LEARNER EXPERIENCE OF CMCL

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1.      Learner participation

      Early studies (e.g. Kern, 1995; Beauvois, 1998) showed that student participation in synchronous written conferencing was comparable to that in oral class discussion, resulting in more turns and more language produced.

Enhancing learner contributions

Computer-assisted class discussion (CACD) provides learners with the opportunity to generate and initiate different kinds of discourse, which in turn enhances their ability to express a greater variety of functionsin different contextsas well as to play a greater role in managing the discourse, e.g. they feel freer to address questions to anyone or everyone in the class, to query the teacher form time to time, to suggest new topics or steer the discussion towards things they are interested in, to request more information or confirmation of something said by someone else, or to express thoughts or opinions that have not been explicitly solicited. (Chun, 1994: 18)

2.      Anxiety

      We have found Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow experience useful for understanding anxiety. A flow experience happens when participants are totally absorbed in an activity and forget everything around them. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) identifies a challenging activity that requires skills, clear goals and feedback, and a sense of control as preconditions that make such absorption possible.

      Van Lier focuses on the first precondition and relates it to anxiety.

Conditions for flow experience

Preconditions for this state of flow are a perfect balance between available skills and challenges. Anxiety results from insufficient skills or insufficient challenges. (van Lier, 1996: 106).

3.      Motivation, learner control and autonomy

      Motivation is the result of the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic factors, between exploration and interest on the one hand, and external rewards on the other hand (Dörnyei, 1994, 2001a).

On the other hand, as Furstenberg (1997), Warschauer (1997), Tella (1999), Paramskis (1999) and O’Dowd (2006b) show, intrinsic motivation can be increased in CMCL by allowing learners to:

·         write for a real audience (email exchanges or publishing work on the internet);

• develop useful technical skills;
• communicate with distant partners;
• work collaboratively;
• create projects that reflect their own interests;
• participate in authentic exchanges with peers and/or native speakers.

Autonomy

The fact that this new paradigm [of online education] offers considerable choice and autonomy to the learner is irrelevant if the learner is not able to make informed choices about his/her learning requirements and to work independently of authority figures. (Mason and Kaye, 1989: 25).

4.      Presence and identity

      We mentioned above that at one level anxiety can be linked to learners’ sense of aloneness, contextual deprivation and anonymity in online environments. Allowing language learners to be situated in what Hutchby (2001: 1) calls an ‘abstract form of co-presence’ with others may thus not be sufficient to create an atmosphere conducive to interaction between participants.

Misunderstandings and conversational management in written conferences

[C]ontextualizing cues normally available in spoken discourse have been limited by the written discourse processes required. Furthermore, given the implicit nature of language… the possibility for misunderstanding is greater and therefore the work required for ‘conversational management’ to mitigate this is even higher in this new environment. First meetings, early presentations of self, negotiations of learning community norms, and responses to contributors all have the potential for greater misunderstanding, all therefore become more significant and require greater effort to manage.… A whole new communication process has to be learned. It is not simply a process of shifting from speaking and listening to reading and writing. (Mann, 2004: 213).

 

Reference:

Lamy, Marie-Noelle and Hampel, Regine. 2007. Online Communication in Language Learning and Teaching : Learners Experience. Australia: Palgrave macmillan