Zha, S., Kelly, P., Park, M. A. K., & Fitzgerald, G. (2006). An investigation of communicative competence of ESL students using electronic discussion boards. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38(3), 349-367.
The primary function of language is communication and interaction. Improving students' communicative competence has emerged as the new focus in language instruction. English as a Second Language (ESL) education has changed greatly over the past few decades because of the role of technology. ESL utilizing computer-assisted language learning (CALL) has shifted from drill-and practice to computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC provides an equal opportunity for learners with different cultural backgrounds and personalities, thereby increasing participation and use of language. Peer interaction can be used to help learners acquire new strategies and strengthen their own ideas by engaging in peer dialog through written communication in MCC. Some ESL research: collaborative learning tasks (Belz & Kinginger, 2002; Chun, 1994; Lam, 2000; Singhal, 1998; Warschauer, 1996) or class/group discussions with individual assignments (Beauvois, 1992; Beauvois, 1994; Kern, 1995), none of these findings compared the effect of collaborative versus individual CMC learning tasks on students' communicative competence. The Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theorists note that the appropriate use of language is a part of socialization because language is the medium in social interactions. Therefore, studies of students' appropriate use of language should include the use of language to participate in social interactions. More studies are needed to define and measure students' appropriate use of language in CMC.
This study focuses on the use of electronic discussion boards with elementary-aged ESL students. Majority of studies on ESL learning in CMC settings were conducted at the college level. Few studies address the second communicative competence in CMC for K-12 students. Research do undertaken with elementary-aged children to examine their ESL communicative competence in an asynchronous discussion board. There are two purposes of the study. First, researchers want to examine the patterns of K-12 ESL students' communicative competence through peer interaction in collaborative learning versus individual learning tasks in CMC, with particular attention to appropriate use of language for social purposes. Second, researchers want to examine the improvements in communicative competence within CMC environments.
The research questions are not explicitly stated in this paper. Based on the topic and purposes, it is likely that the questions will look like as follows: (a) do the patterns of K-12 ESL students' communicative competence through peer interaction in collaborative learning differ from that of in individual learning tasks in CMC, with particular attention to appropriate use of language for social purposes? (b) do the students make improvements in their communication within CMC environments?
The participants were 28 ESL students in Grades 2-5 participated in this project. They came from 7 classes in 6 elementary schools. Eighteen of them were male and ten were female; 7 students spoke Spanish and 5 students spoke Chinese; the others spoke Russian, French, Korean, Arabic, Urdu, or Samoan. This research was conducted in 7 elementary ESL classes from mid-March to early May 2003. The intervention included a one-week training period, followed by three communication and writing activities in an electronic discussion board. Participant assigned from the same schools into different discussion groups so that the electronic discussion board was the only site for students in the same group to communicate with each other. Therefore, each group, consisting of three or four students from different schools, had its own discussion section on the discussion board. In other word, researcher used the purposive sampling.
The first week was considered a training week. The learning activities as an instrument were created based on Egbert's (2001, 2002) suggestions for a successful online ESL environment. Three online discussion activities were implemented in this study with the topics that related to students' real lives and would typically interest K-12 students. All of the three activities had different social settings, and therefore required students' appropriate use of English according to audience, purpose, and settings. This project was conducted in teachers' offices during the students' ESL class time, one hour for two classes per week. Students' messages to the discussion board were importing into NVivo 2.0, a qualitative analysis software program (QSR International).
Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to analyze 956 messages posted by 28 ESL students to the electronic discussion board during a six-week period of time. Used the qualitative methods, the researchers coded the messages using the national ESL Standards for PreK-12 Students to examine ESL students' communicative competence. Using the ESL Standards, nineteen competence indicators from four areas were used as coding nodes. Used quantitative analysis, based on the analysis of coded messages, paired sample t-tests were conducted to test for significant changes in communicative competence across the three activities. Three SPSS data files were created, and data in each standard was organized and used as variables.
The results of quantitative analysis demonstrated that students' use of English for personal expression and enjoyment increased despite the fluctuating number of messages across the three activity periods. The increase was not related to the organization of the tasks (individual vs. collaborative) either. The results from the qualitative analysis suggested that students had a tendency toward casual rather than formal social interaction throughout the three activities. Electronic discussion board offered an excellent opportunity to observe and facilitate K-12 ESL students' use of different language styles, including formal and informal patterns. Formalized testing would provide a way to assess language improvement observed in the qualitative results. The outcomes of this study are ESL children are able to learn to use these environments, engage in appropriate social interaction, successfully engage in authentic work tasks, and interact socially and negotiate meaning with others. Using CMC as language learning environments can help teachers implement ESL Standards in ESL teaching.
Limitation of the study: (a) researchers did not describe the desired achievement of the implementation of ESL standards in the classroom activity. It means that the study only explained about the social interaction achievement instead of the proper use of ESL standards; (b) I am sure, time as well as other factors such as absenteeism could contribute to the fluctuation of students' participation that was observed, but researchers did not explain about that.
This research is useful for our group project, especially, we are language teacher. This research gives us insight how teach language with the communication and interaction purpose. This research gives insight that research must be prepared and designed clearly. This research gives an example how to use both quantitative and qualitative design***agepe.
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