Call Thesis Midterm Andrew Houghton - 0954045 Sookmyung Womens University

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My thesis will focus on increasing overall speaking proficiency through computer mediated communication (CMC), with a focus on telephone English skills. My students are senior college students and their major is secretarial administration. A large focus of their business English class is on telephone skills. Due to materials provide and with the organization of the current curriculum the students carry out tasks in a less than authentic environment. Telephone conversations are different to face-to-face conversations in that telephone skills lack the non-verbal cues such as gestures and emotions through smiles and frowns that are common place in face-to-face conversations. As with any skill, for it to be acquired, it has to be practiced, and telephone skills are no exception. My students are not accustomed to speaking English on the phone, and they have very few chances to practice, there for they are extremely hesitant to use English over the telephone. Although the students can partake in face-to-face conversations in class and with well thought out design can be carried out within an authentic context, telephone conversations are not so easy to simulate. The research questions for my thesis are: 1. Can computer mediated communication through online social chat improve speaking in the target language? 2. How are learners attitudes and perceptions effected by the use online social chat in language learning? Annotated bibliography Abrams. Z. I. (2003). The Effect of Synchronous and Asynchronous CMC on Oral Performance in German. The Modern Language Journal. 87(ii), 157-167. This research examined: 1) Does CMC, synchronous or asynchronous, result in better oral performance than traditional classroom tasks, and 2). differences between the effects of asynchronous or synchronous CMC on oral performance. The research collected data from 96 students of intermediate, third-semester German at a large Midwest American university. There was a control group that continued with the standard classroom activities, and two treatment groups. The first treatment group participated in one hour of synchronous CMC on the day before the oral discussion day. The second treatment group took part in a one week long asynchronous CMC session the week leading up to the oral discussion day. This study found that students who participated in synchronous CMC out per-formed those in

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the control group, but that students in the asynchronous CMC group actually produced significantly less output than their peers. Payne, J. S., Whitney, P. J. (2002). Developing L2 oral proficiency through synchronous CMC: Output, working memory, and interlanguage development. CALICO Journal, 20, 7-32. This research examined the indirect effects of chatroom interaction in the target language on oral proficiency. The research collected data from 58 volunteers from four sections of third semester Spanish courses with the treatment and control group performing the same task, but online and face-to-face respectively. The participants partook in weekly, descussions to get ready for a real time discussion, repetition activities and quizzed that received feedback, personal use of the textbooks included video, and a group work project to write an essay through the process of creating multiple drafts. This study found that the students using CMC scored higher on their oral proficiency than the control group partaking in face-to-face activities.

Lai, C., Zhao, Y. (2006). Noticing and text-based chat. Language Learning & Technology, 10(3), 102-120. This research looked at the differences of using text-based online or face-to-face oral chat in the L2, to increase noticing of difficult communication, and noticing of the feedback that is offered by their interlocutor. Data was collected from twelve English language students with intermediate English proficiency that worked in pairs, in a computer lab, and performed a spot-the-difference task through online chat and face-to-face chat. First the students performed a practice task and then performed a similar treatment task that used the same sequence as the practice task. The results of this study found that the online chat encouraged more noticing of their own of their language mistakes than in face-to-face chat. ENE, E., GRTLER, S. E., MCBRIDE, K. (2005) Teacher Participation Styles in Foreign Language Chats and Their Effect on Student Behavior. CALICO Journal, 22 (3), 603-634. This research looked into the effect of a teachers participation in online chat on students error correction, uptake, target language use, and on-task behavior by collecting data from German students attending an American university that took part in pair and group work activities and the results suggest that a teachers presence does indeed have an effect, and that

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one teachers focus on form correction had a negative effect on participation. Warschauer, M. (1996). Comparing face-to-face and electronic discussion in the second language classroom. CALICO Journal, 13(2), 7-26. This research paper investigated 1) the differences between traditional face-to-face discussions and electronic discussions with regards to equal participation, 2) if there is a difference then which group of students benefits and how do gender, nationality, age, and language proficiency come into effect, and 3) thoughts towards participating in electronic and face-to-face discussion are analyzed for relationships between the attitudes and the amount of participation. Data was collected while sixteen students that are taking part in an advanced ESL composition class performed discussion tasks one online and the other face-to-face and both had a fifteen minute time limit. Two questions different were presented, one for each type of discussion, and were taken from students current unit of study. The results of the research show that there was more equal participation in electronic discussions and that language used was more complex and had a more formal structure than in face-to-face communication. Jespson, K. (2005). Conversations -- and Negotiated Interaction -- In Text and Voice Chat Rooms. Language Learning and Technology, 9(3), 79-88. This research examined the different kinds of repair moves that take place in text and voice chats, and 2) if there are any differences between text and voice chats, in the repair moves, if the time allowed is kept the same. Data was collected from non-native speakers of English at an online, private English school. The school serves adults and children, and access to the online chat rooms is gained through a nickname, so the gender, age, native language, and education, were unknown. Chat rooms were observed and noted when they had at least 5 participants and although there were themed chat rooms, they seldom stayed on topic. The results showed between the voice chat and text chat, there were important differences in total repair moves, with the voice chat environment producing more. Loewen, S. and Erlam R. (2006). Corrective Feedback in the Chatroom: An experimental study. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 19(1), 1-14. This paper examined 1) how the use of corrective feedback on mistakes made with regular past tense verbs, effected students results when taking a timed and untimed grammaticality

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judgment test, and 2) if there are differences between using different types, implicit or explicit feedback. Data was collected from 31 students with a variety of language backgrounds, attending a private language school in New Zealand, that performed two activities, during the first task each student used a set of four pictures and a written narrative that varied in the amount of detail provided, the narratives all focused on regular past tense, after the narrative was read, it was taken away, and the students had to retell the story to others in the chat room, and look out for differences in others retelling. For the second task was similar in that each student received a pair of pictures from a set of nine pairs that depicted what two people did on their days off, they had to tell the other chat room members what they did, and listen out for other activities that are the same between the two people. The results show that there were no significant differences between the levels of gains between the two types of feedback. Okuyamma, Y. (2005). Distance Language Learning via Synchronous Computer Mediated Communication (SCMC): Eight Factors Affecting NS-NNS Chat Interaction. The JALT CALL Journal, 1(2), 3-20. This research examined the factors that fundamentally effect synchronous computer mediated communication. The data was gathered from eleven college level students attending an intensive summer course in Japanese communication that took part in online chatting task of getting to know each other and a native Japanese speaking guest and a second task of playing a guessing game was conducted later. The results of this research suggest that if the communicative task is thoughtfully designed then synchronous computer mediated communication has the benefits of developing individuality, evenly balanced participation and a more meaningful experience to the students.

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