On BBS-assisted EFL Learning: Exploring a virtual community for college students

• Main Authors: Yu-Chuan Cheng, 鄭宇涓
• Other Authors: Hsien-Chin Liou
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2000
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70666493277479243956

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 外國語文學系 === 88 === With the rise of computer network, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is now gaining more and more attention in the English teaching and learning field. It is claimed that CMC promotes learner empowerment and literacy on the basis of collaborative learning. Although some research has been conducted on the effects of synchronous conferencing on foreign language learning, very few empirical studies have been conducted using asynchronous conferencing. The Bulletin Board System (BBS), among the asynchronous types, becomes a very popular CMC activity for college students in Taiwan. This present project aims to explore how BBS forms a virtual community to facilitate college EFL learning. This project was conducted in the fall semester of 1999 with 45 college freshman students in a Freshman English class. An electronic bulletin board was built for this class only and activities on the board were integrated into the class learning. During the semester, free postings on this bulletin board outside of class time were encouraged, and two follow-up response tasks after in-class reading or video viewing were required of all students to post to the board, followed by class debriefing. Additionally, two writing tasks with on-line pre-writing discussion on the board were interleaved with another two writing tasks without on-line discussion─serving as controlled tasks. The two sets were both followed by in-class pre-writing discussion before they actually wrote in class. The first set served as practice sessions. All the writing in the second set was holistically graded by two raters using the ESL Composition Profile. T-tests were used to compare the part scores (content, organization, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics) and total scores of the compositions between sessions. A Background and an Evaluation questionnaires, used to obtain students’computer literacy and attitudes toward such use of the board were analyzed. An interview was conducted with the class instructor to obtain data from her perspective. All the postings on the board were categorized according to topics and situations with frequency counts. The results showed that though students did not participate in on-line discussion frequently and actively enough, this class-based English discussion forum still produced some good effects on EFL learning, particularly on English writing. Possible reasons are suggested why this board did not form a virtual learning community. First, this project lent support for the hypothesis that asynchronous on-line pre-writing discussion led to better English writing quality, particularly in organization, vocabulary and language usage. Second, the majority of the students indicated that pre-writing discussion on BBS helped their preparation for the in-class discussion and in-class writing. However, students suggested us to design activities on BBS more carefully in order to make BBS a more efficient supplementary tool for English learning. We also provide some suggestions for those who want to integrate BBS into the curriculum and encourage future researchers to replicate this project in order to examine more about the pros and cons of learning English via BBS.