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| CMC - Alia Farhana (Question 1) |
| Mar 25, 2009 |
Question 1 (Summary)
Title:Experience-based Language Learning through Asynchronous Discussion
Author: Chi-Fen Emily Chen
(National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology)
A) OBJECTIVE/PURPOSE
• There are five purposes for this research. The first purpose is to investigate the reflectiveness and interactivity of peer exchanges in the asynchronous discussion forums.
• Students’ perceived effectiveness in learning content and language through asynchronous discussion.
• Their attitudes toward asynchronous discussion.
• The influence of peer interaction in students’ participation in this activity.
• The influence of the instructor’s participation in the discussion forums and the students’ need for that.
B) SAMPLE
• The sample for this research is 76 students who took English majors from National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology as part of the introductory course to Second Language Acquisition. The first batch were those who enrolled for fall 2003 class with 41 students while the second batch were those who enrolled for fall 2004 class with 36 students.
C) PROCEDURE
1. The researcher set up a forum via (http://www.nicenet.org). The forums were private and only students who enrolled for the course can access to it.
2. Through the forum, students were expected to answer questions that were designed in accordance to the topics and issues covered in the course.
3. Students were randomly assigned to four groups which saw 8 to 11 students per group. The students were asked to discuss about their language learning experiences or thoughts in response to the teacher’s questions in their assigned groups and then they had to give feedback, either comments or questions, to their fellow members’ postings in their own group.
4. The students were required to discuss new topic almost every week. They also had to write one respond to the teacher’s questions and give at least two feedbacks to at least two of their group members.
5. The students were given two weeks to discuss each topic. The most active groups for both classes were interviewed and all of the students must filled in the questionnaire based on their experience using the forum discussion.
D) DURATION
• The researcher took two years (from fall 2003 to fall 2004) to observe and gather the students’ communication via forum.
E) METHODOLOGY
• The research methodologies of this research chosen by the researcher are both qualitative and quantitative research. She gathered the data from the forums and later she would interview students who actively participate in the activity.
F) FINDINGS
• There are differences in the students’ participation in the asynchronous discussions in classes and also in discussion groups. The 2004 class performed better than did the 2003 class in terms of response rate (97% vs. 92%) and length (323 words vs. 253 words per response).
• The 2004 class also gave more replies to their group members’ postings per topic (2.93 replies per student) and wrote longer (95 words per reply) replies than did the students of the 2003 class (1.45 replies per student and 88 words per reply). That is, the interactivity level of the 2004 class was higher than that of the 2003 class.
• The differences in the participation level between the two classes can be accounted for by a more flexible requirement set for the 2004 class: they were allowed to discuss a topic for two weeks, whereas the 2003 class had to do the two tasks in one week.
• This reveals that students need to be given sufficient time to do online discussions; otherwise, a high level of interaction among students can hardly occur. The students said that using asynchronous discussion enhanced their learning of content of the course by 91% for the 2004 class and by 81% for the 2003 class.
Learning of language was not as high as learning of the content. Only 70% of the students strongly agrees and agrees that asynchronous discussion helped their language learning. The students’ attitude toward the asynchronous activity was only 50% like the activity and another 50% dislike the activity for both classes.
Question 2
Question 3 |
posted by alia @ 10:58 PM  |
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