چکیده:
The present study is an attempt to investigate whether online dyadic text-based discussion can help language learners develop their oral proficiency due to the fact that classroom interaction barriers have been eliminated and a less threatening, less stressful environment for learner-learner interaction has been created. A total of 30 college freshmen students at the University of Tehran participated in weekly online discussions using the 'Yahoo Messenger' platform for dyadic discussions during six consecutive weeks. The results of participants' oral proficiency test showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the learners' scores in the pre-test and those in the post-test. In addition, the results of both questionnaires and oral proficiency tests employed in the present study showed that online discussion (S-CMC) is more beneficial for the linguistically insecure and shy learners as well as those who had positive attitudes toward online discussion. Moreover, analysis of learners' chat logs regarding the number of turns and number of words per student per session indicated that learners' participation in dyadic online discussion was not equal. This is, in fact, in contrast to what has been reported in previous studies done in this field.
خلاصه ماشینی:
"The Impact of Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (S-CMC) on the Oral Proficiency of Iranian EFL Learners Abbas Ali Rezai * Assistant Professor of TEFL, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran & Nushin Zafari MA in TEFL, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran Abstract The present study is an attempt to investigate whether online dyadic text-based discussion can help language learners develop their oral proficiency due to the fact that classroom interaction barriers have been eliminated and a less threatening, lessstressful environment for learner-learner interaction has been created.
The Present Study The present study is an attempt to re-examine the issue of transferability of language skills addressed by previous researchers (Abrams, 2003; Beauvois, 1997; Chun, 1994; Kost 2004; Payne & Whitney, 2002) and the possibility of oral proficiency development through S-CMC discussions.
Table 3 Results of Paired Samples t-test Mean Std. Deviation (View the image of this page) The second research question looked into the possible effect of the learners’ level of proficiency on their improvement in oral proficiency within the S-CMC environment.
Table 7 Results of an Independent Samples t-test Comparing Means of Gain scores of participants with Positive and Negative Attitudes (View the image of this page) Conclusions and Discussion The findings of the present study suggest that S-CMC can help teachers provide their students with opportunities in the classroom to go beyond traditional teacher- centered, teacher-initiated interactions in which students primarily answer questions (initiation-response-feedback model)."