Introduction
The article, ESL students’ computer-mediated communication practices: context configuration by Dong-Shin Shin (2006) was taken from Language Learning and Technology journal, volume 10 and number 3.
In the article, the writer examines how the practices of synchronous activity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) affect ESL student’s language learning, focusing on a group of ESL students engage in online interaction through CMC activities in interactional patterns and norms. The study highlights the smoothness of the learners’ conversation with the learning environment as language socialization processes. The significant of the CMC practices is to bring current uses of CMC into various situations beyond university-based language programs and encourage more language teachers to draw on CMC in their teaching practices. Moreover, it helps to bring about an understanding of the complexity of its contexts in language learning and teaching.
Method
Research Questions
In the study, the writer explores three questions which are; what kinds of interactional patterns are a group of ESL students jointly constructing? what kinds of interactional norms are the ESL students establishing within computer-mediated social interactions? and how do ESL students utilize CMC activities for their linguistics, social and academic goals?
Sample
The participants consist of an intermediate adult ESL class with 16 students at a university in the north-eastern United States. All of the ESL students are from northeast Asia with the exception of a single student from Peru. The participants are graduate students and visiting scholars, who are all male participants, and also wives who accompanied their husbands. The teacher, Tom, was also a graduate student in the local university.
Duration
The study takes about a semester from September to December of 2003, to gather data from both the observation made during Face-to-face (FtF) meeting and Web-based chat meetings, MSN Instant Messenger.
Method
Once a week for about one and a half hours every Sunday night, the participants log on to MSN Instant Messenger in their homes and chat. In FtF meetings, the participants meet twice a week on Monday and Wednesday nights in a university classroom, with each class lasting two and a half hours. The writer manage to collect qualitative data which include electronically saved chat meeting transcripts, field notes, recorded class interactions from the FtF class meetings, formal and informal interviews with participants, e-mail exchanges between the teacher and the ESL participants and survey information that included the participants’ personal files.
Data Analysis
The writer use ecological perspectives of Second Language Learning as a core construct of this study to explain contextual fluidity in relation to learners’ agency in their learning. It is associated with sociocultural theories which argue that language learning is a situated social practice that occurs through social interactions at a specific time and place. The social practice of learning is tool-mediated and involves the use of cultural semiotic artifacts that is based on the cultural and social norms of a discourse community, which influence individuals’ perceptual and conceptual boundaries, interests, world views and patterns of thought. This explains how learners as social agents configure contextual elements and construct the context of learning.
Findings
In the study, the writer finds the participants asked Tom to opens and manages chat room to avoid the problem of multiple chat windows, hence, his role as a teacher change back into a “traditional” teacher role and reshaped the interactional structure of the CMC meetings, from casual gathering to formal teacher-centred class. Tom who also initiates the chat room by giving a pre-selected topic before the chat session through the participants’ email, has also made an effort to help all the members to participate by inviting them to the discussion and control turns-at-talk among the participants who could not participate in the chat sessions because of their lack of typing skills and inexperience with written English. Furthermore, in the study the writer finds that the participants constructed interactional norms within group dynamics. The significant interactional norm was helping each other to save face in communication through sharing similar experiences. Another strategy for saving face was avoiding disagreements in conversation in order to avoid possible confrontations and maintain harmonious relationships among themselves. Besides that, ESL students reconstructed and utilized the social practices of their CMC activities for different purposes that reflected needs in their lives. Firstly, the graduate students look for opportunities to practice and improve their spoken English through CMC activities, without considering issues of standard or non-standard English. Secondly, CMC activities also help visiting scholars to know about American university culture and helped them towards their academic and linguistic needs, which include writing and presentation. Lastly, three out of the spousal participants showed progressed in reading and typing and unlike the rest of the women who encounter difficulties in participating in the chat meeting such as lack of reading and written English texts experience and they could not follow the speed of the graduate participants’ chatting. Overall, these findings suggest some points for language teachers to consider using CMC tool for their teaching lessons.
The Context of Language Learning in Malaysia
Based on the finding of the journal, the CMC activity could be accomplish in certain parts of Malaysian schools such as in urban parts where most houses and learners are computer savvy. However, some houses in rural areas will have difficulty since there will be problem with connection and the question whether the learner is computer savvy or not. In the finding, it also shows that there are some participants who encounter difficulty in using the computer such as typing. Furthermore, Malaysia as a developing country cannot afford to provide each student in every school a computer, and if computer can be provided some school such as in rural areas are hard to reach in order to deliver the computer. Moreover, there might be some teachers who are not computer savvy, hence will find it difficult to teach the students.
On the other hand, despite the barrier CMC activity can be accomplish in Malaysia institutions because it provide learners an interesting way to learn a language and getting information from other people. In Malaysia, there is also the problem of fear when speaking in class. Hence, this activity will help students to learn without feeling any threat or embarrassment since it is not face-to-face interaction. The role of a teacher also does not disappear as the teacher still plays the role of a traditional teacher who assists students in the chat room. So, overall the activity is actually benefits students and teacher at the same time. In addition, there are free CMC tools such as Yahoo Messenger and MSN Instant Messenger, which can be obtain free. Hence, as stated there are some advantages and disadvantages in conducting CMC activity in Malaysian institutions.
The article, ESL students’ computer-mediated communication practices: context configuration by Dong-Shin Shin (2006) was taken from Language Learning and Technology journal, volume 10 and number 3.
In the article, the writer examines how the practices of synchronous activity of computer-mediated communication (CMC) affect ESL student’s language learning, focusing on a group of ESL students engage in online interaction through CMC activities in interactional patterns and norms. The study highlights the smoothness of the learners’ conversation with the learning environment as language socialization processes. The significant of the CMC practices is to bring current uses of CMC into various situations beyond university-based language programs and encourage more language teachers to draw on CMC in their teaching practices. Moreover, it helps to bring about an understanding of the complexity of its contexts in language learning and teaching.
Method
Research Questions
In the study, the writer explores three questions which are; what kinds of interactional patterns are a group of ESL students jointly constructing? what kinds of interactional norms are the ESL students establishing within computer-mediated social interactions? and how do ESL students utilize CMC activities for their linguistics, social and academic goals?
Sample
The participants consist of an intermediate adult ESL class with 16 students at a university in the north-eastern United States. All of the ESL students are from northeast Asia with the exception of a single student from Peru. The participants are graduate students and visiting scholars, who are all male participants, and also wives who accompanied their husbands. The teacher, Tom, was also a graduate student in the local university.
Duration
The study takes about a semester from September to December of 2003, to gather data from both the observation made during Face-to-face (FtF) meeting and Web-based chat meetings, MSN Instant Messenger.
Method
Once a week for about one and a half hours every Sunday night, the participants log on to MSN Instant Messenger in their homes and chat. In FtF meetings, the participants meet twice a week on Monday and Wednesday nights in a university classroom, with each class lasting two and a half hours. The writer manage to collect qualitative data which include electronically saved chat meeting transcripts, field notes, recorded class interactions from the FtF class meetings, formal and informal interviews with participants, e-mail exchanges between the teacher and the ESL participants and survey information that included the participants’ personal files.
Data Analysis
The writer use ecological perspectives of Second Language Learning as a core construct of this study to explain contextual fluidity in relation to learners’ agency in their learning. It is associated with sociocultural theories which argue that language learning is a situated social practice that occurs through social interactions at a specific time and place. The social practice of learning is tool-mediated and involves the use of cultural semiotic artifacts that is based on the cultural and social norms of a discourse community, which influence individuals’ perceptual and conceptual boundaries, interests, world views and patterns of thought. This explains how learners as social agents configure contextual elements and construct the context of learning.
Findings
In the study, the writer finds the participants asked Tom to opens and manages chat room to avoid the problem of multiple chat windows, hence, his role as a teacher change back into a “traditional” teacher role and reshaped the interactional structure of the CMC meetings, from casual gathering to formal teacher-centred class. Tom who also initiates the chat room by giving a pre-selected topic before the chat session through the participants’ email, has also made an effort to help all the members to participate by inviting them to the discussion and control turns-at-talk among the participants who could not participate in the chat sessions because of their lack of typing skills and inexperience with written English. Furthermore, in the study the writer finds that the participants constructed interactional norms within group dynamics. The significant interactional norm was helping each other to save face in communication through sharing similar experiences. Another strategy for saving face was avoiding disagreements in conversation in order to avoid possible confrontations and maintain harmonious relationships among themselves. Besides that, ESL students reconstructed and utilized the social practices of their CMC activities for different purposes that reflected needs in their lives. Firstly, the graduate students look for opportunities to practice and improve their spoken English through CMC activities, without considering issues of standard or non-standard English. Secondly, CMC activities also help visiting scholars to know about American university culture and helped them towards their academic and linguistic needs, which include writing and presentation. Lastly, three out of the spousal participants showed progressed in reading and typing and unlike the rest of the women who encounter difficulties in participating in the chat meeting such as lack of reading and written English texts experience and they could not follow the speed of the graduate participants’ chatting. Overall, these findings suggest some points for language teachers to consider using CMC tool for their teaching lessons.
The Context of Language Learning in Malaysia
Based on the finding of the journal, the CMC activity could be accomplish in certain parts of Malaysian schools such as in urban parts where most houses and learners are computer savvy. However, some houses in rural areas will have difficulty since there will be problem with connection and the question whether the learner is computer savvy or not. In the finding, it also shows that there are some participants who encounter difficulty in using the computer such as typing. Furthermore, Malaysia as a developing country cannot afford to provide each student in every school a computer, and if computer can be provided some school such as in rural areas are hard to reach in order to deliver the computer. Moreover, there might be some teachers who are not computer savvy, hence will find it difficult to teach the students.
On the other hand, despite the barrier CMC activity can be accomplish in Malaysia institutions because it provide learners an interesting way to learn a language and getting information from other people. In Malaysia, there is also the problem of fear when speaking in class. Hence, this activity will help students to learn without feeling any threat or embarrassment since it is not face-to-face interaction. The role of a teacher also does not disappear as the teacher still plays the role of a traditional teacher who assists students in the chat room. So, overall the activity is actually benefits students and teacher at the same time. In addition, there are free CMC tools such as Yahoo Messenger and MSN Instant Messenger, which can be obtain free. Hence, as stated there are some advantages and disadvantages in conducting CMC activity in Malaysian institutions.
0 comments:
Post a Comment