2014 WAFLT Fall Conference
Nov. 8 th , 2014
Kazuhide Takeuchi - Indiana University Bloomington

1. Purpose/motivation of the study
2. Previous studies
3. Present study
4. Result/analysis
5. Conclusion/suggestion

1. Time management
• Four skills and culture
• Larger class size
• Curriculum
2. Practice opportunity
• Balance of input and output
• Participants’ level difference
3. Assessment
• Subjective and objective
• Practicality

• CMC increase participation, motivation, understanding
Payne and Ross (2005), Blake (2009), Yang et al (2012)
• Higher improvement on speaking than face-to-face
Payne and Whitney (2002)
• Written production are related to oral production
Payne and Whitney (2002), Toyoda and Harrison (2002)
• Higher production rate = higher fluency
Kormos and Denes (2004), Ginther et al (2010)
• Other characteristics influencing fluency
• Complexity, location of disfluency, balance
Lennon (1989), Brand and Gotz (2011)

1. Online text chat style conversation table helps learners’ oral fluency development.
2. Temporal measures and holistic rating have a positive correlation.

• Who?
• 4 Volunteered students from second and third year Japanese
• 2 male and 2 female
• One 3 rd year student and three Japanese native speakers participated only conversation table
• What?
• Treatment: weekly online text-chat style conversation table on Google Hangout. (about 6 weeks during the spring 2014)
• Assessment: pre/post-test free speaking task (few minutes about winter/spring break)
• Holistic rating and temporal measures

• Free instant messaging and video chat
• Free! For Google+ account holder
• No limitation for text-chat participants
• Can be a private or an open group
• Accessible from computer and smartphone

• Speaking rate (SR) = total number of mora divided by total time (including pause)
• Articulation rate (AR) = total number of mora divided by total speaking time
(excluding pause)
• Phonation time ratio (PR) = total speaking time divided by total time
• Mean length of run (MR) = total number of mora (excluding filled pause) divided by total number of runs (speech segment occurring between pause of 0.25sec or grater)
*in this study, pause (filled/unfilled) was defined a duration of silence or non-word sound
(i.e. filler) longer than 0.25seconds.
Lennon 1990, Towel et al. (1996), Cucchiarini (1999), Kormos and Denes (2004), Payne and
Ross (2005), Blake (2009), Ginther (2010), and Brand and Gotz (2011)

<Insert audio here>
なつやすみに、あ～・・ともだちと～うみにいき～ (pause) ました。
Summer break time (filler) friends with (filler) beach direction go (pause)-past na tsu ya su mi ni ah~ to mo da chi to~ u mi ni iki~(pause) ma shi ta
I went to a beach with friends this summer.
Speaking time = Total time = Mora = 19 Run = 4
SR: = AR: = PR: = MR: 19/4 = 4.75

3
2
1
0
5 conversation table.
4
3,1
3,2 2,1
2,2

0,40
0,00
-0,40
-0,80
-1,20
-1,60
2,00
1,60
1,20
0,80
3,1
Changes in production rate
3,2 2,1
SR AR PR MR
2,2

• Very small improvement on production and rating.
• Improvement without participating conversation table.
But,
• Higher production rate = higher holistic rating
• Improvement on rate => improvement on rating
Some positive results, but too small sample…

• Who?
• Two volunteered second year Japanese students
• Both are male.
• What?
• Treatment: weekly conversation table (two weeks: face-toface, two weeks: Google Hangout), Posting comment once a week
• Assessment: pre/post-test free speaking task (few minutes about summer/fall break)
• Holistic rating and temporal measures

• (Unofficial survey)
• Result…

• Relationship between:
• written and oral production
• Errors and fluency
• Quantitative and qualitative analysis
• Needs analysis
• What and when do students want to do?
• Most students requested more “speaking” practice in class.
*informal survey showed that 90% were not interested or too busy for conversation table / extra curriculum activities.
• Scheduling (increase/maintain participation)
• Make use of chat history

• Payne, J., & Ross, B. M. (2005). Synchronous CMC, Working Memory, and L2 Oral
Proficiency Development. Language Learning & Technology, 9(3), 35-54.
• Kormos, J., & Denes, M. (2004). Exploring Measures and Perceptions of Fluency in the Speech of Second Language Learners. System: An International Journal Of
Educational Technology And Applied Linguistics, 32(2), 145-164.
• Yang, Y. C., Gamble, J., & Tang, S. S. (2012). Voice over Instant Messaging as a
Tool for Enhancing the Oral Proficiency and Motivation of English-as-a-Foreign-
Language Learners. British Journal Of Educational Technology, 43(3), 448-464.
• Toyoda, E., & Harrison, R. (2002). Categorization of text chat communication between learners and native speakers of Japanese. Language Learning And
Technology, 6(1), 82-99.
• Towell, R. R., & And, O. (1996). The Development of Fluency in Advanced
Learners of French. Applied Linguistics, 17(1), 84-119.

• Blake, C. (2009). Potential of Text-Based Internet Chats for Improving Oral Fluency in a Second Language. Modern Language Journal, 93(2), 227-240.
• Cucchiarini, C., Strik, H., & Boves, L. (2000). Quantitative Assessment of Second
Language Learners' Fluency by Means of Automatic Speech Recognition Technology.
Journal Of The Acoustical Society Of America, 107(2), 989-999.
• Payne, S. J., & Whitney, P. J. (2002). Developing L2 Oral Proficiency Through
Synchronous CMC: Out-put, working memory, and interlanguage development.
CALICO Journal, 20, 7-32.
• Lennon, P. (1990). Investigating Fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach. Language
Learning, 40, 387-412.
• Ginther, A., Dimova, S., & Yang, R. (2010). Conceptual and empirical relationships between temporal measures of fluency and oral English proficiency with implications for automated scoring. Language Testing, 27(3), 379-399.
• Brand, C., & Gotz, S. (2011). Fluency versus accuracy in advanced spoken learner language A multi-method approach. International Journal Of Corpus Linguistics,
16(2), 255-275.