http://www.tell.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/callejonline/journal/5-2/fujiike.html
ISSN 1442-438X
Teruo Fujiike is the person who is responsible for conducting this research. He is a Japanese teacher of English at Akashi Senior High School in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. He received his Master's degree in school education from Hyogo University of Teacher Education. His research interests are in Internet-based language learning in the classroom and on-line discourse analysis. He can be reached via his e-mail: tfujiike@hyogo-c.ed.jp
Summary of the Article
This research is conducted by focusing on interactions between Japanese learners of English as a foreign language using computer-mediated communication (CMC) in the second language (L2) classroom. Basically, this research involves a synchronous on-line debate by using a Bulletin Board System (BBS) as to support a theory proposed by Gunawardena, Lowe and Anderson's (1997) “Interaction Analysis Model” for examining social construction of knowledge.
The Aims of the research
The main aim of this research is to qualitatively examine how learners of English develop the social construction of knowledge through Computer-Mediated Communication. Futhermore, this paper is specifically designed to qualitatively analyze CMC based interactions between Japanese learners of English as a foreign language (EFL).
The methodology
The study was conducted through "Experimental research" on on-line debates between Japanese EFL learners of English. Therefore, three pairs of university students learning English as a foreign language participated in six debates and each of the pairs exchanged messages around the propositions presented by posting messages on a BBS. Furthermore, two debate logs are chosen here to scrutinize how the participants construct their knowledge as a result of the interaction and the topic involved "Which is better? telephone or e-mail". There were seven sessions in total, and each session lasted for about 90 minutes. In fact, there were STEP (the Society for Testing English Proficiency) tests were administered in the first session just to evaluate their English proficiency.
The subject/sample
4 females and 2 male students (n=6) whose ages range from 19 to 22, voluntarily participated in a synchronous on-line debates through BBS which were conducted in June, 2002. The participants were undergraduate students who have been enrolled in a general English course at the Hyogo University of Teacher Education and had been learning English for more than seven years.
The findings of the research
In the result and discussion part of this research, the researcher reconsidered the actual term of on-line debates as not only conflicts of opinions occurred, but also compromise (i.e., co-construction of knowledge) during the sessions. Thus, traditional debate format hindered desire of the participants to reach a compromise or a synthesis of the propositions (Gunawardena, et al., 1997) compared to some sessions in this research, they were able to reach a compromise and synthesis of the different positions because some messages were evaluated, in which participants constructed knowledge collaboratively. Moreover, in the issue of "telephone or e-mail", one of the participants claimed that each one of them has their own roles and this answer might be evaluated as indecisive yet weak in traditional debate but when we observed from the aspect of social constructivism, the argument could have been deepened the argument in which the participant should be more aware of their statement and be more specific so that more constructive arguments could be generated. Participants started discussing what good communication was and they deepened their ideas as a result of the social interaction between the participants. This clearly showed that a series of arguments can be transformed from a specific and simple one of “which is better, A or B?” type question to a higher order problem such as “How should communication be carried out?” Apart from that, the use of debates plays important roles for pedagogical use and significant with the analysis of online debates. This is because through traditional face-to-face debates, there are several aspects have been evaluated in terms of participant's behaviors such as “logic”, “analysis”, “argument”, “evidence”, “delivery”, and “questions and answers”. The researcher proposed how online debates should be evaluated in classrooms setting as the three aspects of interaction include quantity, persuasiveness and organization and the criteria should be informed first to the participants. Thus, it would be easier to determine the participant's level of motivation as they will be focusing more on the criteria given to them and their way of giving statements would become more structured. Matsumoto (2001), discussing evaluation methods of the debate, claimed that rather than by using the criteria such as "delivery", and "questions and answers", the debates should be judged by comparing and examining the arguments each party posted, and the team which presents the most collaborative and constructive ideas in the very last session wins. The researcher has found out that the participants who manage to perform in generating new and better ideas, new constructed knowledge and finding solutions of the problem contribute to co-construction of meaning. At the end of the study, this decision makes debates not only just a fun game but a true problem solving task and encourages participants to become more competent debaters.
If it is a concept/ theory describe/explain;
In this research, the researcher has stressed out the importance of social constructivism as proposed by Vygotsky where the use of interactions in learning the language has been emphasized and in this case, it refers to online debates where all the participants involved in giving thoughts and arguments that cultivate collaborative learning as well as the use of scaffolding. Another concept of "Interaction Analysis Model" by Gunawardena, Lowe and Andersons (1997) which is for examining social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing. This is to investigate qualities of learning experiences through CMC which has not been satisfactorily investigated.
:: Reaction ::
This research is somehow captured my interest as I tend to relate it with those days when I did my practicum in schools. I had this one class where the students were active learners and sometimes, they tend to argue about their points regarding certain questions or matters. Yet, one of the students asked me, " Teacher, why don't we argue about this till midnight using YM through conference? perhaps, we can get more information" From that moment, I started to think about this and whether I can evaluate their performance through this "CMC" because it does not involve turn taking which may involve in classroom setting. Perhaps, the students can be evaluated equally and I manage to detect students who work in groups and those who work in isolation. Thus, this type of collaborative debates encourage students to become autonomous learners as they navigate their own ways of writing their arguments and debating on certain issues among themselves. As a matter of fact, this research interests me in the aspect of collaborative learning whereby I can just simply give instructions or topics related to the syllabus and let the students gives their thoughts, opinions, and compose their statement on their own. As what language learning is concerned, learners benefit from a focus on form (Lightbown & Pienemann, 1993; Pica, 1996) yet they will become more conscious in creating and constructing their sentences as well as using proper grammar. Plus, the researcher also stated one of the functions in using on-line debates like emoticon that use to be one way of expressing emotions among the students. From my point of view, I do think that this research is well conducted as most of the findings have been supported with the concept and theory emphasized by the researcher. It is relevant with the use of collaborative learning that inculcate participation among the students as well as their motivation level will be increased. The only thing that matters about this research is the effectiveness of the way it has been conducted. The researcher has conducted experimental research and yes, the result can be obtained as fast as the teacher wants it to be but in terms of the validity and the reliability, it is quite challenging as the students may not be able to complete it on time. Plus, this research was only being conducted in small scale of group and the result might be different as large scale of groups may involve. Generally, the implication of the research in the teaching and learning of ESL is exactly the same as what EFL learners have gone through in this research. Specifically in Malaysian context, this kind of application should be more emphasized to the students as they will get more interacted with one another. Moreover, this will also gives advantage to students who preferably working in isolation and shy in expressing his or her thoughts especially in the classroom. Most ESL learners, focusing on school students, they are more prone to speak Bahasa Melayu in class as they worried that they might make mistakes when giving their thoughts and opinions. In conclusion, the use of collaborative debates in learning English should be given great emphasis especially to the students who are coming from rural areas as this will enhance their capability of utilizing English language as part of their daily language. Apart from that, teachers should take this matter into consideration as this will enable them to be equipped with the use of technology as an aid in providing more knowledge and inculcate positive values of letting the students to work among each other. Thus, the students will become more motivated subconsciously as they will learn two applications at one time in which they will utilize the use of computer as more hands-on activities that involve in this application as well as they will learn English as comfortable as they might be with plenty of helpful resources and scaffolding applications such as emoticon to express feelings and online dictionary in searching for words that they do not familiar with.
