The Collaborative Language Learning Attributes of Cyber Face to-face Interaction - The Perspectives...

The collaborative language learning attributes of cyber face-to-face

interaction: the perspectives of the learner

Yuping Wanga and Nian-Shing Chenb*

aSchool of Languages and Linguistics, Griffith University, Nathan, 4111, Australia; bDepartmentof Information Management, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, 80424, Taiwan

(Received 4 November 2009; final version received 3 March 2010)

This article examines the degrees of collaborative language learning that weresupported in cyber face-to-face interaction. The concept of ‘‘cyber face-to-face’’ isused here to encapsulate the kind of environment in which a combination of real-time oral/aural, visual, and text-based interaction happens simultaneously via thevarious features in an advanced Synchronous Learning Management System(SLMS). The study discusses the results of an evaluation of the five features,namely, the interactive whiteboard, the text chat, the group cyber face-to-faceclassrooms, the audio, and the video, in an SLMS called 3C. Thirty-three studentsfrom an online Chinese/English interpreting course participated in this study.Survey data indicate that collaborative learning can be effectively facilitated in acyber face-to-face environment, although the degrees of collaboration varyamong the five features evaluated. Recommendations for maximizing thecollaborative learning potentials of a cyber face-to-face environment are alsoput forward.

Keywords: collaborative language learning; Synchronous Learning ManagementSystem; cyber face-to-face interaction; synchronous online learning

Introduction

This research examines the collaborative learning qualities of an online synchronouslearning environment from the learners’ perspectives. The positive effects ofcollaborative learning on second language acquisition have long been recognizedin studies conducted in the physical face-to-face classroom (e.g. Kim, 2008; Swain,2000; Swain & Lapkin, 1998, 2000; Watanabe & Swain, 2007). In recent years,collaborative language learning mediated through technologies has also receivedincreasing attention from researchers in Computer Assisted Language Learning(CALL) (see Lee, 2004; Sotillo, 2000, 2006; Tudini, 2003; Lund, 2008). So much so,the terms ‘‘telecollaboration’’ and ‘‘e-Tandem’’ have appeared to denote thecollaboration of learners at a distance via Internet-based technologies.

Online collaborative language learning can be roughly divided into asynchronousand synchronous collaboration. Asynchronous collaboration is often text-based andmediated by asynchronous technologies such as emails and web-based bulletin

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Interactive Learning Environments

Vol. 20, No. 4, August 2012, 311–330

ISSN 1049-4820 print/ISSN 1744-5191 online

� 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10494821003769081

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boards (see Appel & Gilabert, 2002; Leahy, 2001). Synchronous collaboration occurswhen participants interact simultaneously in real time and can be text-based, audio,and/or video-based, or a combination of the three. Most of the existing studiesexamine one type of collaboration supported by a particular standalone synchronoustechnology. For example, the majority of the research on synchronous collaborationinvestigates the potentials of text-based interaction via text chat (e.g. Belz & Thorne,2005; Chun, 1994; Darhower, 2008; Lee, 2004; Sotillo, 2000, 2006; Thorne, 2003;Tudini, 2003).

Some recent studies on interaction via audio conferencing have also contributedto our understanding of the depth of this kind of synchronous collaborativelanguage learning (see Hampel, 2006; Hampel & Hauck, 2004; Hauck & Hampel,2005; Heins, Duensing, Stickler, & Batstone, 2007; Lamy, 2004; Levy & Kennedy,2004; Rosell-Aguilar, 2006; Sykes, 2005; Vetter & Chanier, 2006). However, fewstudies have been found in the literature examining collaborative language learningin an online synchronous cyber face-to-face environment, with the exceptions of Lee(2007) and Wang (2004a,b, 2007, 2008). These synchronous collaborations can betwo-way or multi-way interaction between learners and/or between learners andnative speakers.

Although much of the above mentioned research has shed light on a range ofsignificant issues in L2 acquisition, research on collaboration supported through thecombination of online synchronous text, oral, and visual interaction is still lacking.The paucity of such research is mostly due to the unavailability of effective systemsthat can seamlessly integrate written, oral, and visual interaction into a singleplatform. However, in recent years, the development of broadband and moreenabling Internet synchronous technologies makes such integration a possibility anda reality. The Synchronous Learning Management System (SLMS) investigated inthis research is a good example of this advancement. The SLMS-supportedinteraction and collaboration resemble closely, yet significantly differ from, face-to-face interaction in the traditional classroom. Thus the term ‘‘cyber face-to-face’’ isadopted here to encapsulate the kind of online learning environment that ischaracterized by a combination of the oral/aural, visual, and text-based interaction(Wang & Chen, 2007). Very few studies have been conducted on collaborativelanguage learning in such an environment. As a result, many crucial issues haveremained under-researched or even un-asked. For example, can a synchronousclassroom with cyber face-to-face features effectively support collaborative secondlanguage (L2) learning in a distance mode? If so, to what degrees does it supportcollaborations between learners, and in what ways does each tool or the combinationof the tools facilitate collaborative learning? We argue that knowledge about theaffordances of such environments is especially important to L2 acquisition in anonline learning context in which physical distance between learners often preventseffective collaboration from happening. Thus, the aim of this research is to unravelthe strength, challenges, and limitations of such an online synchronous learningenvironment in supporting collaborative L2 learning.

To achieve this aim, this article will first review the literature on the importanceof collaborative learning in learners’ L2 acquisition, to lay a theoretical foundationfor identifying collaborative learning attributes in an SLMS. We will then report andanalyze a student evaluation of five features of an advanced SLMS in supportingcollaborative language learning. Implications for future research and pedagogy willalso be discussed, together with the limitations of this research.

312 Y. Wang and N.-S. Chen

Collaborative learning and the emergence of the third dimension in the zone of proximal

development (ZPD) in an online learning context

Collaborative learning has received growing attention in the last decade or so.According to Oxford (1997, p. 443): ‘‘Collaborative learning has a ‘socialconstructivist’ philosophical base, which views learning as construction of knowl-edge within a social context and which therefore, encourages acculturation ofindividuals into a learning community’’. This statement has neatly summarized thetwo outstanding traits of collaborative learning, that is, construction of knowledgewithin a social context and the acculturation of a learning community.

Oxford (1997, p. 448) reviews the significant contributions of Dewey andVygotsky to social constructivism by saying that both ‘‘recognized that ideas havesocial origins; they are constructed through communication with others’’. Vygotsky’stheory of social cognition holds that learning is, at its core, a socially-mediatedactivity and social interaction is crucial to one’s cognitive development. His muchcited definition of the ZPD best summarizes his social cognition theory. According toVygotsky (1978, p. 86), the ZPD refers to ‘‘the distance between the actualdevelopment level as determined by independent problem solving and the level ofpotential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidanceor in collaboration with more capable peers’’. Thus, the individual learner and themore capable peers constitute two important dimensions in ZPD. It is thecollaboration of these dimensions in the process of problem solving that constructsan optimal condition that leads to potential developments.

Vygostsky’s theory has profound impact on our understanding of knowledgeconstruction and the essence of learning, and has been much attested to in thephysical face-to-face classroom. However, in an online synchronous learningcontext, the two aspects of collaborative learning identified by Oxford (1997); thatis, the construction of knowledge within a social context and the acculturation ofindividuals into a learning community, rely heavily on the technologies used. Thus athird dimension appears in the ZPD in an online learning context – the dimension ofmediating technology. This dimension is rising with increasing prominence asinternet technologies have become an integral part of education, especially ofdistance education. It is thus essential for language professionals to understand whattechnologies can offer for maximizing collaborative learning in an online learningcontext. This is precisely what drives this research.

Methodology

The SLMS used in this research – Collaborative cyber community (hereafter 3C)

3C was developed by the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. Its serverpresently has a capacity to support up to 500 online asynchronous users and 200online synchronous users simultaneously. Figure 1 summarizes the major functionsof 3C.

As shown in Figure 1, 3C has two main environments: The ‘‘teacher’s office’’ andthe ‘‘classroom’’. Accessible only by the teacher, the ‘‘teacher’s office’’ allows theteacher a range of flexibilities in administrating the course, such as uploadinglearning resources and managing the ‘‘classroom’’ features. The ‘‘classroom’’ hastwo modes: The asynchronous classroom mode and the synchronous classroommode with cyber face-to-face feature. The asynchronous mode is available to

Interactive Learning Environments 313

learners 24 h a day, where audio, video, and text-based learning resources (e.g.discussion boards, lecture notes and recordings, and group cyber face-to-faceclassrooms) can be accessed. However, this research will concentrate on theevaluation of the features in the ‘‘synchronous cyber face-to-face classroom’’ (seethe last box in Figure 1). There are two types of synchronous classrooms: Themain cyber face-to-face classroom where lectures can be conducted, and the groupcyber face-to-face classrooms where small group activities can be carried out. Thegroup cyber face-to-face classrooms are the duplicates of the main classroomwith exactly the same functionalities. The only difference between the two is thatthe main classroom can be accessed by the whole class while a particular groupcyber classroom is accessible only to the group of learners assigned to it. Theteacher can create as many such group cyber classrooms as needed. As shown inFigure 2, a cyber face-to-face classroom features five major windows: The mainaudio and video, the control panel, the text chat box, the interactive whiteboard,and the sub-video windows. Up to 18 sub-video windows can be displayed at thesame time. The cyber face-to-face classroom is also supported by versatilesynchronous data sharing tools, such as Desktop Sharing, Window Capture, JointWeb Browsing, Remote Control, and collaborative annotation tools (e.g. pens andpen colors).

The participants

The study involves 33 students from an online Chinese/English interpreting course.This was a third year undergraduate course offered entirely online on 3C in theSchool of Languages and Linguistics, Griffith University in Australia, betweenJanuary and February 2008. All participants were Chinese students with a native ornear native level of Chinese and English proficiency. Our survey (N ¼ 31) ofstudents’ background information shows that they were between 20 and 30 years old,and 74% were females. Twenty-eight out of 31 (90%) had no online learningexperience and 65% had not used a videoconferencing tool before. Eighty-fourpercent believed that they had good computer competence and 81% were confidentin their computer skills.

Figure 1. Major functions of 3C.


Procedures

Students were informed at enrolment of the basic requirements of the course, that is,a computer (e.g. Pentium 3 or above), broadband internet connection (ADSL orcable), a headset (headphone and speakers), and a web camera (webcam). Everystudent had these resources and was able to set up their webcams and install JoinNet,the videoconferencing client tool, by themselves, following a written instructionemailed to them. Five 1-h sessions were scheduled for testing the set up and the audioand video quality for each individual student. Most technical problems such asechoes and firewalls were solved and the basic functions of 3C were explained to eachstudent during the testing sessions.

Eight hours of online synchronous teaching were conducted each week for 6weeks in the cyber face-to-face classrooms, with 4 h being lectures and 4 h tutorials.All cyber face-to-face sessions were recorded using the recording function embeddedin 3C. In the first 3 weeks, a research assistant who was an expert in cyber face-to-face learning was also present in the cyber face-to-face classrooms in case technicalproblems occurred.

A typical lecture would see the teacher invite the whole class of 33 students tointerpret a dialogue through the audio individually and the text chat collectively,while highlighting important points using the annotation pen functions on theinteractive whiteboard. In the tutorials, after a brief revision of what had beencovered in the lectures in the main cyber classroom, the students were often given aninterpreting task and asked to go to the group cyber face-to-face classrooms toperform the task in groups. Students would return to the main cyber classroom at agiven time for presentation of their group works to the whole class.

Figure 2. The cyber face-to-face classroom. For more discussion on 3C, see Chen et al.(2005); Chen and Wang (2008); Wang and Chen (2007). Reproduced with the permission ofthe individuals pictured.


Data collection and analysis

Two surveys were conducted. The first one was to gather students’ backgroundinformation in order to determine their computer competence and confidence, and toascertain that they had the necessary computer resources to attend the online classes.However, this research will focus on the second survey which elicited students’ onlinecollaborative learning experience with the affordances in 3C. This survey instrument(see Appendix) was adapted from the Social Presence Scale developed byGunawardena and Zittle (1997) and modified by Richardson and Swan (2003).There are two reasons for using the two scales as a reference: (1) the validity of bothscales has been proven by their respective studies, and (2) social presence andcollaborative learning are interrelated.

Despite these two reasons, two major modifications have been made to suit thepurposes of this research. First, the indicator statements were reworded to includemajor indicators of collaborative learning, such as constructing learning contextand community, interacting, and collaborating with others. Second, instead ofexamining learning activities, the survey asks the participants to rate the degreeof collaborative learning supported by the five essential tools in 3C, namely,the interactive whiteboard, the text chat, group cyber classrooms, the audio, andthe video. Thus, the questionnaire is made up of two parts: The collaborativelearning scale consisting of 10 indicator statements and five open-ended questions.Data were computed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS)17.0 software, and will be discussed in conjunction with what was observedduring teaching by the researcher and the way the tasks were completed using thesetools.

Research questions

Through the examination of the degrees that collaborative learning was supported ina cyber face-to-face classroom, this research aims to answer the following researchquestions:

(1) What is the perceived effectiveness of the features in a SLMS (e.g. 3C) infacilitating collaborative L2 learning?

(2) In what ways does each tool contribute to or inhibit students’ collaborationin cyber face-to-face L2 learning?

Results

In this section, we will present the above mentioned survey data in relation to the fivefeatures of 3C to be evaluated in this study, namely, the interactive whiteboard, thetext chat, the group cyber face-to-face classrooms, the audio, and the video. Table 1summarizes the mean scores and standard deviation for the collaborative learningattributes of the five tools evaluated in this research.

As shown in Table 1, the mean for all tools, namely the interactive whiteboard,text chat, group cyber classrooms, audio, and video reached 5.11 with an SD of 0.66on a six-point Likert scale with 1 being ‘‘strongly disagree’’ and 6 ‘‘strongly agree’’.This indicates that overall, the students believed that all the tools contributed tocollaborative learning in a cyber face-to-face classroom. Among the tools, there wereno significant preferences for any of the tools, but the mean score for group cyber


Table

1.

Meanscoresandstandard

deviationofcollaborativelearningattributesoftoolsin

3C

(N¼

23).

Indicatorstatement

Tools

Text

chat

White

board

Group

cyber-classrooms

Audio

Video

M

1.Thequality

oflearningwith

thistoolwasexcellent.

Mean

5.22

5.26

5.13

5.00

4.96

5.11

SD

0.74

0.81

0.63

0.67

0.93

0.54

2.Ifeltcomfortable

collaboratingthroughthistool.

Mean

5.13

5.22

5.26

5.04

4.91

5.11

SD

0.81

0.90

0.62

0.64

0.73

0.54

3.Thistoolisanexcellentmedium

for

collaborativelearning.

Mean

5.26

5.26

5.09

5.09

4.96

5.13

SD

0.62

0.62

0.79

0.85

0.93

0.66

4.Thistoolenablesmeto

form

asense

ofonlinecommunity.

Mean

5.17

5.26

5.17

5.26

5.22

5.22

SD

0.78

0.75

0.89

0.92

0.74

0.72

5.Theactivitiesconducted

via

thistool

helpmeto

form

asense

ofonlinecommunity.

Mean

4.91

5.13

5.04

5.09

5.13

5.06

SD

0.79

0.81

0.88

0.67

0.76

0.63

6.Ifeltcomfortable

interactingwithother

participants

usingthistool.

Mean

4.91

5.18

5.27

5.14

5.14

5.13

SD

1.02

0.85

0.88

0.99

0.94

0.82

7.Ifeltcomfortable

participatingin

class

activitieswiththistool.

Mean

5.30

5.35

5.30

5.26

5.13

5.27

SD

0.76

0.71

0.76

0.96

1.01

0.66

8.Mypointofview

wasacknowledged

byothersvia

thistool.

Mean

5.09

5.13

5.13

4.96

4.96

5.05

SD

0.85

1.01

0.92

0.98

0.93

0.79

9.Iwasable

toform

distinct

individual

impressionsofother

students

usingthistool.

Mean

4.77

4.50

4.91

4.86

4.82

4.77

SD

0.92

1.14

0.97

0.99

1.01

0.90

10.Icould

identify

myclassmates

onlineusingthistool.

Mean

5.14

4.78

5.17

4.91

5.18

5.05

SD

0.71

1.31

0.98

1.12

0.85

0.91

Mean

5.07

5.13

5.18

5.09

5.07

5.11/5.09

SD

0.58

0.68

0.65

0.69

0.70

0.66/0.72

1¼

strongly

disagree,

2¼

disagree,

3¼

somew

hatdisagree,

4¼

somew

hatagree,

5¼

agree,

6¼

strongly

agree,

NA¼

notapplicable.


classrooms ranked the highest at 5.18, followed by the whiteboard (5.13) and theaudio (5.09). The text chat and video were rated the lowest but still reached 5.07.Similarly, the participants, on the whole, agreed with all indicator statements whichattracted a mean score of 5.09 and an SD of 0.72. Statement 7 – I felt comfortableparticipating in class activities with this tool – obtained the highest mean score of5.27 across the five tools. This is followed by indicator statement 4 – This toolenables me to form a sense of online community – with a mean score of 5.22. Thelowest (4.77), but still statistically significant above average (3.0) mean score wasfound in Statement 9 – I was able to form distinct individual impressions of some ofother students using this tool.

Figure 3 summarizes the number of responses to Question 11, asking the studentsto rate the most beneficial tools to their learning.

Figure 3 shows that the interactive whiteboard gained the highest rating with 13entries. It was followed by the text chat with nine and the audio with six entries. Fourstudents chose the group cyber classrooms and only two students selected the video.One student mentioned the session recording, which records online live classes foroutside class reviewing, although this tool was not requested for evaluation. Student11 believed that all the tools were beneficial to learning. The total number ofresponses was 35 because some students mentioned more than one tool whenanswering the question.

Demonstrated in Figure 4 are the responses to question 12 concerning thestudents’ evaluation of the most satisfying tools.

Students’ responses to Q12 project a similar but slightly different picture fromthose to Q11, although the text chat and the interactive whiteboard still received thehighest scores. Different from the replies to Q11, the text chat was considered themost satisfying tool instead of the interactive whiteboard although there was onlyone-entry difference (11 for the text chat and 10 for the interactive whiteboard). Alsodifferent from replies to Question 11, only three students believed that the audio wasthe most satisfying tool while six students perceived that the audio was the mostbeneficial to learning in Question 11. The same number of students (4) as those inQ11 believed that the group cyber classrooms were most satisfying. Again, videocame last with only one entry while two students placed session recording on the listof the tools evaluated.

Figure 3. Q 11 – Most beneficial tools to learning (N ¼ 35).


Discussion

To avoid over-generalizing the above reported data, this section will discuss theresults for each tool further in reference to:

. other studies on collaborative learning relevant to this research;

. teacher’s observation;

. students’ comments collected from the questionnaires; and

. the ways that learning tasks were completed using the features evaluated in thisresearch.

The interactive whiteboard

The three groups of data presented above all indicate that, among the five features,the interactive whiteboard was perceived to be most facilitative to collaborativelearning. There are a few factors that might have influenced the learners’ perception.

Firstly, the positive reception of the whiteboard may relate to the ways it wasused. Situated in the centre of the cyber face-to-face classroom and occupying almostthree quarters of the computer screen (see Figure 2), the interactive whiteboardserves as a focal, shared learning space where the attention of the whole class wasdrawn to most of the time. It was used in every lesson to upload prepared lecturenotes before or during class. In addition, this function not only allowed both theteacher and students to draw, type, and write English and Chinese characters, it alsoallowed the teacher to point to, paste, and highlight information. Thus, it was usedto support the completion of many collaborative learning tasks involving either thewhole class or a group of students. For example, when role playing an interpretingsituation, one student would be asked to type the role play dialogue on thewhiteboard while others would role play it either orally or type their dialogue in thetext chat. It was also used to upload discussion points and translations whenthe students conducted their group activities in class and prepared their grouphomework after class in their own group cyber classrooms.

When discussing why the interactive whiteboard was the most beneficial tool tolearning (Q11), several students (students 1, 12, and 13) commented that the writings

Figure 4. Q 12 – Most satisfying tools (N ¼ 31).


on the interactive whiteboard helped them to clarify what they missed or did notunderstand when listening. Some students also perceived the whiteboard as anefficient aid to instruction (Student 10), where they could obtain importantinformation (Students 1 and 13). Student 16 also mentioned that this tool could‘‘help me with technical problems and double check my spelling of specific words’’.The necessity of an whiteboard in cyber face-to-face learning is confirmed by Lee(2007), who points out that ‘‘the students found desktop videoconferencingchallenging due to the unavailability of a written visual display on the screen’’ (p.640).

Secondly, the frequent use of the whiteboard may have led to its positivereception by the learners. The whiteboard was used most of the time in every classand in students’ homework in the group cyber classrooms. Chou (2001) also findsthat the frequency in using a communication medium can also enhance the degree ofsocial presence.

Thirdly, the fact that the whiteboard never failed to perform may also havecontributed to the students’ positive rating. Reliability is a crucial issue when itcomes to effective online learning.

The text chat

The text chat scored the second highest among the five features in terms of itsbenefits to learning, and was considered the most satisfying of the five. Apart fromthe fact that it was used throughout each class by both the teaching staff and thestudents, the positive perception could be largely attributed to the ways the text chatwas employed.

The basic functions of the text chat in our cyber face-to-face classrooms weresimilar to those of stand-alone text chats in that users could write to each othersynchronously. However, instead of being the sole or main medium of communica-tion, the text chat in 3C was integrated in the cyber classroom supplementing oraland visual interaction. Thus listening, seeing, and text chatting occurredsimultaneously in our cyber class. The messages in the text chat could be seen bythe whole class or could be sent to one person only for more private communication.In order to engage all students in collaborative learning, we explicitly asked thestudents to use the text chat to answer questions or render their translations ofsentences collectively while listening to one student answering or translating orallythrough the audio and video. The teacher would often copy and paste students’translation from the text chat onto the whiteboard for further discussion andclarification to the whole class. Apart from the audio, the text chat was used by thestudents as a major medium of participation in classroom activities. The interpretingnature of the course might have played a part in the frequent use of this feature,because the whole class could offer their translations more nearly simultaneously intext chat than orally. It was observed that some shy students preferred typing theiranswers in the text chat box to speaking orally.

We also found some similarities between the linguistic affordances of the textchat in our research and those in stand-alone text chats. Darhower (2008) reports aproject on the linguistic affordances of the bilingual chats between Spanish-speakinglearners of English and English-speaking learners of Spanish. In Darhower’s study,the text chat was used as the sole medium for negotiation of meaning. Although textchat was used differently in the current study, that is, for the whole class to offer


translations in Chinese or English simultaneously while listening to the teacher, wefound similar types of affordances to those in Darhower’s research (see the righthand column of Table 2). However, the contents of the affordances differed fromthose evident in Darhower’s findings. The affordances which appeared in the currentresearch and the explanation of their contents are summarized in Table 2.

In contrast to Darhower’s study, our study did not find the affordance of‘‘reformulate implicitly’’. This is probably because the interpreting nature of thetasks always required the students to reformulate their answers explicitly. Inaddition, our students also reported technical problems (e.g. problems with the videoor audio) via text chat and chatted privately via the private chat function.

The above findings were also confirmed by students’ comments on the text chat.To Student 10, the text chat offered ‘‘more freedom in mutual communication’’.Student 16 appreciated the chances for collaborative learning through text chat bysaying that ‘‘I can contribute some input and receive correction/feedback rightaway’’. He/she further pointed out that the text chat could be used as a backup whenthere was a problem with the audio transmission.

Group cyber face-to-face classrooms

The group cyber classrooms were rated as the most effective feature to supportcollaborative learning (see Table 1), achieving a mean score of 5.18. This high level ofcollaborative learning may relate to the effectiveness of these classrooms and the waythey were employed in learning.

This feature provided each group of learners with their own ‘‘private’’ cyber face-to-face classroom in which they could work together at any time. These classroomswere the same as the main cyber face-to-face classroom with the same synchronouslearning features (e.g. the videoconferencing tool, the interactive whiteboard, textchat, etc.) available to the learner. In our study, the students were divided into 11groups of three students. Two kinds of collaborative tasks were designed to

Table 2. Affordances of text chats in 3C.

Types of affordances Contents

Check comprehension Students asked the teacher or other students if the translationswere correct.

Clarify noncomprehension Students requested explanation of a sentence or phrase notcomprehended.

Provide confirmation Confirmation was often provided by peers or the teachingassistant instead of the teacher who would often reply orally.

Provide translation The teacher explicitly asked the students to provide translationin both English and Chinese in the text chat box. Translationforms the major part of the text chat content.

Provide word meaning Peers or the teaching assistant provided word meaning ineither English or Chinese when an unknown word emerged.

Reformulate explicitly Students reformulated their translation after the teacherexplained the sentences or after seeing others’ translations.

Request confirmation Students requested the teacher to confirm if theirtranslation was acceptable when their translation wasdifferent from the teacher’s.

Use learner’s L1 Some students used Chinese to confirm their comprehension.


incorporate the use of group cyber classrooms. First, during a tutorial, the teacherwould explain the collaborative task in the main cyber face-to-face classroom andthen ask the students to go to their own group’s cyber classrooms to complete thetask. The teacher would ‘‘go’’ from one group classroom to another to observestudent performances. Students would return to the main cyber classroom to reporttheir group work at an agreed time. The second type of task involving the use of thegroup cyber classrooms was the group assignment. The students were required toproduce three interpreting situations with each of the three group members playing adifferent role in each situation. The groups had to practice their interpretingsituations in their own group’s cyber classroom outside class time, and record andsubmit their assignment using the embedded recording feature in 3C. Student 16confirmed that ‘‘Group assignment is a good idea when everyone is contributing andhaving a good communication within the teams’’.

The audio transmission

The audio function via JoinNet, a sophisticated videoconferencing tool in 3C,supported synchronous oral and aural interaction similar to that in a campus-basedface-to-face classroom in that students could hear and talk to each other at the sametime without having to press any button. The audio served as the major medium forclass interaction and collaboration in this study.

The audio was ranked third in terms of its mean score for the potential tofacilitate collaborative learning, following the whiteboard and the cyber groupclassrooms. In regard to the mean score for each indicator statement, the audio andthe interactive whiteboard ranked equal as number one (5.26) for statement 4 – Thistool enables me to form a sense of online community. This finding indicates theimportance of the audio in supporting a learning community, an important indicatorof collaborative learning. When evaluating the most satisfying feature for learning,Student 13 chose both the interactive whiteboard and audio, ‘‘because these are themain ways I obtain important information’’.

Figure 3 also indicates that students considered the audio more beneficial tolearning than the group cyber classrooms. This may be due to the fact that the groupcyber classrooms were not used as often as the audio. As expected, Figure 4 showsthat the audio was regarded as less satisfactory than the group cyber classrooms.Here the quality of the audio may have affected students’ perception. Although allthe students used broadband connection and the overall sound quality wassatisfactory for learning, the audio quality varied from student to student, andfrom period to period. There could be many factors affecting the quality of theaudio. For example, variations in individual computer power and sound card qualitycould make a huge difference to the sound quality. We also discovered that theInternet speed could be affected when students were sharing Internet connectionswith their housemates.

The live video transmission

One interesting finding was that the video was always ranked the lowest in the threegroups of data presented in the Results section. There are several factors that couldhave possibly contributed to this comparatively low rating. Firstly, although thevideo supported by JoinNet could transmit live images of upper body movements


such as hand gestures and smiles, there were delays of various lengths depending onthe Internet speed and individual computer power. Secondly, there were 33students in this study but only up to 18 video windows could be displayed at thesame time. We thus requested half of the class to turn off their videos for the firsthour of the lecture and the other half to turn off their videos in the second hour.Thirdly, it was found that in the first few sessions, students were keen to turn ontheir videos. However, most of the students would choose not to turn on theirvideos in later sessions, probably because (1) they had passed the initial stage ofexcitement of seeing each other online, (2) they did not want to be seen by othersall the time so that they could have some privacy, and (3) they sometimes had toturn off the video to save the bandwidth for better audio quality when theInternet speed was not fast enough. Fourthly, in this study, we did not explicitlyask the students to use the video in their collaboration apart from using it to givestudents a sense of presence of others in the classroom. As a result, it wasobserved that students ignored the video most of the time in later sessions. Lee(2007) also noticed that her students did not take advantage of the visualchannels in her videoconferencing project. Lastly, students perceived video asmore of a tool for the teacher than for the student. The comment by Student 16was a case in point: The video ‘‘was a little bit distracting . . . but the best way tomonitor the students’’.

The comparatively low rating of the video confirms what was found in Chou’s(2001) study, which compared virtual worlds, videoconferencing, audio conferen-cing, text chat, and asynchronous discussion boards in terms of their social presenceattributes. Chou (2001, p. 183) discovered that the ‘‘ratings for the audio-videoconferencing systems such as CU-Seeme and CoolTalk were much lower than thetext based and virtual reality conferencing systems’’. She believes that the poor audioand video quality played a part in the low ratings. Since her study, the audio andvideo quality supported by videoconferencing tools has been greatly improved butthese tools are still not as reliable as the whiteboard and the text chat.

Nevertheless, in terms of its support for collaborative learning, the video stillreceived a mean score of 5.07 with an SD of 0.70, indicating an across-the-boardrecognition of its importance to collaborative learning. Particularly important is themean score of 5.22 with an SD of 0.74 for Statement 4 – This tool enables me to forma sense of online community, only second to the whiteboard (5.26) and the audio(5.26). The importance of mediated visual cues is gaining increasing attention fromCALL professionals such as Lee (2007), who argues:

Desktop videoconferencing has great potential for the acquisition of L2 oral skillsbecause it engages the audio and visual aspects of human communication. This type ofcommunication also supports collaborative learning by engaging participants in takingan active role in their own learning process. Only through real contexts and naturaldiscourse does classroom learned language become meaningful for real-worldcommunication. (p. 645)

Implications for future research and lessons learned

The findings from the current study may have several pedagogical implications forthe design of L2 collaborative learning tasks in a cyber face-to-face classroom. Wewill discuss these implications in reference to each 3C feature evaluated in thisresearch, and together with the lessons we learned.


The interactive whiteboard

Collaborative learning task design should take full advantage of the featuresoffered by the whiteboard. Future research can test different scenarios of using thewhiteboard feature to promote collaborative learning. For example, the learningtasks can require the learner to carry out brain storming on certain topics or playlanguage games (e.g. jigsaw puzzles, naughts and crosses) using the drawing, jointediting, color schemes for highlighting and the Pointer functions. The function oftyping and writing scripted languages is particularly beneficial to languagelearning.

The text chat

In view of its lack of immediacy, we recommend that text chat plays a supplementaryrole to oral and visual interaction, in order to bring a sense of immediacy andauthenticity to collaborative learning in a cyber face-to-face classroom. Thus,collaborative task design needs to ensure a proper balance between text chat, andoral and visual interaction.

A word of caution is in order in regard to the private chat function in the textchat, which could act as a double-edged sword. It could be a great function for theteacher to direct specific comments discreetly to a particular student withoutdisturbing others in the class, as the message could be seen only by the intendedstudent. At the same time, it also allowed students to have private conversationswhich may be unrelated to the teaching in class without being known to theteacher. Although rules of using the text chat (e.g. text messages should relate toclassroom activities) can be established in the beginning of a course, there is still nocontrol over private chatting between students. It would be more manageable if theprivate chat function was only technically allowed between the teacher and thestudent.

Plagiarism in text chat emerged as another issue of which we should be aware ifthe text chat input forms part of an assessment. In our interpreting course,translations offered in the text chat were assessed as part of students’ participation.One student suggested that the texts in the text chat should be set ‘‘copy-free’’,meaning to disable the copying and pasting function so that one cannot copy andpaste others’ answers as one’s own.

The group cyber classrooms

This is a great tool for group activities during and after class. We used thisfunction only three times in class as it was time consuming for the teacher to visiteach of the 11 groups. However, with a smaller class size, it would be moremanageable for the teacher to divide the class into a few groups for groupcollaborative activities. We designed only one assignment for which studentsneeded to use the group cyber classrooms outside class. Yet this is an ideal toolfor outside class collaborations. For example, students can be paired or groupedto conduct conversations, role plays, or rehearsals for debates and performancesin the target language, on a regular basis outside the class time. The inbuiltrecording function in the system allows all activities to be video recorded forrevision and assessment.


The audio

The audio should be the core medium for interaction in a cyber face-to-faceclassroom. Our findings show that the audio quality, although varying from studentto student, has reached a satisfactory level for teaching and learning L2. Nosignificant delay was experienced as all the students in this study used a broadbandconnection. However, as determined by the nature of the interpreting course and theshyness of our students, the audio was used more by the teacher than the students.Future research should design tasks encouraging the use of the audio by students asnaturally as we speak in a face-to-face classroom.

The video

The importance of visual cues in communicative language learning has long beenestablished in face-to-face interaction. However, in-depth research is needed toestablish the extent to which visual cues mediated through videoconferencing toolsare important to collaborative language learning. Such research is more urgentlyneeded now than it was 5 years ago as broadband technology has already made goodquality of video transmission a reality.

This research recognizes its lack of conscious use of the video by the teacher andstudents. Future task design needs to specify ways of using the video in taskperformances in order to help learners to form a more distinct sense of onlinecommunity in their collaborations. Lee (2007) also suggests that ‘‘sufficient trainingon how to communicate effectively using the available visual channel of this mediumis necessary to maximize its potential use’’ (p. 642). Such training can be done atboth task design and performance levels. For example, when designing a role playabout shopping, the task could explicitly request the use of the video to show realitems such as a pair of gloves and trousers. When performing a task, students shouldbe encouraged to use hand gestures and facial expression, as most webcams canaccurately capture body movements above the waist.

Lastly, in our study, none of the features were used alone in collaborativelearning activities. Instead, they were used to complement one another. Thus, werecommend that a combination of features be used in order to realize the fullpotential of the cyber face-to-face environment in supporting collaborative learning.

Conclusion

In this article, we have argued for the emergence of a third dimension in the ZPD inan online learning context – the dimension of mediating technology. This argumentbrings our attention to the fundamental role that a technology-mediated environ-ment plays in effective online collaborative language learning. To further unveil thestrength, challenges, and limitations of such an environment, we reported anddiscussed the effectiveness of five features in supporting collaborative languagelearning in a cyber face-to-face environment, as perceived by the learners. Althoughthe degrees of collaborative attributes vary between the evaluated features, our dataindicates that collaborative learning can be effectively facilitated, cultured, andenhanced in a cyber face-to-face environment such as 3C. We conclude that thesefeatures complement one another and together they maximize the collaborativelearning potential of the environment. In other words, collaborative learning can be


better cultured when tools are combined than used separately. Findings from thisresearch have shed some light on the collaborative attributes of the cyber face-to-faceclassroom; this type of knowledge has important practical, pedagogical implicationsfor online synchronous collaborative learning. Fine grained studies are now neededto test task designs that maximize the potential of this environment in supportingcollaborative learning.

Acknowledgements

The authors are most grateful to the Editor and reviewers for insightful suggestions that led tothe improvement of the manuscript. The authors also thank Professor John Stevenson and Dr.Helen Klieve from the Griffith Institute of Education Research for their valuable support thathelped to shape the article in many important ways. Finally, the authors thank all theirstudents for participating in this research. The participation and contribution by Prof. Nian-Shing Chen in this study was supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, undercontract no: NSC97-2511-S-110-005-MY3 and NSC98-2631-S-024-001.

Notes on contributors

Yuping Wang is Senior Lecturer of Chinese language at the Griffith University, Australia(www.griffith.edu.au). Her research focuses on the use of Synchronous Computer MediatedCommunication (SCMC) and Synchronous Learning Management Systems (SLMS) in secondlanguage learning. She has published journal articles on the use of Internet-basedvideoconferencing tools and SLMSs in distance and cyber face-to-face language learning.

Professor Nian-Shing Chen is with the Department of Information Management at theNational Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. He is the author of three books including onetextbook entitled ‘‘e-Learning Theory & Practice’’. Professor Chen received the distinguishedresearch award from the National Science Council, Taiwan in 2008. His current researchinterests include online course assessment; online synchronous teaching and mobile andubiquitous learning.

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Appendix:Questionnaire

Collaborative

learningsurvey

Please

indicate

youransw

erswithnumbers1–6

1¼

strongly

disagree,

2¼

disagree,

3¼

somew

hatdisagree,

4¼

somew

hatagree,

5¼

agree,

6¼

strongly

agree,

NA¼

notapplicable

Indicatorstatement

Tools

Textchatbox

(e.g.usedfor

offeringyourversion

ofthetranslation

andasking

questions)

Thewhiteboard

(e.g.usedin

lecturesfor

explanation

and

collaboration)

Groupdiscussion

forum

(e.g.

usedin

group

activitiesin

the

tutorialsandfor

group

assignments)

Theaudio

viaJoinNet

Thevideo

via

JoinNet

1.Thequality

oflearningwiththistoolwasexcellent.

2.Ifeltcomfortable

collaboratingthroughthistool.

3.Thistoolisanexcellentmedium

forcollaborative

learningasdem

onstratedbytheactivities

associate

withthistool.

4.Thistoolenablesmeto

form

asense

ofonlinecommunity.

5.Theactivitiesconducted

throughthistoolhelpmeto

form

asense

ofonlinecommunity

6.Ifeltcomfortable

interactingwithother

participants

usingthistool.

7.Ifeltcomfortable

participatingin

class

activitieswiththistool

8.Mypointofview

wasacknowledged

byothersstudents

andteachersvia

thistool

9.Iwasable

toform

distinct

individualim

pressionsof

someofother

students

usingthistool

10.Icould

identify

myclassmatesonlineusingthistool

11.Whichofthetoolslisted

abovewasmost

beneficialto

yourlearningandwhy?

(continued)


Appendix

(Continued).

Tools

Indicatorstatement

Textchatbox

(e.g.usedfor

offeringyourversion

ofthetranslation

andasking

questions)

Thewhiteboard

(e.g.usedin

lecturesfor

explanation

and

collaboration)

Groupdiscussion

forum

(e.g.

usedin

group

activitiesin

the

tutorialsandfor

group

assignments)

Theaudio

viaJoinNet

Thevideo

via

JoinNet

12.Whichofthetoolsmost

satisfyingto

youandwhy?

13.Whatadditionalinstructionalactivitieswould

liketo

suggestforeach

ofthetools:

&Thetextchatbox

&Thewhiteboard

&TheGroupDiscussionForum

&Theaudio

via

JoinNet

&Thevideo

via

JoinNet

14.Would

youliketo

takethiskindofonlinecourses

inthefuture?

Yes

¤No¤

Why?

15.Would

yourecommendthiscourseto

other

students?

Yes

¤No¤

Why?

16.Other

comments

Thisistheendofthesurvey.Thankyouverymuch

foryourtime.


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The Collaborative Language Learning Attributes of Cyber Face to-face Interaction - The Perspectives...

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