NNS discussions through CMC.
According
to relevant studies, students engage in more
negotiation for meaning in the small group than
in the teacher fronted whole class settings
(Doughty & Pica, 1984). NNS-NNS dyads engage
in as much or more negotiation work than NS-NNS
dyads, and learners negotiate more with other
learners from different first language backgrounds
(Varounis & Gass, 1983). In addition, two-way
tasks which require information exchange by
both or all parties produce significantly more
negotiation work than one-way tasks (Doughty
& Pica, 1984). In particular, Pica, Kanagy,
and Falodun (1993) have predicted that jigsaw
and information gap tasks will promote more
of these negotiations than other task stimuli.
Taken together, it is inferred that the different
level of L2 proficiency, the different L1 background,
NNS-NNS dyads and two way tasks promote more
negotiation of meaning.
The
implication of this discussion on meaning negotiation
for language classrooms is that meaning negotiation
can be promoted, even in Korean secondary EFL
classrooms where learners have little contact
with native speakers and are of the same first
language background, if the teacher constructs
the NNS-NNS dyads environment with two way tasks.
However, Korean students usually use their first
language to solve their miscommunication (conversation
breakdown) in real exchanges. Accordingly it
may be more effective to employ synchronous
CMC (see section 2-4 p 25) in the Korean secondary
EFL classrooms as a way to promote meaning negotiation,
since students are forced to use English through
an English chat program.
2.4
CMC and Language Learning
In light of Interactionist perspectives, the
advantage of CMC is that it can collect interaction
data in which learners are engaged in meaning
negotiation procedures on the basis of Interactionist
research on task based language learning.
Computer
Mediated Communication (CMC) is defined as "
communication that takes place between human
beings via the instrumentality of computers"
(Herring, 1996). Warschauer (1999), on the other
hand, restricted the term to modes in which
people send messages to individual groups. Murray
(2000) restricted Herring's definition by modifying
communication to include only text-based modes.
This definition also allows for the binary division
of CMC into synchronous and asynchronous modes.
In synchronous modes of CMC, such as chat programs,
communication occurs in real time; participants
react simultaneously in the same session. Asynchronous
modes of CMC, such as e-mail and bulletin boards,
do not require participants to be on line at
the same time.
The
previous research on CMC has demonstrated several
advantages of using CMC over face-to-face oral
exchanges. These studies show that, during CMC
chats, learners report reduced anxiety about
participating, and increased motivation for
using the target language, both of which result
in greater quantities of target language production
(Kelm, 1992; Beauvois, 1992; Kern, 1995, Chun,
1998). These findings point to the suggestion
that synchronous CMC allows language learners
to be involved in an active learning environment,
where they can experience more opportunities
for the input of a target language and modify
their current interlanguage capacities.
Warschauer
(1995/1996) also indicated that networked CMC
generated more equal participation among language
learners than oral discussions did. In addition,
he analyzed current research on CMC according
to five features and stated that text based
and computer mediated interaction has value
in one to one communication, citing Koonenberg's
high school French studies (Warschauer, 1997).
Holiday (1997) also asserts that participation
in on line literacy via networked computers
empowers language learners in several ways and
enhances their language learning capacities.
Firstly, learners are empowered because they
are able to communicate with their peers and
take charge of their literacy experiences. Secondly,
the network of collaborative support and appreciation
learners receive from their peers provides a
highly stimulating environment for learning
literacy skills (Holliday, 1995).
Current
research also indicates that synchronous CMC
can facilitate the development of socio-linguistic
and interactive competence (Kern, 1995; Chun,
1997). Kern (1995), comparing the amounts of
different discourse patterns and the characteristics
of discourse for the networked computer mediated
discussion and oral discussion, reports that
students in the networked computer mediated
communication produced more turns and sentences
and used a greater variety of discourse structures
than students in the oral discussion did. Chun
(1998) also illustrates that CMC is an effective
medium for facilitating the acquisition of the
discourse skills and interactive competence.
His study, investigating the language production
of first and second semester learners of German
shows that learners produced a wide range of
discourse structures and speech acts, and that
the learners' interact directly with each other,
with minimal pressure on response time and without
the psychological pressure of making mistakes
or looking foolish.
In particular, and as opposed to previous research,
two studies analyzed the advantages of synchronous
CMC within the context of the Interaction Hypothesis,
focusing on the role of the negotiation of meaning
in terms of either modified input or modified
output. Pellettieri (1999), investigating whether
synchronous CMC chatting holds the same potential
for the development of grammatical competence
as does oral interaction, demonstrated that
task based synchronous CMC, such as chatting,
can foster the negotiation of meaning and form-focused
interaction. Contrary to Kern's view (1995)
that the increase in language production through
CMC might have come at the expense of grammatical
accuracy, Pellettieri (1999) suggests that CMC
chatting can play a significant role in the
development of grammatical competence among
classroom language learners.
Blake
(2000) also demonstrates that incidental negotiations
commonly occurred in networked NNS-NNS discussions
as well, especially with respect to their lexical
confusions. In his study, fifty intermediate
L2 Spanish students were asked to carry out
networked discussions in pairs using a synchronous
chat program, Remote Technical Assistance (RTA).
Each dyad carried out a series of online tasks
that can be described as jigsaw, information
gap, or decision-making. The results showed
that jigsaw tasks appear to lead the way in
promoting negotiations as Pica, Kanagy, and
Falodun (1993) had previously predicted. Blake
(2000:1) suggests "CMC can provide many
of the alleged benefits ascribed to the Interaction
Hypothesis, with greatly increased possibilities
for access outside the classroom environment."
To
sum up, CMC constitutes a stimulus for increased
written L2 production, strong motivation, equal
participation, a text-based medium that amplifies
student's attention to linguistic form, and
empowerment of learners. As well, language practice
through CMC can facilitate the development of
interactional competence and even grammatical
competence. Moreover, the task based synchronous
CMC can foster the negotiation of meaning as
beneficial to SLA as oral interaction. By all
accounts, it is anticipated that these benefits
of CMC will meet the needs of the Korean secondary
EFL classroom, i.e. CMC will provide Korean
secondary school learners with more opportunities
for meaning negotiation. Therefore, it is necessary
to examine the viability of CMC in a specific
teaching context, namely the Korean secondary
EFL classroom.
Based
upon the aforementioned research and theories
pertaining to CMC and SLA, I devised a model
for use in the Korean EFL situation, to justify
the viability of the CMC device.
Chapter 3. Methodology
3.1
Research Approach
As Swann (1994) mentions, the qualitative quantitative
distinction is not always clear cut in practice,
as applied to education research; the distinction
is more on the continuum than the dichotomy.
It is often useful to draw on a combination
of methods that may complement one another and
provide a more complete picture of language.
From the viewpoint of mixed methods, this study
employed a quasi-experiment and observations
as a major source for data collection, along
with questionnaires as an auxiliary method for
the following reasons. First, a quasi experiment,
as McDonough (1997) explains, yields valuable
information and enables a teacher to answer
some specific questions arising from his or
her experience. Second, as Hopkins (1993 cited
in McDonough 1997) describes, observation is
a "pivotal activity with a crucial role
to play in classroom research" (p 101).
It is interrelated to the "research in
the interests of increasing knowledge and understanding
a phenomenon" and "whether that knowledge
aspires to be idiographic and particular, or
transferable and general" (McDonough, 1997:
104) This approach is considered the best to
collect required information, when the researcher
is more interested in the behavior than in the
perceptions of the individuals (Kumar, 1996).
Third, the questionnaire is one of the most
commonly used descriptive methods in educational
research and its purpose is to obtain a snapshot
of conditions and attitudes. It can afford precision
and clarity because the knowledge needed is
controlled by the questions. In addition, questionnaires
can be used on a small scale and in the classroom
environment (McDonough, 1997: 171).
This
research, as stated earlier, aims to investigate
whether Korean learners engage in appropriate
meaning negotiations for SLA through CMC using
a chat program, to describe the ways in which
learners engage in such meaning negotiation,
and to investigate the students' attitudes towards
CMC. These methods of collecting data, thus,
strongly support the aims of this research.
3.2
The Setting
The place used for this study was a girl's junior
high school in Pusan, Korea. Korean secondary
schools are divided into two groups, i.e. junior
high school and senior high school. Students
enrolled in junior high schools are from seventh
to ninth grade; and their ages range from thirteen
or fourteen years for the seventh grade to fifteen
or sixteen for the ninth grade. They study 12
twelve subjects; 10 required subjects and 2
optional subjects. English, as a required subject,
is taught for four 45-minute classes a week.
Classes consist of approximately thirty-eight
students, who have a wide range of English proficiency.
The
target school has one computer laboratory, which
consists of forty personal computers in two
rows. Each row consists of ten pairs of computers
being opposite and side-by-side. In this study,
students were paired such that no oral communication
was possible, face-to-face, side by side or
diagonally. During subsequent CMC rounds, pseudonyms
(see Section 3.3) and seating arrangements were
changed.
3.3
Participants
The participants in this study were twenty male
students of the ninth grade. All participants
were native speakers of Korean who were in their
third year learning English as a foreign language
and were receiving four 45-minute classes of
English instruction weekly. Most of them are
at a pre-intermediate level of English proficiency.
Their ages range from 15 to 16 years. They volunteered
to participate in this research project, and
were selected for their familiarity with using
chat programs and their English competence.
Ten of them were students whose English proficiency
level was relatively higher than the others,
comparing their scores to the achievement test
administered by their own school and the Korean
Education Development Organization. This was
because unfamiliarity with chat programs could
interfere with their language use and the different
levels of L2 proficiency were expected to promote
more negotiations of meaning. They were paired
accordingly to English proficiency level, which
led to 10 dyads.
To
meet local ethics requirements, an Explanatory
Statement (Appendix 1), Consent form (Appendix
2) and Parental Consent Form (Appendix 3), translated
into Korean, was given to all participants and
their parents. Their agreement to participate
in this project was confirmed through both of
the consent forms. To ensure that all participants
would feel comfortable using computers, practice
sessions were conducted before data collection
began. They were allowed to use pseudonyms in
order to free them from the anxiety of making
mistakes in their performance, and guaranteeing
their anonymity amongst all 20 students.
3.4 Instrument.
3.4.1 MS Chat 3.0
The software used in this study was the Microsoft
MS Chat 3.0, a Microsoft company free program
available for pubic use. It allows for real
time, synchronous Computer Mediated Communication
in Internet chat rooms. Unlike e-mail, where
the entire discourse is composed and edited
before transmission of the message, MS chats
occur instantaneously and participants co-construct
the discourse, much as in oral conversations.
Students can chat using only text, as in other
chat programs, or they can create a comic strip
identity for themselves and chat as their favorite
character. In comic mode, their words appear
in 'bubbles' above their character in the strip,
just like in the comics. In this study 'text
mode' was used.
As
in other Chat programs, MS Chat software presents
users with a split screen; in the top half they
view the replies from their interlocutors, i.e.
the final version of their partner's composed
utterances, and in the bottom half they view
their own messages, letter by letter, as they
type them. If a user wants to review other people's
messages, he or she can scroll up or down to
find their messages. MS Chat 3.0 program also
has a function that allows students to use pseudonyms,
which effectively hides their identities.
This
chat program was used for the following reasons.
First it can record all of the written transactions
entered in a chat window, which provide researchers
with an instantaneous transcript of all user
exchanges, and all the written transcripts can
conveniently be printed. Second, RTA, specially
developed for the study of Blake (2000), was
unavailable in Korea, although it is regarded
as superior to other chat programs in facilitating
the students' on-line completion of tasks. Accordingly,
MS Chat 30 was supplemented by written instructions,
illustrations and recorded material, as Blake
(2000) suggests.
3.4.2
Communication Tasks
Eight communication tasks were selected and
developed for the purpose of this study. The
selection of those tasks was motivated in the
first place by previous studies, e.g. Pellettieri,
(1999); Blake, (2000), and in particular by
two collections of articles edited by Crookes
& Glass (19993a, 19993b).
An
effective way to assist language learning in
the classroom or to study the processes of second
language acquisition (SLA) is revealed and validated
through the use of communication tasks (Pica,
Kanagy, & Falodun, 1993; Nobuyoshi &
Ellis, 1993). The theoretical perspective which
supports the use of communication tasks is that
which holds that language is best learned and
taught through interaction. In interaction-based
pedagogy, classroom opportunities to receive,
comprehend, and ultimately internalize L2 words,
forms and structures are believed to be most
abundant during activities in which learners
and their interlocutors can exchange information
and communicate ideas. Such activities are structured
so that all learners will talk as a means of
sharing ideas and opinions collaborating toward
a single goal, or competing to achieve individual
goals. (Nunan, 1987; Rivers, 1987). It s therefore
maintained that "classroom and research
activities must be structured to provide a context
whereby learners not only talk to their interlocutors,
but negotiate meaning with them as well",
to engage learners in these kinds of interactions
(Pica, Kanagy & Falodun, 19993: 11).
According
to Pica, Kanagy & Falodun's typology, a
task that promotes the greatest opportunities
for learners to experience comprehension of
input, feedback on production and interlanguage
modification is one that meets these four conditions:
1) Each interactant
holds a different portion of information, which
must be exchanged and manipulated in order to
reach the outcome.
2) Both interactants
are required to request and supply this information
to each other.
3) Interactants
have the same or convergent goals.
4) Only one acceptable
outcome is possible from their attempts to meet
this goal.
Accordingly,
jigsaw and two-way information gap tasks are
regarded as being favorable for stimulating
negotiation of meaning, as Pica et al pointed
out. This is because they satisfy the four conditions
outlined.
The
eight communication tasks employed in this study
were not open, but more closed tasks, such a
jigsaw and information gap activities, in which
the Interactants possess different pieces of
information needed for a solution and, therefore
must work collaboratively to converge on a single
outcome. Each task was photocopied and distributed
to every participant. Table 1. presents a detailed
description of each task.
Table to be inserted
(soon to be uploaded 2004/12)
3.5
Procedures.
During
the preparation period, MS Chat 3.0 was downloaded
and set up in each computer in the computer
lab. The participants were given an hour-long
training session on how to access and use MS
Chat 3.0 for synchronous chatting, before data
collection began. A chat room was assigned to
each dyad; one student was directed to create
a room to enable private chat for two persons
only, in order not to be disturbed by other
chatters, and then the second student entered
that chat room. They all used their pseudonyms
to hide their identity, which eliminated the
possibility of them from orally communicating
with each other, for it was impossible to know
who their partner was.
In
the performance stage, eight rounds of Computer
Mediated Chatting (CMC) were conducted with
the participants being the twenty pre-intermediate
EFL students. Each round was conducted after
school twice a week in the computer lab for
four weeks, in March - April 2000. Before beginning
each round, instructions for the given task
were explained to help ensure clarity of task
directions. Additionally, students were asked
to use only English in their chats. In each
round, students were asked to chat in pairs
for one hour using a synchronous chat program.
After Blake's (2000) model "all students
were assigned different partners for each new
task in order to heighten the collaborative
nature of their conversations and to avoid any
student collusion that might work against the
spirit of the negotiations" (p5.) They
attempted to solve a series of tasks that required
cooperation with their assigned partner, on
the chat window. All written instructions entered
in the chat window were recorded and all the
written transcripts were printed for data analysis.
Observations were carried out while they performed
those tasks in order to describe the ways in
which they engaged in such performances.
At
the final stage after eight rounds of Chat performance,
all participants were surveyed with a questionnaire,
(Appendix 5) which gathered opinions about perceived
advantages and disadvantages of synchronous
CMC using MS Chat 3.0 The questionnaire included
scales and open questions for more useful information.
3.6
Methods of data analysis
In order to examine linguistic features of the
students' language modifications produced in
the eight rounds of CMC, all written discourse
from the transcripts was analyzed qualitatively
as well as quantitatively with regard to the
following characteristics: (1) the number of
total turns and negotiations; (2) the nature
of negotiation routines; (3) other linguistic
features.
The
number of total turns and negotiations made
by each student in each task was calculated
for quantitative analysis. The linguistic features,
for qualitative analysis were categorized in
light of meaning negotiation (see 2.3), based
on the model for NNS negotiation established
by Varonis and Gass (1985). As Pellettieri (1999)
and Blake (2000) illustrated, negotiation routines
that arose in these networked exchanges were
identified by means of their four components:
trigger, indicator, response and reaction. In
accordance with Blake's (2000) model, the first
use of the linguistic items in question becomes
the trigger, which spurs the negotiation. The
partner indicates communication trouble or non-understanding
with an appropriate phrase, such as, "I
don't understand X." or simply, "What's
x?" indicator. The other partner then attempts
an explanation or response in an effort to clarify
the misunderstanding. If the negotiation is
successful, the partner who indicated the non-understanding
gives a reaction to the response, as a cue that
he / she closes the negotiation and is ready
to return to the main line of discourse by acknowledging
the help given, usually means of the stock phrase
such as "Yes", "Thank you"
or "OK".
The
response through these negotiation routines
was articulated completely in English, nevertheless
with some non-target like expressions typical
of the students' interlanguage at this level.
As Blake (2000:6) indicates, their utterances
are "neither all wrong nor all right but
somewhere in between, as the concept of interlanguage
suggests." Their linguistic errors are
not clearly definable for they involve an intricate
mix of "complex misuses and omissions of
structures from the target language." Therefore,
defining what is correct or incorrect was excluded
from the present study.
In
addition, the analysis of linguistic features,
non-linguistic features from observation of
students' CMC performances and completed questionnaires
were analyzed and categorized so as to explain
participants' engagement and attitudes to CMC.
Chapter 4. Results
4.1 Linguistic Features
4.1.1
Turns and negotiations.
The
language data generated across all eight tasks
confirm CMC's potential for fostering the negotiation
of meaning in task based interaction. From the
quantitative point of view, Table 2 displays
the total number of turns and negotiations found
per task, and illustrates how task-oriented
these negotiations are. The proportion of negotiations
to turns ranges from 1.8% to 4.1%, comprising
a small fraction of overall turns, similar to
the previous findings from Blake's study (2000).
These negotiations, however, evenly occurred
in both jigsaw tasks and information gap tasks,
differently from Blake (2000), in which jigsaw
tasks accounted for 80-90% of the total negotiations.
Interestingly,
Task 1 (Completing the drawing) and Task 2 (Drawing
pictures) stimulated many more negotiations
from students than other tasks. The reason for
these two tasks being the most productive in
triggering negotiations seemed to be as follows.
First, the task sheet provided only pictures,
not any language input, which plays a role as
scaffolding for their discourse. This led them
to produce vague utterances that caused communicative
problems, which in turn triggered negotiation.
Second, describing the pictures required the
use of nouns and exact expressions for the location
that were outside the vocabulary of most students,
thus necessitating the use of circumlocution,
which motivated frequent clarification requests
and confirmation checks.
The
number of negotiations has no relation to the
number of turns. Task 8 generated the most exchanges,
but did not trigger the most negotiations. In
general, the number of turns and length of utterance
were contrary to each other. Those who made
a lot of turns usually produced relatively short
sentences. The length of utterance appeared
to be varied according to task type, level and
individuals language proficiency, and accordingly
was not calculated in this study.
Table 2. Total Number of Turns and Negotiations.
Table
to be inserted (soon to be uploaded 2004/12)
4.1.2
The Nature of Negotiation Routines
As mentioned in data analysis (3.6), negotiation
routines that arose in these networked exchanges
were identified by means of their four components:
trigger, indicator, response and reaction. From
the linguistic viewpoint, a great majority of
negotiations were triggered by lexical confusions
and overall content of utterances, as reported
by previous findings from studies of computer-networked
interaction (Pellettieri, 1999; Blake, 2000).
Lexical negotiations are the routines with lexical
triggers in which the communicative problem
is directly attributable to a particular lexical
item, as shown in Example 1. In contrast, content
triggers are those where a speaker's entire
message is problematic, as illustrated in Example
2.
Example
1. Lexical Negotiation
Trigger A: …there is a vace in the left
cupboard, on the fist shelf
The vace is on the left
Indicator B: vace???…what is 'vace'?
Response A: vace has flowers and it looks like
bottle…
vace is a flower bottle
Reaction B: do you mean 'vase'? it's vase, not
vase
A: sorry…vase is right
B: that's all right…and then??
A: a coffee bottle is on the right…
Example
2. Content Negotiation
Trigger C: There are glasses in the bookcase.
Indicator D: on which shelf...on the right or
on the left?
Response C: the glasses are on the second shelf
in the bookcase
(Trigger)
Indicator D: oh~glasses for drinking
Reaction D: ok…and then where's the clock?
These
negotiations show that students asked for clarification
and explanations when they wanted to check their
understanding, and they gave feedback to others,
typically in the form of agreement of continuation.
In these negotiations, a model form was offered
to the learner through explicit or implicit
feedback from a partner. According to Pellettieri
(1999:69), explicit corrective feedback refers
to "those utterances in which a speaker
overtly indicates a problem with a partner's
utterance and offers a model of form."
Implicit corrective feedback, on the other hand,
refers to "those negotiation moves (i.e.,
recasts) that provide a model form for a partner's
non-target form in the previous utterance, without
overtly indicating the problem."
To
ensure mutual comprehension, learners often
went through negotiations before returning to
the main line of discourse. In example 3, taken
from Task 8, students are trying to find differences
between their respective pictures. E is trying
to describe her picture of a man who is carrying
a radio, but she does not know the word 'carry".
F pushes the conversation down from the main
line of discourse in order to get confirmation
that she understands E's description and further
to get a definition for the word "lift".
F signals the need for negotiation by a confirmation
check and a direct question about the word "lift".
E, responding to F's signal, offers an explanation
of the meaning of "lift" by paraphrasing
such as 'have something on the hand.' E's explanation
is not the exact definition for the word 'lift',
but eventually they come to mutual comprehension
and successful communication.
Example
3. Extended negotiation routine.
E: In my picture
there are two men, and how about you?
F: I my picture, one man has black air, and
another man has white hair.
E: ok, black hair
man is lifting a radio
F: No, my picture has no radio.
E: and then…nothing
lift?
F: lift? What is lift?
E: 'lift' is maybe
have something o the hand…ok?
F: no, I don't understand
E: hmmm..wait a
minute…
F: Is the radio on his hand?
E: yes
F: In my picture the radio is not on the hand.
E: ok, this is
difference too!
Other
negotiation routines, as demonstrated in Example
3, required extended probing and negotiation
between partners to resolve the initial misunderstanding.
Example 3 is representative of many of the negotiations
found in the data. These extended routines led
to further 'push downs' in the conversations,
and are indeed making the language input produced
in the tasks more comprehensible for the learners.
The evidence comes from the learners themselves
and their level of successful task completion.
In the majority of the cases of negotiation
routines, learners did overtly express their
understanding to their interlocutor by way of
a reaction to a response, such as 'ok', 'yes',
'I see', or 'thank you'. The transcripts of
the ensuing discourse also indicate that these
negotiations are leading to mutual comprehension
comes from the learners' level of successful
task completion. Each one of the language tasks
had a specific goal, and in order for participants
to achieve these goals, they had to successfully
communicate with and comprehend each other.
4.1.3
Other Linguistic Features
One of the salient features from the observation
made while analyzing the data was the learner's
self-correction. The transcripts indicate that
in addition to monitoring partner utterances,
learners were doing a good deal of self monitoring,
as evidenced by their turn self repair. Before
giving up a conversational turn, learners would
often repair typographical and or spelling errors,
and also repair errors involving morphological
agreement. Furthermore, they repaired their
utterances to make syntactic elaboration, as
shown in Example 4, thus pushing their utterances
to a more advanced syntax.
Example
4. Self-correction (1)
G: There's a tv set in the bookcast.
G: sorry ~, not bookcast, bookcase
G: bookcase is right
H: where? On the right or on the left?
Self correction (2)
N: …there are one man and one woman they
have food
K: they have food?
N: yes, they are have food
N: they are sit on the chair
N: they are sitting at table.. they are having
food
K: in my picture they don't eat food
Another
feature was that the language generated through
CMC strongly resembled what would be said in
a spoken communication. As Bender (1994: 34)
reported earlier,: the synchronous computer
mediated discussions…cluster at the 'spoken'
end of the spectrum, thus confirming Ferrara
et al.'s characterization of 'interactive written
discourse' as both written and oral", and
the language data of this study demonstrated
that such discourse is much closer to the oral
end of the spectrum and has much more in common
with speech than with writing. In fact, students
included some form of greeting, adopted some
features from conversational discourse such
as "well", "um…" or
"haha" (laughter), and used symbols
to express emotional meaning, such as multiple
question marks (???) or exclamation points (!!!!),
or emotions such as ^^ for smiling, as shown
in Example 5.
Example 5. Spoken feature (1) greeting
L: hi!!!!!!!!
Z: Hi, nice to met you ^^
L: Nice to meet you too!!!
Z: a little cold today…How about you?
L: yes! It's rainy
Z: shall we start?
L yes, let's start!
Spoken feature (2) leave - takings
O: …we found 12th difference wow!!!!
V: it's the end?????
O: yes you had trouble.
V: we had hard time
O: Next time…let's do better!! ^^
V: thank you Bye ~~
O: goodbye *^^*
Spoken feature (3) laughter
Q: what was illegal in Wales on a Sunday until
1957?
R: it was illegal to go swimming on a Sunday
Q: hahaha it's funny
R: yes funny ok, I'll ask you a question what
was first
developed to help the blind
Another
observed feature was non-target like expressions,
typical of the students' interlanguage at this
level. Again, as Blake (2000: 6) indicates,
their utterances are "neither all wrong
or all right, but somewhere in between".
The frequent errors in their language involved
misuses of singular/plural, omissions of verb
(be) and articles (a, an, the), and the reverse
order of words. These language errors were sometimes
connected through their explicit or implicit
feedback, namely negotiations, and self-corrections.
But sometimes, contrary to Blake's comments
(2000), these incorrect forms were explicitly
passed from one to the other in their negotiations
in the present study. Students copied incorrect
forms from another student's message.
4.2
Student's Engagement
From the researcher's observations made during
the student's CMC sessions, one noticeable characteristic
of the student's engagement in CMC chats was
the increased motivation and active participation.
Students were so enthusiastic about their chat
performance that they were absorbed in communicating
in English to solve their tasks, and it was
surprising, given the classroom context, for
the students to be engaged to such an extent
in the use of the target language. Their attempts
to resolve their communication problems were
so active that they always activated the dictionary
function via Internet on the computer screen
before logging onto their chats. On occasions,
other chatters unexpectedly interrupted them.
This intrusion happened either because they
logged on incorrectly or a random self-surfer
penetrated their chat room despite the CMC firewall.
Nevertheless, they coped with the interruption
successfully, persuading the intruder to leave
the chat room (see Example 6). Thus their attention
to their conversation never waned, but lasted
throughout the session.
Example 6. Interruption and solution
S: …and the
poster is on the right side of the picture
T: yes, I understand
Groovy girl (-~groovy-girl@139.135…) has
joined the
Conversation
S: ?????
Groovy girl: hi all
T: hi I am sorry
but…
S: we are studying
now
Groovy girl: asl please
S: Please leave
this room
Groovy girl: huh?? Why
T: sorry we are
studying now
Groovy girl: what studying mean?
S: Please go out
Groovy girl: don't be mean
T: we are studying
at school
S this class title
is CMC…
Groovy girl: oh sorry
Groovy girl (Groovy girl @ 139.135…) has
left the
conversation
S: let's start
again
T: okay
Maybe
more importantly is the (assumption) that groovy
girl's natural tongue was not English judging
by her failure to understand the word 'studying.'
If this is true (as opposed to other explanations)
it shows instant meaning negotiation involving
a third party. Both T and S made an attempt
to explain what 'studying' meant and succeeded.
4.3
Student's Attitudes: Perceived Advantages and
Disadvantages
At the end of the CMC sessions, all participants
were given a questionnaire (Appendix 5) regarding
their opinions on synchronic chatting using
MS Chat 3.0 software. Responses to the student's
evaluation questionnaire were quite favorable,
with 98% agreement that the MS Chat experience
was "enjoyable" and "motivating."
(Q. 1 and Q. 2). Students reported several reasons
for liking CMC sessions. One student wrote,
"I enjoyed the MS Chat sessions because
chatting on the computer is very popular among
students these days." Another student remarked,
"during the chat sessions I feel as if
I were talking to a foreigner," Eighty
five percent of the respondents agreed that
it allowed them to feel freer in communicating
in English in a more informal environment with
less of an anxiety associated with making mistakes.
There was an indication that the use of pseudonyms
reduced their anxiety: "I prefer pseudonyms,
for nobody knows who I am even when I make mistakes."
Student's
responses to the value of CMC for improving
their English language development (Q 6) ranged
from "very helpful" (54%) and "helpful"
(37%) to "somewhat helpful" (9%).
In open-ended questions, they wrote that increased
opportunities to produce output helped them
improve their English communication skill: "I
became confident in communicating in English
through the increased opportunities to produce
words and sentences for myself." Another
indication was that their attention to L2 form
helped develop their English vocabulary and
their ability to write in English: "to
make myself understood, I had to concentrate
on the spelling of the words and the structure
of the sentences, this improved my vocabulary
and writing."
The complaints, on the other hand, were system
failures or the frequent off-line status of
the network, the time constraints and the slow
pace of their communication due to their limited
proficiency in English. Students indicated,
"the frequent off-line status of the net-work
interrupted our conversation flow" and
"sometimes it took several minutes to sign
in and log on again, and due to these problems
we could not complete our tasks within the given
time." Another disadvantage of CMC that
students indicated was that limited proficiency
in English made their communication very difficult
and it took much time to resolve their communication
breakdown; sometimes "it was really laborious
and irritating." There was one notable
comment that MS Chat could not replace the English
language classroom because it could not help
them practice spoken English sounds: "My
pronunciation errors cannot be corrected during
the CMC session."
The
advantages of synchronous CMC perceived by students,
thus outweigh the disadvantages. All these results
of linguistic and non-linguistic features presented
above provided numerous findings discussed in
the next chapter.
Chapter
5. Discussion
5.1 The negotiation of
meaning
This research aimed to investigate whether Korean
learners engage in appropriate meaning negotiation
for SLA through CMC using a Chat program. The
results of this study show sufficient evidence
to suggest that the Korean learners did engage
in such meaning negotiations, thus corroborating
the findings from the previous studies (Pelletieri,
1999; Blake, 2000), which report task based
synchronous CMC fosters the negotiation of meaning.
As mentioned earlier, (see 2.3), negotiation
refers to "the modification and restructuring
of interaction that occurs when learners and
interlocutors perceive or experience difficulties
in message comprehensibility" (Pica, 1994:
494). According to Pica's claim (1994) meaning
negotiation can accomplish a great deal of SLA
by helping learners make input comprehensible
and modify their own output and providing opportunities
for them to access L2 form and meaning. These
negotiations tend to increase input comprehensibility
through language modifications such as simplifications,
elaborations, confirmation and comprehension
checks, clarification requests, or recasts.
These language modifications provide the L2
learner with negative feedback to facilitate
L2 development (Gass, 1997: Long 1996)
The
data produced by Korean learners during each
task based CMC demonstrate that, as described
in the previous chapter, the need to negotiate
was indicated (signaled) in CMC chats by means
of clarification requests, confirmation checks,
echo questions, explicit statements of non-understanding
and even inappropriate responses. The indicators
(signals, in terms of Pelletieri) for negotiation
bought about responses in which the original
input was modified by repetition, paraphrase
and elaboration. In response to these negotiations,
the learners produced modified output that was
form focused as well as meaning focused. These
modifications, though the majority was focused
on the lexicon, were also made in response to
corrective feedback offered during interaction
and made through self-correction. Transcripts
of the interactions, thus, show that through
these negotiation routines the Korean learners
indeed made their input comprehensible and produced
interlanguage modifications towards comprehensible
output. As illustrated in the examples of the
Results chapter, in spite of the fact that negotiation
routines push learners away from the main line
of discourse, they are ultimately bringing about
mutual comprehension, and facilitating successful
communication. The evidence that these negotiations
are leading to mutual comprehension comes from
the learners' reaction to a response and their
level of successful task completion.
These
results are in accordance with the previous
findings (Pelletieri, 1999; Blake, 2000), which
indicate that task based CMC does foster the
negotiation of meaning, and that this negotiation
appears to facilitate comprehension and successful
communication among learners. Therefore, this
study does indicate that Korean learners do
engage in such meaning negotiations through
task based synchronous CMC which researchers
claim to be beneficial for foreign language
development.
5.2
Task Types and Meaning Negotiation
One interesting finding from the results is
that these negotiations are task oriented, and
information gap tasks are as productive in stimulating
negotiations of meaning as jigsaw tasks. Pica
et al. (1993) predicted earlier that jigsaw
tasks and information gap tasks would be more
productive as a stimulus for meaning negotiation,
whilst Blake's study shows that jig saw tasks
were superior to other type of tasks, but information
gap tasks were not. In this study, as the figures
in Table 2 show, information gap tasks appear
superior to jig saw tasks in triggering meaning
negotiation. Consequently, these results support
Pica's et al,s. prediction, but disagree with
Blake's findings.
Another
useful finding related to the task type is that
pictures play a significant role in promoting
negotiations. As shown in Table 2, Task 1 (Completing
the Drawing) and Task 2 (Drawing the Picture)
stimulated many more negotiations to turns than
the other six tasks. As mentioned in the results
chapter (4.1), the reason for these two tasks
being the most productive in triggering negotiations
was considered to be as follows. First, the
task sheet provided only pictures, not any language
input, which plays a role as scaffolding for
discourse. This led them to produce vague utterances
that caused communicative problems, which in
turn triggered negotiation. Second, describing
the pictures required the use of nouns and exact
expressions for locations that were outside
the vocabulary of most students, thus necessitating
the use of circumlocution, which motivated frequent
clarifications and requests and confirmation
checks.
With
regard to task type, Pica et al. (1989) found
that picture-drawing tasks offered the highest
occurrence of NNS signals of requests for clarification
and confirmation in comparison to jigsaw and
discussion tasks. In this respect, the results
of the present study provide further confirmation
for Pica et al.'s' (1989) finding by showing
that picture drawing tasks offer a significantly
higher occurrence of negotiations than jigsaw
tasks in NNS-NNS interaction (3.9% vs. 2.13%;
the mean score of tasks 1 and 2 and the mean
score of Tasks 5-8). Task 1 and Task 2, as picture
drawing tasks, exhibited a significantly higher
proportion of negotiations than other information
gap tasks and jigsaw tasks. This means, "when
successful completion of the task depends primarily
on the NNS supplying accurate and comprehensible
output, a higher proportion of extended negotiation
routines are more likely to occur" (Shehadeh,
1999). The data from these two tasks therefore
demonstrate the importance of a picture's role
in designing interlanguage tasks to foster the
negotiation of meaning.
5.3 Interactive Competence
As mentioned in the literature review (section
2.1), interactive competence includes the ability
to perform different speech acts and to negotiate
meaning. Kramsch (1986) suggests that communicative
competence must include the ability to express,
interpret and negotiate meanings. She advocates
that, for as natural a communication situation
as possible, students must be given opportunities
in classrooms to interact with both the teacher
and fellow students through turn taking, giving
feedback to speakers, and starting and ending
conversations. Byrnes (1987) also advocates
a greater emphasis on the learner, on speech
as a process, and on the negotiative and interactive
process of speaking. In relation to this, Chun
(1994: 28) reports "computer assisted class
discussion (CACD) provides excellent opportunities
for foreign language learners to develop the
discourse skills and interactive competence."
The transcripts of discourse produced by Korean
learners in task based CMC also support this
finding by showing that learners do perform
several interactive speech acts: they ask and
answer questions; they give feedback to others;
request clarification when they have not understood
their interlocutor; they check comprehension,
and they start and end conversations with appropriate
greetings and leave takings. This study thus
suggests that task based CMC can be an effective
method for increasing interactive competence
because it provides students with the opportunity
to generate different kinds of discourse.
Although
CMC is essentially a written practice, the interactional
discourse resembles spoken conversation (see
section 4.3). In this aspect (Chun, 1994) suggests
that this written competence can gradually be
transferred to the student's speaking competence
as well. In fact, an empirical study (Kim, 1998)
examined the effects of computer-mediated discussion
on follow up oral discussions. In Kim's study,
the experimental group that was involved in
computer discussions exhibited more equal participation
in the follow up oral discussions than did the
control group that participated in the oral
discussions. However, Pellowe (2000) agues that
the EFL/ ESL distinction is so significant that
results from an ESL sphere do not equate to
results or applications in an EFL sphere. As
Kim's study was ESL oriented, it would be argued
by Pellowe (2000) that his results are not applicable
to the Korean EFL situation. This argument is
well worthy of follow up in in-depth research
and may provide, it is submitted, ground breaking
information in so far as how oral discourse
develops from CMC in an 'Asian' context.
Considering
that the Korean language, as a non-Romance language,
has quite a different phonological system, Korean
students still need oral practice in English
for their oral communication competence, as
one student did comment (see section 4.3)
5.4
Grammatical Competence
One of the positive aspects of CMC is the increased
use of interlanguage. As teachers of English
to Korean speakers well know, the amount of
language output such as the total number of
turns displayed in Table 2 (see 4.1) can never
be produced in the Korean secondary classroom.
Classroom teachers, however, have often called
the quality of interlanguage among NNSs into
question worrying that NNS-NNS discussion will
propagate and reinforce non-target like language.
With regard to the quality of interlanguage
produced during CMC chats, the previous studies
offer two different viewpoints. Kern (1995)
indicated that the increase in language production
through CMC might have come at the expense of
grammatical accuracy, characterizing this problem,
viz, "Grammatical accuracy suffers with
CMC and consequently learners read 'defective'
French…[therefore] formal accuracy…and
reinforcement of canonical discourse conversations
are goals not well served by Interchange"
(p.470)
On
the contrary, Pelletieri (1999) asserts that
this interchange is not so defective as Kern
indicates, arguing, "developmental errors
should be expected in any interlanguage because
part of successful language learning involves
formulating and testing hypotheses about the
target language" (p. 82). According to
his opinions, therefore, the exposure to interlanguage
in CMC cannot be expected to be any more detrimental
to language development than it would in the
normal classroom.
The
data transcripts of this research show that
non-target like expressions and incorrect forms
are passed from one student to another, nevertheless,
all of this language seems to be less defective
than in a normal classroom. This is because
in CMC "students have more time to process
language than in oral conversations, and because
they can view their language as they produce
it, they are more likely to focus on language
form and monitor their messages (p.83)."
In this regard, the opinions formed by Pelletieri
are broadly supported. However, how the transmission
of those incorrect forms affects their development
of grammatical competence is uncertain.
Moreover,
Pelletieri (1999) suggests that synchronous
CMC can play a great role in the development
of grammatical competence. Conversely, Blake
(2000) raises a question on the Focus of Form
approach, in particular, the issue of grammatical
development, indicating that lexical negotiations
predominate these networked exchanges. The present
study also shows that the majority of negotiations
produced during CMC were focused on Lexicon.
Corrective feedback was rarely offered on morphology
and syntax. This might be because, as Blake
suggests, the leaner at this level doesn't have
"a solid syntactic base with which to help
or correct peers (p.14)." The negotiations
had no significant effects on the syntactical
complexity in the present study. Therefore,
this observation indicates that interlanguage
produced via CMC can aid in second language
development but suggests that follow up grammar
classes are needed for grammatical development.
5.5
Increased Motivation and Participation
From a pedagogical standpoint, one of the greatest
advantages of CMC is the student's increased
motivation and active participation. As previous
research on CMC has demonstrated, the students
in this study reported reduced anxiety about
making errors and increased motivation for using
the target language, both of which resulted
in greater opportunities of target language
production.
Every
language class has a few students who are shyer
than others or more self-conscious about the
mistakes they make in front of others. The use
of pseudonyms during CMC chats, however, freed
these students from the anxiety associated with
making mistakes in their performance by hiding
their identities, as one student mentioned (see
4.3). In addition, during CMC sessions, they
feel freer than in any type of oral situation
where they feel more of a sense of immediacy
to respond or say something, because they can
read another student's message and type their
response at their own pace. The popularity of
chatting on the computer among teenagers and
the authentic language environment of CMC increased
their motivation as well. In fact, sometimes,
while undertaking their tasks, the pairs were
interrupted by third party chatters and the
students persuaded them to leave the chat room
(see 4.2). One student mentioned, "Such
happening was so challenging as if my English
were being tested."
The
increased motivation led the students to participate
in the CMC actively. As the researcher observed,
considering the Korean classroom context, in
no other learning situation had students been
engaged to such an extent in the use of the
target language. However, factors that may have
been at work include the 'novelty' of the experiment,
the sheer change from text-oriented learning,
to the students' own psychological makeup at
the time. There is no doubt, that, as Mackey
(1999) asserts, their active participation increases
their target language production and facilitates
their foreign language development.
Chapter 6. Conclusion
This
study, as stated earlier, examines how CMC may
be able to provide Korean learners with increased
opportunities to engage in meaningful negotiations
in English. For this purpose, this research
aims: 1) to identify how CMC may enhance Second
Language Acquisition, 2) to investigate if Korean
learners engage in appropriate meaning negotiation
for SLA through CMC using a chat program, 3)
to describe the way(s) in which learners engage
in such meaning negotiations and 4) to investigate
the student's attitudes towards CMC.
The
literature review of this research identified
how CMC can enhance SLA. Quasi experiment and
observation accomplished the second and third
aim, and the fourth aim was achieved via questionnaire.
The data was analyzed and categorized by the
linguistic features, students' engagement and
student attitudes, and the findings were discussed
in the light of the meaning negotiation and
other four characteristics that emerged from
scrutinizing the results.
To
sum up the findings, the results of this study
demonstrate that task based CMC can provide
Korean learners with increased opportunities
to engage in meaning negotiation in the target
language. The Korean learners indeed make their
input comprehensible and produce interlanguage
modifications towards comprehensible output
in negotiation routines, which are ultimately
bringing about mutual comprehension, and facilitating
successful communication. If negotiations are
beneficial for the SLA process, as researchers
have claimed, CMC using a Chat program can provide
an effective medium for Korean learners to facilitate
their foreign language development.
This study also illustrates that task type can
play a significant role in promoting negotiations,
corroborating Pica et al's, (1989) findings
related to task types. The results further support
Pica et al's. (1993) prediction that information
gap tasks are as productive in stimulating negotiations
of meaning as jigsaw tasks, and provide further
confirmation for Pica et al's, (1989) finding
that picture drawing tasks offer a significantly
higher occurrence of negotiations than jigsaw
and information gap tasks in NNS-NNS interaction
as well as in NS-NNS interaction. This study
thus demonstrates the importance of a picture's
role in designing interactive language tasks
to foster the meaning of negotiation.
In
addition, this study suggests that task based
synchronous CMC can be an effective method for
facilitating the development of interactive
competence because it provides students with
the opportunity to generate several interactional
speech acts advocated by Kramsch (1986). Chun
(1994) predicted that this interactive competence
would gradually transfer to the student's speaking
competence. Kim (1998), in his empirical study,
confirms the conduciveness of this written interactive
competence to spoken communicative competence.
Sotillo (2000) goes further and suggests that
not only the written discourse improves, but
so does the oral discourse. "As with face-to-face
communication, the synchronous discussion data
show the functional uses of language as students
engaged in interaction, such as requesting personal
information, flirting, making assertions, challenging
classmates, and joking among themselves. Synchronous
communication seems to encourage communicative
fluency, which is generally understood as a
quality of oral communication that expresses
itself in coherence, fluidity, and appropriate
lexical choice."
However,
the distance of the first language from the
target language in the phonological system still
requires oral practice in the target language.
Therefore, it is suggested that CMC using a
chat program can be used as a powerful means
of complementing, but not replacing, the normal
English classroom.
On
the other hand, this study indicates that the
effectiveness of synchronous CMC on the development
of grammatical competence is uncertain. The
student's increased motivation and active participation
in CMC contribute to the increased quantity
of interlanguage, which can aid in second language
development. This increased interlanguage, however,
includes the frequent transmission of incorrect
forms as well as non-target like expressions.
Although interlanguage in CMC is not considered
to be more defective than it would in the oral
classroom, it is questionable how the frequent
transmissions of incorrect forms affect grammatical
development. Furthermore, the majority of negotiations
produced during CMC were focused on the lexicon;
corrective feedback was rarely offered on morphology
and syntax. The negotiation had no significant
effects on the syntactical complexity. These
two aspects thus raise a question about the
effect of CMC on the learner's grammatical development.
Therefore further research is needed to decide
the role that synchronous CMC can play in the
development of grammatical competence. Further
research would also be needed for the comparison
of grammatical accuracy between the networked
discourse and oral discourse, within a task-based
approach.
Finally,
as mentioned earlier, the frequent off-line
status of networking, the time constraints and
the learner's limited proficiency in the target
language presented shortcomings in carrying
out this research. The extra time to sign-in
and log on in performing CMC often resulted
in the incompletion of tasks, and the student's
limited English proficiency yielded few morphological
and syntactical negotiations in their networked
interactions. Of course these findings cannot
be generalized for all Korean learners, since
this study was conducted on a small group of
Korean secondary school students within a short
period of time. Nevertheless, this research
provides the important implications that meaning
negotiation can be promoted, even in the Korean
secondary EFL classroom, if the teacher constructs
the NNS-NNS dyads environment with two way tasks
or picture related tasks, and that CMC is an
effective learning environment to promote such
meaning negotiation.
Although
not examined in this research, Korean education
comes arguably within the realm of Confucian
principles, or even neo-Confucionist applications.
This society still views 'man' in a superior
light to women, but change is occurring neo-Confucionist
applications. It is often argued that 'girls'
whilst prima facie appearing linguistically
superior to boys, in fact have greater stresses,
(affective factors influencing their results),
(Krashen, 1986). It may well be argued following
further research, that the above results will
be different depending if we construct the dyads
as boy-boy, boy-girl, girl-girl or unknown -
unknown.
In
conclusion, considering the Korean EFL context
where authentic interaction in the target language
rarely appears and students commonly revert
to their first language, this research on the
viability of CMC in the Korean secondary EFL
classroom suggests that task-based synchronous
CMC is an interactive learning environment within
which learners can communicate with each other
in the target language and generate meaning
negotiation.
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