Drawing from sociocultural theory, this research investigated the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in the development of writing fluency. Likewise, the study aimed at confirming previously cited affective benefits linked to SCMC. Measuring fluency in words per 30 minutes, the study compared pre and post-test essay scores of two groups of ESL learners (a control group and a SCMC group) in two intermediate levels. Two evaluation questionnaires were also administered to the SCMC group in order to obtain students' opinions of this technology-based medium, and to analyze change in their perceptions. The SCMC group outperformed the control group in fluency scores, although the difference was not statistically significant. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis found positive results in terms of linguistic and affective benefits derived from this innovative use of computer.

The purpose of the present study was to explore ESL students’ interactions in task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) in Second Life, a virtual environment by which users can interact through representational figures. I investigated Low-Intermediate and High-Intermediate ESL students’ interaction patterns before, during, and after three kinds of tasks, a Jigsaw task, a Decision-making task, and a Discussion task. The findings were that the Low and High-Intermediate ESL students engaged in several forms of interaction during the pre- and post-task periods in Second Life, such as checking their voice chat function, checking members, moving their avatars, and closings. These activities pointed to the nature of Second Life voice chat interaction as preconditions for further conversation, and for closing their conversation. Official task period activities revealed factors for task success, such as a leader, a structured way of approaching a task, no technical problem, and establishing a sense of telepresence (Schroeder, 2002) before the task. Concerning negotiation of meaning, the High-Intermediate students made more negotiation during the Decision-making tasks than the Jigsaw tasks, caused mainly by lexical meanings. The wrong answer team and the incomplete team engaged in more negotiations than the correct answer team and the complete team. However, the Low-Intermediate students in the complete team made more negotiations of meaning than the incomplete team. Both levels of students had fewer negotiations during the Discussion task than in the Jigsaw and Decision-making tasks, and they used comprehension checks, confirmation checks, and clarification requests as strategies for negotiation, overwhelmingly focused on meaning rather than form. The students played with their avatars more often during the Discussion task session than during the Jigsaw or Decision-making tasks, and their use of avatars seemed simply to be for fun, although another way explaining what students were doing is to recognize that they were also exploring the affordances of Second Life. Generally, the Low-Intermediate students had a positive attitude toward their learning experience in Second Life, whereas the High-Intermediate students expressed a more neutral view of their experience in Second Life. / text

There has been a strong advocacy of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in China since the 1980s. One underlying assumption behind this approach is that acquisition is a process which depends on conversational interaction (Wagner-Gough & Hatch, 1975). A specific kind of interaction, meaning negotiation, which “includes routines or exchanges that involve indications of non-understandings and subsequent negotiations of meaning” (Gass & Varonis, 1991, p. 127) has long been considered to be a key factor in L2 development research. From the interactionist perspective, the facilitative role of meaning negotiation in L2 learning is that it provides comprehensible input, and elicits corrective feedback, helps learners to produce comprehensible output, and has the potential to draw learners’ attention to non-target-like aspects of language output. However, recognising the growing role of synchronous computer-medicated communication (SCMC) in language learning, how EFL learners negotiate meaning and whether the claim of the interactionist approach still holds true in this new medium needs further investigation. Moreover, considering the complexity of tasks used in eliciting meaning negotiation and the SCMC involved in negotiating meaning, the exclusively cognitive approach applied by previous studies seems insufficient to explain the meaning negotiation elaborated. For instance, considering the Chinese culture of learning, some Chinese students may be reluctant to produce negotiated interaction. Also, little research has been carried out to investigate the effect of social factors, such as the context and relationship between interlocutors, in generating meaning negotiation. Furthermore, there is little conclusive evidence in previous research regarding the effects of tasks on the quality and quantity of meaning negotiation. This case study investigated 48 EFL students studying mechanical engineering in a Chinese university. Using the variationist perspective on the interaction approach, this study aimed to investigate the features of learners’ negotiated interaction during task-based SCMC, and their similarities and differences with face-to-face negotiated interaction, based on the Varonis and Gass model. Moreover, it also investigates the relationship between task (i.e., task type and task content) and meaning negotiation (i.e., quality and quantity), and the perceived benefits and difficulties of the use of paired task-based SCMC interaction. Also, as previous studies have neglected the individual differences and social factors, the last aim was to investigate how the social and cognitive factors were inextricably intertwined by studying the participants’ perceptions and their actual performances. The main results of the study indicate a low ratio of negotiated turns in paired task-based SCMC interaction due both to linguistic and social factors. Moreover, task did have an influence on the meaning negotiation generated. However, the five-task typology (Pica et al., 1993) applied by most previous studies investigating meaning negotiation cannot fully explain the influence of task on meaning negotiation in peer-peer SCMC context. Apart from the two recurrent features in task definitions, “interactional activity” and “communication goal”, “task complexity” and “task difficulty” (Robinson, 2003) are also influential factors. Overall, this study argues that task, SCMC, the relationship between interlocutors and the learners themselves are all factors which can influence learners’ generation of meaning negotiation. Both personal information and learning contexts have the potential to shape not only the quantity and quality of meaning negotiation but also the attention to the interaction and further influence the production of learners’ language.

This study, adopting a case study approach with a group of beginning-level FFL (French as a foreign language) learners, investigated the possibility that initial level foreign language learners may acquire oral skills through synchronous CMC, and the impacts of synchronous CMC learning on their motivation, as well as their social presence. The participants were 12 FFL beginners in a Taiwanese university. Divided into three groups, they were required to conduct three tasks in three different learning environments (video/audio, audio and f2f) during an academic semester (18 weeks). The semester constituted cycles of three-week practices on those tasks. The contents of the tasks were inter-connected. Before each oral task, all the participants had to conduct the same task in synchronous text chat. The data for this study was collected from the participants’ performance in three oral tests held at the initial, middle and final phases of the study, their online chat records, interview transcriptions, learning journal, questionnaires completed at the beginning and the end of the study, and the instructor’s observation journal. The results suggest that these three CMC learning modes bring only partial benefits in terms of learners’ oral proficiency development. It is factors generated by the three learning environments, rather than the environments themselves, that have the largest impact on the learners’ oral proficiency development, learning motivation and attitudes towards the target language. However, the differences in the environments are reflected in particular in the learners’ perception of social presence.

The use of communication strategies (CSs) has been of interest on research into second language acquisition (SLA) since it can help learners to attain mutual comprehension effectively and develops understanding of interaction in SLA research. This study investigates and clarifies a wide range of CSs that learners of English and learners of Chinese use to solve language problems as well as to facilitate problem-free discourse in both text-based and video-based SCMC environments. Seven Chinese-speaking learners of English and seven English-speaking learners of Chinese were paired up as tandem (reciprocal) learning dyads in this study. Each dyad participated in four interactions, namely, text-based SCMC in English, text-based SCMC in Chinese, video-based SCMC in English and video-based SCMC in Chinese. The interaction data were analysed along with an after-task questionnaire and stimulated reflection to explore systematically and comprehensively the differences between text-based and video-based SCMC and differences between learners of English and learners of Chinese. The results showed that learners used CSs differently in text-based and video-based SCMC compared with their own performance and indicated different learning opportunities provided by these two modes of SCMC. Although the difference in language was less salient than the medium effect, learners of English and learners of Chinese tended to have their own preferences for particular CSs. When these preferences appear to reflect an appropriate communicative style in one particular culture, learners might need to raise their awareness of some strategies during intercultural communication to avoid possible misunderstanding or offence. Some possible advantages of tandem learning interaction were also identified in this study, such as the potential to develop sociocultural and intercultural competence due to the opportunity to practice culturally appropriate language use with native speakers in a social context.

The empirical study carried out in this degree project is exploratory, and its main objective is to investigate the development of strategic competence in oral production as it occurs in two different communication modes, namely, synchronous computer mediated communication (SCMC) and face-to-face (FTF) communication. More specifically, this study compares the instances of different communication strategies (CS) used to negotiate meaning. This aim was approached through the following research questions: RQ (1): Which types of communication strategies do Swedish learners of English use to enhance interaction in different communication modes? RQ (2): How frequently do they use these strategies in each communication mode? RQ (3): Which communicative mode creates an environment more favorable for the occurrence ofNofM? The results of the study demonstrated that the CS the participants used were: clarification request, appeals for assistance, confirmation check, provision of assistance, self-correction, use of Swedish (L1), topic shifting and circumlocution. The latter two were only used in FTF communication, making this the communication mode with the highest variety of CS types. Concerning our second RQ the frequency of usage of the aforementioned CS, the results suggest that the frequency differed between the two communicative modes a part fromappeals for assistance and provisions of assistance. In turn, self-correction, topic shift and circumlocution had a higher frequency in FTF communication, whereas clarification requests, confirmation checks and usage of Swedish had a higher occurrence rate in SCMC. Concerning our third RQ on the one hand, the results in favor of FTF communication were reflected in the higher response rate of appeals for assistance and the use of circumlocution. On the other hand, the results supporting SCMC were seen in the higher frequency and especially in the use of the L1, in the lesser occurrence of self-correction of faulty forms, as well as the higher number of turns per minute and higher percentage of turns used for CS. Based on these results, the present study would seem to point at SCMC as the most favorable communication mode for NofM.

This study is about graduate students’ discourse practices in a classroom text-based synchronous computer-mediated discussion (SCMD). Cultural historical activity theory (in short, Activity Theory) is the primary theoretical lens through which the data are analyzed. Engeström’s (1987) Activity System model among the various theoretical positions or perspectives of activity theorists has guided the overall process of the study, especially having the researcher focus on the identification and description of the model’s six key elements: subject, object, tool, community, rule, and division of labor. Several emerging themes were identified. An activity system in SCMD is situated in multiple dimensions of context: physical/biological, cultural/institutional, social/ emotional, and cognitive/intellectual dimensions; instead of a single utterance, a topical pair needs to be investigated as a unit of analysis in SCMD research; a collective unit of actions emerges through the discourse activity; and, finally, an ecological view is needed to understand an activity system as a whole. Based on these emerging themes, I conclude with a modified model of the activity system in the situation of dialogical transactions such as SCMD. / text

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T16:55:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 123342.pdf: 1867606 bytes, checksum: 183fd23e72602cef81b5d7a2623072f8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-07-02 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Faced with the problem from the market competitiveness and the knowledge economy, whose dominant feature is the constant learning, along with the field of technology and information, the present study aimed to verify the knowledge sharing dynamics resulting from the partnership between UDESC and partner companies of the issues of 2013/2014, project Santa Catarina Fashion and Culture-SCMC using the basics of theories of knowledge, Nonaka and Takeuchi and ba, Nonaka, Toyama and Konno. The theme that guided the drafting of the study is centered on two axes: the neoliberal socioeconomic process, the generator caused changes in the state s economy from the 1990s and the characteristics and key factors that allowed the evolution of knowledge. The targets were: to raise the historical context of the economic crisis of the 1990s and its relationship with textile companies and clothing of Santa Catarina clothing; describe the genesis of SCMC project; identify how knowledge was shared in the prescription of SCMC design and verify the apprehension of shared knowledge and contributions arising from lived experience. The survey classified as a case study with descriptive approach, understood, beyond the theoretical and thematic review in bibliographies, data and information gathering in the field, by virtual means and hypermedia which was submitted to the ordering process, classification and analysis, as well as other materials and, for validation, we used the data triangulation procedure. It was, after treatment of the evidence, that the organizations devoted to the production of fashion garments, the state of Santa Catarina, are also inserted in this context generating changes of the knowledge economy and turned their focus to the improvement of human capital, aimed at distinct value creation and the creation of competitive advantage; that knowledge sharing in the Shared Intelligence SCMC, both epistemological dimension as the ontological, is the culture of partner companies and Bachelor Course in Fashion: Fashion Design Qualification of UDESC; that tacit knowledge, socialized groups of individuals participating in the SCMC-2013/2014, is transformed into explicit in outsourcing and combined with explicit and tacit internalized in people, in the production of fashion products at the end of four modules, as evidenced ba in the four settings, the SECI conversion process. / Frente à problemática proveniente da competitividade do mercado e da economia do conhecimento, cuja característica predominante é o aprendizado constante, junto com o domínio da tecnologia e da informação, o presente estudo teve por objetivo verificar a dinâmica de compartilhamento de conhecimentos, resultante da parceria estabelecida entre a UDESC e as empresas parceiras das edições de 2013/2014, do projeto Santa Catarina Moda e Cultura-SCMC, utilizando os conceitos básicos das teorias do conhecimento, de Nonaka e Takeuchi e do ba, de Nonaka, Toyama e Konno. A temática que orientou a elaboração do estudo está centrada em dois eixos: no processo socioeconômico neoliberal, gerador das mudanças ocasionadas na economia catarinense, a partir da década de 1990 e nas características e fatores decisivos que permitiram a evolução do conhecimento. As metas estabelecidas foram: levantar o contexto histórico da crise econômica da década de 1990 e sua relação com as empresas têxteis e de confecções do vestuário catarinense; descrever a gênese do projeto SCMC; identificar como o conhecimento foi compartilhado na prescrição do projeto SCMC e averiguar a apreensão dos conhecimentos compartilhados e as contribuições decorrentes da experiência vivenciada. A pesquisa classificada como estudo de caso, com enfoque descritivo, compreendeu, além da revisão teórico-temática em bibliografias, o recolhimento de dados e informações, no campo, por meio virtual e hipermidiático que foi submetido aos processos de ordenação, classificação e análise, assim como os demais materiais e, para validação, foi empregado o procedimento de triangulação dos dados. Concluiu-se, após o tratamento das evidências, que as organizações voltadas à produção do vestuário de moda, do estado de Santa Catarina, também estão inseridas nesse contexto de mudanças geradoras da economia do conhecimento e voltaram seu foco para o aprimoramento do capital humano, visando à geração distinta de valor e a criação de vantagem competitiva; que o compartilhamento de conhecimentos, no Inteligência Compartilhada do SCMC, tanto na dimensão epistemológica quanto na ontológica, está na cultura das empresas parceiras e no Curso de Bacharelado em Moda: Habilitação Design de Moda da UDESC; que o conhecimento tácito, socializado dos grupos de indivíduos participantes do SCMC-2013/2014, é transformado em explícito na externalização e combinado com explicito e internalizado nas pessoas em tácito, na produção de produtos de moda, ao final de quatro módulos, conforme constatado nos quatro contextos ba, do processo de conversão SECI.

This study investigated the different types of errors that EFL learners produce in chat logs and also analyzed the different types of corrective feedback given by the teacher. An eye tracker was employed to study the eye movements of the participants to see how they notice the corrective feedback. This investigation can assist teachers to act better in online classrooms and helps them understand which type of corrective feedback is most likely to result in uptake based on noticing. The results showed that the most common errors in chat logs were related to grammar. It was also found that both recasts and metalinguistic feedback were noticed most of the time during the chat sessions although only a few of them led to uptake in post task session.

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