COMPUTER APPLICATION

LITERATURE REVIEW

GROUP MEMBERS: SARAH KHAIRUDDIN 0713976

ESLAM ABDURABU 0614532

NURUL DIANA MD. RABI 0634264

NORAINI MOHD NOOR 0728928

COURSE CODE: ENGL 4740

SECTION : 1

INSTRUCTOR : DR. ROZINA ABDUL GHANI

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Part A: Summary

In this article, “An Investigation of Communicative of ESL Students Using Electronic

Discussion Board”, the researchers, “Shenghua Zha, Paul Kelly, MeeAeng KO Park, and Gail

FitzGerald”, wanted to investigate students’ communication competence in a computer-mediated

communication environment and the effect of using technology specifically the internet in spite

the traditional methods such as drilling and practice.

Because of the internet become more accessible, computer-mediated interactions between

users in different locations were increased. In this research, the researchers used an Electronic

Discussion Board to encourage natural language learning environment by promoting social

interaction and creating a real discourse community among learners. Throughout the research,

learners were been given an equal opportunity to participate and students tend to take an active

role when they used CMC (computer-mediated-communication) rather than through face-to-face

communication. Studies done by Singhal (1998) and Warschauer (1996) suggest that both

learners’ knowledge and language production increase through online interaction. Students may

take a more active role in CMC than they do in face-to-face classroom communication (Chun,

1994). Another study done by St. John and Cash (1995) reports two benefit of using peer

interaction in online second language learning. First, the learner will be able to correct lexical

mistakes and second the learner’s pragmatics competence will be quickly improved.

This study involved 28 ESL studends in grade2-5 from 7 classes in 6 elementary schools

with different background and all of them are learning English as their second language.

Students from the same school were located separately to join another discussion group and they

were interacting using an electronic discussion board in discussing and sharing about something.

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They were given 3 activities to discuss about with their partners. Students’ messages were saved

using RTF (rich-text-format) and later on it is imported into Nvivo 2.0 (qualitative software

analysis). 19 competence indicators from 4 areas were used as coding nodes. After coding

process was done, children’s messages for three activities were further analyzed using both

quantitative and qualitative procedures.

After finalized the data, researchers narrowed the findings into 3 goals. The first goal is

to use English to participate in Social Interaction, secondly to use English for personal

expression and enjoyment, and thirdly to use an appropriate English variety, register, genre

according to the audience, purpose, and settings. These goals were achieved differently by

students and there were some factors that leading to these goals. Some students choose different

kind of writing styles based on who they were spoken to. Researchers also concluded that using

an electronic discussion board can provide equal opportunity and facilitate students in using

different language styles whether formal or informal.

The implication of this study presents several guidelines for ESL teachers for effective

use of electronic discussion boards to assist and improve ESL student’s written communicative

competence. First, electronic discussion boards can be utilized as learning environment to

encourage students to observe their peer written language and it is also apparent that online

group activities can be used to promote students’ use of language. Besides, it is also indicated

that teachers can help students distinguish different patterns of language variety, register, and

genre by having them involved in authentic language tasks.

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Part B: Relate the research article to any of the underlined aspects mentioned in the history

of CALL.

The article above is directly aligned with many aspects in the history of CALL mainly on

the issues of computer used as tutor, tool and pupil. The article at first highlights the importance

of language, communication and interaction. In the progress of CALL, computer was recognized

as a tutor, which directly touches interaction and communication and due to the current

technologies present at the time the interaction could occur both verbally and non verbally

(writing). In the study done in the article, it shows that the teachers had brought for the first week

of trainings the use of discussions boards online. This increased interaction among students and

the teachers which is useful in language learning. In the background study of the article it

signifies many importances on social environment being a key component in language learning.

Well known linguists such as Piaget and Vygotsky mentions that peer experiences in a

children’s life value in their process of language learning. There was a study done by St. John

and Cash (1995) that resulted in two further benefits of computer mediated learning, which to be

able to correct lexical mistakes by noticing peer usage of better language competence. By

posting on the discussion board, a student can easily press the spell check option to check their

spelling errors and by time having be able to recognize the correct spelling. In this way,

computer serving as a tutor has been highly achieved.

Later in the article, the authors speak of the role the computer serves as a tool to further

the communication between learners and the social environment. By using the computer to

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perhaps comment on the discussion boards or even to simply “chat”, increases exposure for a

learner to be more competent at language learning. Kern’s (1995) study showed that students

produce more sentences and learn variety of discourse functions.

In the research done, all the activities designed such as creating clubs, recommending a

holiday menu and planning a party increased the interaction between students. The laptops that

had been given to students served as a tool in the significant improvement of interaction that was

done in the discussion boards in this particular study. Students would pick up new greetings and

improve vocabulary due to the options that are present in the discussion board’s tools.

The third aspect that is covered by this article is the sociocognitive aspect of computer

mediated learning. Computer serving as pupil; now this matter is very important as in the

research a student cant be too directed to socializing through internet only but also increase face

to face interaction and make learners more sociable with one another; it also, increases the

mental ability of a learner to be competent in the language. Although in the findings, the results

for the improvement of social interaction between peers were discerned; it has significant results

on the personal expression of enjoyments and using language to extend communicative

competence.

Computer serving as pupil extends both interaction and students learning skills. Students

learn in various ways and explore their structural, cognitive and both sociocognitive dimension

in learning language. The research had its limitations such as students exposure to online

materials were less compared to what would be needed. There are many guidelines that need to

be followed by instructors and learners to conduct a computer mediated class.

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