PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES IN NETWORKED CLASSROOM INTERACTION: DEFINING THE RESEARCH AGENDA FOR L2 COMPUTER-ASSISTED CLASSROOM DISCUSSION
Language Learning & Technology
Vol. 1, No. 1, July 1997, pp 82-93
PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES IN NETWORKED CLASSROOM INTERACTION: DEFINING THE RESEARCH AGENDA FOR L2 COMPUTER-ASSISTED CLASSROOM DISCUSSION
Lourdes Ortega
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
ABSTRACT
The present paper focuses on the use of one networked technology, namely synchronous computer-mediated interaction, in the second language (L2) classroom. The scope is intentionally limited to research concerned with evaluating the potential benefits of computer-assisted classroom discussion (CACD) in terms of second language acquisition (SLA) theory. The findings stemming from the existing body of L2 research on CACD are critically examined and a number of methodological suggestions are offered for future research on CACD. It is suggested that in addition to analyzing language outcomes by means of well-motivated measures of L2 use and L2 acquisition, a multiplicity of data sources be used in CACD research, so as to be able to document the processes learners actually engage in when interpreting and carrying out CACD tasks. A process- and task-driven research agenda for L2 CACD is proposed with the ultimate goal of describing the nature of language, learning, and interaction fostered in networked synchronous communication and to ascertain which features of CACD may or may not be relevant to the processes involved in second language acquisition.
NETWORKED CLASSROOM INTERACTION AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
From drill-and-practice software, to word-processing programs, to network and hypertext software, the gradual integration of technology in classrooms over the last twenty years has tended to mirror the technological developments and limitations of each computer era as well as, more importantly, the theories of learning and instruction developed by scholars and construed in teachers' actual practices. Thus, the introduction of networked technologies in education coincided with a shift in education from an interest in cognitive and developmental theories of learning to a social and collaborative view of learning (cf. Hawisher, 1994).
Since the early 1990s, national and international networks, on the one hand, and local area networks (LANs), on the other, have been widely used for instructional purposes within social and critical education approaches. The use of electronic mail, bulletin boards, or discussion lists on worldwide networks such as the Internet enables learners and teachers to access and share information in a time- and space- independent fashion. By contrast, the instructional use of LANs, which link computers in a laboratory or a classroom to each other, has introduced the possibility of real-time, synchronous, many-to-many written discussion by a whole class or by smaller groups within the class (Warschauer, 1996b). Both technologies underscore a view of learning as a collaborative act that happens in a social and political context, with learners and teacher working together in the new medium of networked interaction.
Some scholars have suggested that the era of hypertext and networked communication that started burgeoning in the mid-1990s signals the need for an expanded view of literacy: Computers can no longer be seen as a surrogate of the teacher or an intelligent tool in the hands of the student, but as a new medium that has changed the ways in which we write, read, and possibly think (Selfe, 1989). Without committing to such a radical analysis of the role of technology on literacy practices, I would agree with Herring (1996), Selfe and Hilligoss (1994), and others that we need research on computers and education that not only extols the pedagogical and social virtues of computer technology but also determines exactly in which ways language, learning, and interaction have been transformed by the use of networked and hypertext technologies in our classrooms. In the case of L2 classrooms in which CACD has started to be used, the crucial question from an SLA perspective is in what specific ways CACD may or may not be relevant to the processes involved in second language learning.
-82-
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Computer-Mediated Discussion in the Language Classroom
The use of networked computers for the purpose of large group discussions in language educational contexts began with hearing impaired students learning L1 composition at Gallaudet University (Batson, 1988). The software application for computer-assisted classroom discussion (CACD) which is most widely used in foreign language classrooms is the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment (Daedalus Inc., 1989) and its application InterChange. This software was developed in the 1980s in the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin by Fred Kemp, a scholar in composition studies, and colleagues. Social theories of writing instruction that emphasize the collaborative nature of meaning and writing were at the core of the Daedalus software as it was intended to be used in composition classes (see Barker & Kemp, 1990; and for a discussion of the concomitant social epistemic theory of writing, see Berlin, 1987). In foreign language classes, Daedalus began to be used also in the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1990s, but the orientation was more on target-language practice than on the development of writing skills. In the last six years, a small number of FL studies (and most recently ESL studies) have reported on the use of InterChange/Daedalus in CACD in various FL classes in universities in the United States, typically for general classroom discussion purposes rather than in connection with L2 writing instruction.
How does CACD work? During a typical Daedalus/InterChange session in the computer lab, each student sits in front of a computer terminal and is free to type in messages that can be sent by clicking on the "send" button on the screen. Sent messages appear on the upper half of all individual screens, displayed in the order in which they were sent and automatically identified with the name of the sender. All class members can read each other's comments at their own pace by scrolling up and down the sent-messages window, and they can write messages at their own leisure without interfering effects (freezing, etc.) from incoming messages.
Among the many different types of CALL activities available for second language instruction, CACD stands as a promising area for research in second language learning and teaching for several reasons. For one, conducting class discussions on a computer network entails meaningful use of the target language and forces teachers and students away from treating language as an object rather than as a medium of communication (e.g., Colomb & Simutis, 1996). Not only is CACD a communicative CALL activity in Underwood's (1984) sense, but it can promote a task- and interaction-driven approach to L2 learning and teaching which is the backdrop to concrete proposals for curriculum design superseding traditional communicative approaches (e.g., analytic and Type B syllabi as outlined in Wilkins, 1976, and White, 1988, respectively; see also detailed discussion of procedural, process, and task syllabi in Long & Crookes, 1993). The communicative investment and the meaningfulness and relevance achieved in many CACD discussions appear to provide for a context in which opportunities for language development are enhanced, since students are motivated to stretch their linguistic resources in order to meet the demands of real communication in a social context. In brief, the CACD environment appears to be optimal for devising CALL activities that facilitate and promote comprehensible output (Swain, 1985) within a holistic, process- and task-oriented approach to the L2 curriculum (Long & Crookes, 1993). Other benefits of CACD associated with language learning that have been repeatedly singled out in the FL literature are:
Learners are able to contribute as much as they want at their own pace and leisure; consequently, they tend to perceive CACD as less threatening and inhibiting than oral interactions and produce a high amount of writing, with all students participating to a high degree and all producing several turns/messages per session.
Because of the interactive nature of the writing, learners are expected to engage in a variety of interactive moves on the computer and to take control of managing the discussion.
Learners make use of the available opportunity to take time to plan their messages and edit them. In this way they engage in productive L2 strategies and processes.
-83-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learners have exposure to a substantial amount of comprehensible input which is produced by peers of a similar level and shared background.
Learners get a considerable amount of reading practice in addition to writing practice. Because of at least two tasks (writing and reading) competing for the learner's investment, reading skills practiced may tend to be holistic (reading for the gist) and meaning-driven. In addition, learners are expected to be motivated to read because of an authentic sense of interactive audience provided by CACD.
These putative advantages of CACD have been anecdotally illustrated in the FL pedagogical literature (e.g., Chavez, 1997; Cononelos & Oliva, 1993; Nicholas & Toporski, 1993; Oliva & Pollastrani, 1995). Impressionistic documentations of the first attempts at using CACD in the L2 classroom (e.g., Beauvois, 1992, and Kelm, 1992) have opened the way to a small body of more recent research that suggests computer-mediated synchronous discussion affords a novel medium for L2 interaction that is perhaps inherently competence-expanding (Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995; Warschauer, 1996a).
From a more general pedagogic viewpoint, certain features of CACD can also have a great impact on subverting the traditional roles enacted by teachers and students in classrooms. This may foster critical changes in well-established pedagogical practices (e.g., Cooper & Selfe, 1990; Cummins & Sayers, 1990; Warschauer, 1996b) which may also affect the amount and quality of the language used and, hence, of the learning processes in the L2 classroom (Kern, 1995). However, more and more voices in the education and technology literature are acknowledging that it is not computers per se that can be beneficial or harmful, but the use we put them to (Barton, 1994). Indeed, the newest technologies can be made to serve the most traditional pedagogies, and the philosophies of language teachers can shape the uses of technology within the language curriculum so as to preserve a rather behavioristic view of language learning, as Warschauer (1997) has recently documented.
CACD IN THE L2 CLASSROOM: WHAT DO WE KNOW SO FAR?
Three areas of electronic synchronous communication have been the focus of most CACD research to date: (a) CACD has an equalizing effect on participation; (b) it increases learner productivity in terms of overall amount of language and/or ideas produced; and (c) the language produced in electronic synchronous discussions can be expected to be more complex and formal than in face-to-face discussions, without losing the interactive nature of oral language. These three dimensions of CACD are the object of much anecdotal discussion and enthusiastic advocacy in the FL literature. However, empirical evidence in support of these characterizations of CACD needs to be drawn from a sound theoretical motivation within our field (see Doughty, 1987, for an early call on this area, and Chapelle, 1996): I would like to argue here that the benefits of CACD in the L2 classroom need to be evaluated not only from a pedagogical standpoint but also in light of our most current knowledge about how languages are learned. This can be done by examining how second language performance and, tentatively, second language learning are shaped by particular features of synchronous electronic discussion as a new environment for L2 interaction.
CACD as an Equalizer of Participation Structures
Accounts of the use of CACD in L1 and L2 classrooms identify equality of participation as one of the most pervasive and beneficial effects of using electronic synchronous discussion in L1 writing instruction (Hartman, Neuwirth, Kiesler, Sproull, Cochran, Plamquist, & Zubrow, 1991), FL instruction (Beauvois, 1992; Kelm, 1992; Kern, 1995), and ESL instruction (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996a).
The more equal participation pattern in electronic discussions may be attributed partly to the reduction of static and dynamic social context cues in computer-mediated communication (Hartman et al., 1991; Warschauer, 1996b), and partly to the absence of oral interaction constraints such as fear to interrupt or of being interrupted, need to manage the floor and the transfer of speakership, and need for interlocutors to co-orient to the production of sequentially relevant discourse (e.g., Schenkein, 1978). Additionally, in L2 CACD learners need not be concerned with pronunciation issues, which often require a high degree of attention and monitoring in the oral mode and may inhibit efforts at oral
-84-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
communication in the target language. The consequences are: (a) interactants are less apprehensive about being evaluated by interlocutors, and thus more willing to participate at their leisure; and (b) they are less affected by wait time, turn-taking, and other elements of traditional interaction, enabling them to participate as much as they want, whenever they want, with opportunities for contribution being more equally distributed among participants.
The effect of this equalizing power of synchronous electronic discussion is threefold. First, the traditional figure of the teacher as authority source and expert is subverted in that the role of the teacher during the electronic discussion is that of a mere participant (see Kern, 1995, and Warschauer, 1997). Hence, the teacher cannot dominate the floor and do most of the talking, and he or she cannot direct and redirect the development of the topic, pose display questions, nominate students as next speakers, or evaluate individual student's contributions, all of which is the norm in traditional teacher-fronted L1 and L2 classrooms (e.g., Cazden, 1988; Chaudron, 1988; McHoul, 1978; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). Second, and as a result of this change in teacher role, control of and responsibility for the electronic discussion is arguably incumbent on the students who are afforded the opportunity to engage in self-generated, personally relevant communication involving a wide range of moves, functions, and meanings that may be facilitative in the development of communicative competence and overall language proficiency (Chun, 1994).
Third, all speakers share the floor more equally, and students that do not normally participate much in traditional classroom discussion seem to dramatically increase their participation in the electronic mode. Naturally, a more democratic and equitable participation in electronic discussions can in turn foster counterhegemonic pedagogies (Cooper & Selfe, 1990; Cummins & Sayers, 1990; but see Barton, 1994, Olson, 1987, and Warschauer, 1997, for caveats). This last aspect of the equalizing effect of electronic discussions has been the focus of many studies in L1 education literature, which present consistent evidence of increased participation on the part of so-called poorer performing students (Hartman et al., 1991), female students (Flores, 1990; Selfe, 1990), and shyer students (Bump, 1990).
In the FL literature, the small body of studies concerned with CACD seems to provide support for an equalizing effect of electronic discussion on participation patterns. Kern (1995) conducted a within-groups quasi-experimental comparison of both a traditional whole-class discussion and an electronic discussion in two intact French classes, concluding that electronic discussion effects a radical change in the proportion of teacher versus student language production and that teacher discourse becomes less authoritative and less dominant. Chun (1994) undertook a descriptive study of the language produced in regular CACD sessions in a German class over a two semester period. She provides information concerning the ratio of teacher-output versus student-output, the proportion of student-initiated and teacher-initiated messages, and the directionality of contributions produced in electronic synchronous discussions. Chun's descriptive approach is important in that she not only substantiates in her analysis an increase in learner production coupled with a decrease in teacher-centered discourse, but she also identifies concrete advantages of more democratic and equitable participation in terms of potential learner development in discoursal, interactional, and functional competence.
In their impressionistic accounts of electronic synchronous discussions involving Portuguese and French learners, Beauvois (1992) and Kelm (1992) report increases in the participation pattern of shy students and low-motivated, unsuccessful language learners, whereby the same students were perceived by their instructors as less willing to participate in oral discussions led by the teacher. Most of the cited studies also elicited information on students' impressions and evaluations of CACD and found that students themselves identified an increase in participation (and production) as one of the benefits of engaging in electronic discussions in the target language.
Although these studies provide some useful descriptive information, a methodological and conceptual problem within their comparisons obscures the interpretation of the findings.
-85-
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Namely, evidence of an equalizing effect in participation seems to be sought solely by focusing on comparisons between traditional teacher-led classroom discussions and whole-class electronic discussions, whether the comparison is experimental (Kern, 1995) or assumed as a frame of reference (Beauvois, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992). However, it is justified to hypothesize that group size and equality of participation are negatively related in traditional oral interactions and positively related in computer-assisted interactions, and that the benefits of electronic over non-electronic interactions will increase with the size of groups (Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper, 1991). In other words, the positive equalizing effect of the electronic mode will be accentuated when comparing larger groups, as in comparisons of teacher-fronted, whole-class discussion with whole-class electronic discussion.
On the other hand, face-to-face discussions in communicative L2 classrooms are often conducted in small groups rather than as a whole class. Thus, in addition to whole-class comparisons, a more informative approach to investigating the equalizing effects of CACD in L2 classrooms would be to compare electronic versus non-electronic small group interactions of equal size, and to compare the relative effects in participation patterns when group size is equally reduced or increased in both modes. Two studies of electronic-assisted communication in ESL classes (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996a) are the only ones to date that have adopted such an approach and included comparisons of small group interactions in the oral and electronic modes. Both studies provide further evidence of a clear change in participation structures and a substantial increase in the amount of participation afforded to individuals in electronic classroom discussions.
Sullivan and Pratt (1996) studied both whole-class discussions and four-member group interactions in two ESL writing classes: one traditional (oral) class and one class that used the software InterChange, both of which were taught by the same teacher over the course of a semester. In the large-group-discussion comparison between groups, as in previous FL studies, Sullivan and Pratt focused on the proportion of teacher "talk" and student language production and confirmed the radical change in student/teacher participation structures in CACD already documented in the literature. Of particular interest, however, is the between-groups comparison of electronic and non-electronic peer response in four-member groups. Sullivan and Pratt's analysis of the quality of interactions here suggests that face-to-face oral discussions were dominated by the author of the essay discussed, whereas there was no one individual dominating the floor in the same type of discussions on the computer. As a result, the researchers claim, the quality and efficacy of peer suggestions for revision increased in the electronic mode.
Warschauer (1996a) undertook a within-groups, counterbalanced comparison of open-ended discussions in face-to-face and electronic discussions by four small groups of four students each. He calculated the ratio of total words produced by speaker per total amount of words produced by the group and concluded that three out of the four groups showed greater equality of participation in the electronic discussion. More research is needed that compares participation patterns of face-to-face versus electronic small group discussions, carefully controlling group format as well as other task features so as to increase the validity of the experimental comparisons.
CACD Increases in Language Output and Learner Productivity
In close parallel to changes in teacher/learner participation patterns and equitable sharing of the floor among individual participants, another possible advantage of electronic synchronous discussions is an increase in the amount of participation per individual, that is, an increase in learner productivity. In the L1 literature on electronic interaction, productivity of ideas (e.g., Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper, 1991) and provision of practice (e.g., DiMatteo, 1990, 1991) have been general concerns, especially in relation to uses of synchronous electronic discussion for the teaching of composition. More specifically, collaborative and process-oriented approaches to writing point at the interest of discerning whether electronic discussions are an efficient way of increasing the volume of
Vol. 1, No. 1, July 1997, pp 82-93
PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES IN NETWORKED CLASSROOM INTERACTION: DEFINING THE RESEARCH AGENDA FOR L2 COMPUTER-ASSISTED CLASSROOM DISCUSSION
Lourdes Ortega
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
ABSTRACT
The present paper focuses on the use of one networked technology, namely synchronous computer-mediated interaction, in the second language (L2) classroom. The scope is intentionally limited to research concerned with evaluating the potential benefits of computer-assisted classroom discussion (CACD) in terms of second language acquisition (SLA) theory. The findings stemming from the existing body of L2 research on CACD are critically examined and a number of methodological suggestions are offered for future research on CACD. It is suggested that in addition to analyzing language outcomes by means of well-motivated measures of L2 use and L2 acquisition, a multiplicity of data sources be used in CACD research, so as to be able to document the processes learners actually engage in when interpreting and carrying out CACD tasks. A process- and task-driven research agenda for L2 CACD is proposed with the ultimate goal of describing the nature of language, learning, and interaction fostered in networked synchronous communication and to ascertain which features of CACD may or may not be relevant to the processes involved in second language acquisition.
NETWORKED CLASSROOM INTERACTION AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING
From drill-and-practice software, to word-processing programs, to network and hypertext software, the gradual integration of technology in classrooms over the last twenty years has tended to mirror the technological developments and limitations of each computer era as well as, more importantly, the theories of learning and instruction developed by scholars and construed in teachers' actual practices. Thus, the introduction of networked technologies in education coincided with a shift in education from an interest in cognitive and developmental theories of learning to a social and collaborative view of learning (cf. Hawisher, 1994).
Since the early 1990s, national and international networks, on the one hand, and local area networks (LANs), on the other, have been widely used for instructional purposes within social and critical education approaches. The use of electronic mail, bulletin boards, or discussion lists on worldwide networks such as the Internet enables learners and teachers to access and share information in a time- and space- independent fashion. By contrast, the instructional use of LANs, which link computers in a laboratory or a classroom to each other, has introduced the possibility of real-time, synchronous, many-to-many written discussion by a whole class or by smaller groups within the class (Warschauer, 1996b). Both technologies underscore a view of learning as a collaborative act that happens in a social and political context, with learners and teacher working together in the new medium of networked interaction.
Some scholars have suggested that the era of hypertext and networked communication that started burgeoning in the mid-1990s signals the need for an expanded view of literacy: Computers can no longer be seen as a surrogate of the teacher or an intelligent tool in the hands of the student, but as a new medium that has changed the ways in which we write, read, and possibly think (Selfe, 1989). Without committing to such a radical analysis of the role of technology on literacy practices, I would agree with Herring (1996), Selfe and Hilligoss (1994), and others that we need research on computers and education that not only extols the pedagogical and social virtues of computer technology but also determines exactly in which ways language, learning, and interaction have been transformed by the use of networked and hypertext technologies in our classrooms. In the case of L2 classrooms in which CACD has started to be used, the crucial question from an SLA perspective is in what specific ways CACD may or may not be relevant to the processes involved in second language learning.
-82-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer-Mediated Discussion in the Language Classroom
The use of networked computers for the purpose of large group discussions in language educational contexts began with hearing impaired students learning L1 composition at Gallaudet University (Batson, 1988). The software application for computer-assisted classroom discussion (CACD) which is most widely used in foreign language classrooms is the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment (Daedalus Inc., 1989) and its application InterChange. This software was developed in the 1980s in the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin by Fred Kemp, a scholar in composition studies, and colleagues. Social theories of writing instruction that emphasize the collaborative nature of meaning and writing were at the core of the Daedalus software as it was intended to be used in composition classes (see Barker & Kemp, 1990; and for a discussion of the concomitant social epistemic theory of writing, see Berlin, 1987). In foreign language classes, Daedalus began to be used also in the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1990s, but the orientation was more on target-language practice than on the development of writing skills. In the last six years, a small number of FL studies (and most recently ESL studies) have reported on the use of InterChange/Daedalus in CACD in various FL classes in universities in the United States, typically for general classroom discussion purposes rather than in connection with L2 writing instruction.
How does CACD work? During a typical Daedalus/InterChange session in the computer lab, each student sits in front of a computer terminal and is free to type in messages that can be sent by clicking on the "send" button on the screen. Sent messages appear on the upper half of all individual screens, displayed in the order in which they were sent and automatically identified with the name of the sender. All class members can read each other's comments at their own pace by scrolling up and down the sent-messages window, and they can write messages at their own leisure without interfering effects (freezing, etc.) from incoming messages.
Among the many different types of CALL activities available for second language instruction, CACD stands as a promising area for research in second language learning and teaching for several reasons. For one, conducting class discussions on a computer network entails meaningful use of the target language and forces teachers and students away from treating language as an object rather than as a medium of communication (e.g., Colomb & Simutis, 1996). Not only is CACD a communicative CALL activity in Underwood's (1984) sense, but it can promote a task- and interaction-driven approach to L2 learning and teaching which is the backdrop to concrete proposals for curriculum design superseding traditional communicative approaches (e.g., analytic and Type B syllabi as outlined in Wilkins, 1976, and White, 1988, respectively; see also detailed discussion of procedural, process, and task syllabi in Long & Crookes, 1993). The communicative investment and the meaningfulness and relevance achieved in many CACD discussions appear to provide for a context in which opportunities for language development are enhanced, since students are motivated to stretch their linguistic resources in order to meet the demands of real communication in a social context. In brief, the CACD environment appears to be optimal for devising CALL activities that facilitate and promote comprehensible output (Swain, 1985) within a holistic, process- and task-oriented approach to the L2 curriculum (Long & Crookes, 1993). Other benefits of CACD associated with language learning that have been repeatedly singled out in the FL literature are:
Learners are able to contribute as much as they want at their own pace and leisure; consequently, they tend to perceive CACD as less threatening and inhibiting than oral interactions and produce a high amount of writing, with all students participating to a high degree and all producing several turns/messages per session.
Because of the interactive nature of the writing, learners are expected to engage in a variety of interactive moves on the computer and to take control of managing the discussion.
Learners make use of the available opportunity to take time to plan their messages and edit them. In this way they engage in productive L2 strategies and processes.
-83-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learners have exposure to a substantial amount of comprehensible input which is produced by peers of a similar level and shared background.
Learners get a considerable amount of reading practice in addition to writing practice. Because of at least two tasks (writing and reading) competing for the learner's investment, reading skills practiced may tend to be holistic (reading for the gist) and meaning-driven. In addition, learners are expected to be motivated to read because of an authentic sense of interactive audience provided by CACD.
These putative advantages of CACD have been anecdotally illustrated in the FL pedagogical literature (e.g., Chavez, 1997; Cononelos & Oliva, 1993; Nicholas & Toporski, 1993; Oliva & Pollastrani, 1995). Impressionistic documentations of the first attempts at using CACD in the L2 classroom (e.g., Beauvois, 1992, and Kelm, 1992) have opened the way to a small body of more recent research that suggests computer-mediated synchronous discussion affords a novel medium for L2 interaction that is perhaps inherently competence-expanding (Chun, 1994; Kern, 1995; Warschauer, 1996a).
From a more general pedagogic viewpoint, certain features of CACD can also have a great impact on subverting the traditional roles enacted by teachers and students in classrooms. This may foster critical changes in well-established pedagogical practices (e.g., Cooper & Selfe, 1990; Cummins & Sayers, 1990; Warschauer, 1996b) which may also affect the amount and quality of the language used and, hence, of the learning processes in the L2 classroom (Kern, 1995). However, more and more voices in the education and technology literature are acknowledging that it is not computers per se that can be beneficial or harmful, but the use we put them to (Barton, 1994). Indeed, the newest technologies can be made to serve the most traditional pedagogies, and the philosophies of language teachers can shape the uses of technology within the language curriculum so as to preserve a rather behavioristic view of language learning, as Warschauer (1997) has recently documented.
CACD IN THE L2 CLASSROOM: WHAT DO WE KNOW SO FAR?
Three areas of electronic synchronous communication have been the focus of most CACD research to date: (a) CACD has an equalizing effect on participation; (b) it increases learner productivity in terms of overall amount of language and/or ideas produced; and (c) the language produced in electronic synchronous discussions can be expected to be more complex and formal than in face-to-face discussions, without losing the interactive nature of oral language. These three dimensions of CACD are the object of much anecdotal discussion and enthusiastic advocacy in the FL literature. However, empirical evidence in support of these characterizations of CACD needs to be drawn from a sound theoretical motivation within our field (see Doughty, 1987, for an early call on this area, and Chapelle, 1996): I would like to argue here that the benefits of CACD in the L2 classroom need to be evaluated not only from a pedagogical standpoint but also in light of our most current knowledge about how languages are learned. This can be done by examining how second language performance and, tentatively, second language learning are shaped by particular features of synchronous electronic discussion as a new environment for L2 interaction.
CACD as an Equalizer of Participation Structures
Accounts of the use of CACD in L1 and L2 classrooms identify equality of participation as one of the most pervasive and beneficial effects of using electronic synchronous discussion in L1 writing instruction (Hartman, Neuwirth, Kiesler, Sproull, Cochran, Plamquist, & Zubrow, 1991), FL instruction (Beauvois, 1992; Kelm, 1992; Kern, 1995), and ESL instruction (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996a).
The more equal participation pattern in electronic discussions may be attributed partly to the reduction of static and dynamic social context cues in computer-mediated communication (Hartman et al., 1991; Warschauer, 1996b), and partly to the absence of oral interaction constraints such as fear to interrupt or of being interrupted, need to manage the floor and the transfer of speakership, and need for interlocutors to co-orient to the production of sequentially relevant discourse (e.g., Schenkein, 1978). Additionally, in L2 CACD learners need not be concerned with pronunciation issues, which often require a high degree of attention and monitoring in the oral mode and may inhibit efforts at oral
-84-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
communication in the target language. The consequences are: (a) interactants are less apprehensive about being evaluated by interlocutors, and thus more willing to participate at their leisure; and (b) they are less affected by wait time, turn-taking, and other elements of traditional interaction, enabling them to participate as much as they want, whenever they want, with opportunities for contribution being more equally distributed among participants.
The effect of this equalizing power of synchronous electronic discussion is threefold. First, the traditional figure of the teacher as authority source and expert is subverted in that the role of the teacher during the electronic discussion is that of a mere participant (see Kern, 1995, and Warschauer, 1997). Hence, the teacher cannot dominate the floor and do most of the talking, and he or she cannot direct and redirect the development of the topic, pose display questions, nominate students as next speakers, or evaluate individual student's contributions, all of which is the norm in traditional teacher-fronted L1 and L2 classrooms (e.g., Cazden, 1988; Chaudron, 1988; McHoul, 1978; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). Second, and as a result of this change in teacher role, control of and responsibility for the electronic discussion is arguably incumbent on the students who are afforded the opportunity to engage in self-generated, personally relevant communication involving a wide range of moves, functions, and meanings that may be facilitative in the development of communicative competence and overall language proficiency (Chun, 1994).
Third, all speakers share the floor more equally, and students that do not normally participate much in traditional classroom discussion seem to dramatically increase their participation in the electronic mode. Naturally, a more democratic and equitable participation in electronic discussions can in turn foster counterhegemonic pedagogies (Cooper & Selfe, 1990; Cummins & Sayers, 1990; but see Barton, 1994, Olson, 1987, and Warschauer, 1997, for caveats). This last aspect of the equalizing effect of electronic discussions has been the focus of many studies in L1 education literature, which present consistent evidence of increased participation on the part of so-called poorer performing students (Hartman et al., 1991), female students (Flores, 1990; Selfe, 1990), and shyer students (Bump, 1990).
In the FL literature, the small body of studies concerned with CACD seems to provide support for an equalizing effect of electronic discussion on participation patterns. Kern (1995) conducted a within-groups quasi-experimental comparison of both a traditional whole-class discussion and an electronic discussion in two intact French classes, concluding that electronic discussion effects a radical change in the proportion of teacher versus student language production and that teacher discourse becomes less authoritative and less dominant. Chun (1994) undertook a descriptive study of the language produced in regular CACD sessions in a German class over a two semester period. She provides information concerning the ratio of teacher-output versus student-output, the proportion of student-initiated and teacher-initiated messages, and the directionality of contributions produced in electronic synchronous discussions. Chun's descriptive approach is important in that she not only substantiates in her analysis an increase in learner production coupled with a decrease in teacher-centered discourse, but she also identifies concrete advantages of more democratic and equitable participation in terms of potential learner development in discoursal, interactional, and functional competence.
In their impressionistic accounts of electronic synchronous discussions involving Portuguese and French learners, Beauvois (1992) and Kelm (1992) report increases in the participation pattern of shy students and low-motivated, unsuccessful language learners, whereby the same students were perceived by their instructors as less willing to participate in oral discussions led by the teacher. Most of the cited studies also elicited information on students' impressions and evaluations of CACD and found that students themselves identified an increase in participation (and production) as one of the benefits of engaging in electronic discussions in the target language.
Although these studies provide some useful descriptive information, a methodological and conceptual problem within their comparisons obscures the interpretation of the findings.
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Namely, evidence of an equalizing effect in participation seems to be sought solely by focusing on comparisons between traditional teacher-led classroom discussions and whole-class electronic discussions, whether the comparison is experimental (Kern, 1995) or assumed as a frame of reference (Beauvois, 1992; Chun, 1994; Kelm, 1992). However, it is justified to hypothesize that group size and equality of participation are negatively related in traditional oral interactions and positively related in computer-assisted interactions, and that the benefits of electronic over non-electronic interactions will increase with the size of groups (Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper, 1991). In other words, the positive equalizing effect of the electronic mode will be accentuated when comparing larger groups, as in comparisons of teacher-fronted, whole-class discussion with whole-class electronic discussion.
On the other hand, face-to-face discussions in communicative L2 classrooms are often conducted in small groups rather than as a whole class. Thus, in addition to whole-class comparisons, a more informative approach to investigating the equalizing effects of CACD in L2 classrooms would be to compare electronic versus non-electronic small group interactions of equal size, and to compare the relative effects in participation patterns when group size is equally reduced or increased in both modes. Two studies of electronic-assisted communication in ESL classes (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996; Warschauer, 1996a) are the only ones to date that have adopted such an approach and included comparisons of small group interactions in the oral and electronic modes. Both studies provide further evidence of a clear change in participation structures and a substantial increase in the amount of participation afforded to individuals in electronic classroom discussions.
Sullivan and Pratt (1996) studied both whole-class discussions and four-member group interactions in two ESL writing classes: one traditional (oral) class and one class that used the software InterChange, both of which were taught by the same teacher over the course of a semester. In the large-group-discussion comparison between groups, as in previous FL studies, Sullivan and Pratt focused on the proportion of teacher "talk" and student language production and confirmed the radical change in student/teacher participation structures in CACD already documented in the literature. Of particular interest, however, is the between-groups comparison of electronic and non-electronic peer response in four-member groups. Sullivan and Pratt's analysis of the quality of interactions here suggests that face-to-face oral discussions were dominated by the author of the essay discussed, whereas there was no one individual dominating the floor in the same type of discussions on the computer. As a result, the researchers claim, the quality and efficacy of peer suggestions for revision increased in the electronic mode.
Warschauer (1996a) undertook a within-groups, counterbalanced comparison of open-ended discussions in face-to-face and electronic discussions by four small groups of four students each. He calculated the ratio of total words produced by speaker per total amount of words produced by the group and concluded that three out of the four groups showed greater equality of participation in the electronic discussion. More research is needed that compares participation patterns of face-to-face versus electronic small group discussions, carefully controlling group format as well as other task features so as to increase the validity of the experimental comparisons.
CACD Increases in Language Output and Learner Productivity
In close parallel to changes in teacher/learner participation patterns and equitable sharing of the floor among individual participants, another possible advantage of electronic synchronous discussions is an increase in the amount of participation per individual, that is, an increase in learner productivity. In the L1 literature on electronic interaction, productivity of ideas (e.g., Gallupe, Bastianutti, & Cooper, 1991) and provision of practice (e.g., DiMatteo, 1990, 1991) have been general concerns, especially in relation to uses of synchronous electronic discussion for the teaching of composition. More specifically, collaborative and process-oriented approaches to writing point at the interest of discerning whether electronic discussions are an efficient way of increasing the volume of