Shannon Sauro totoro@iastate.edu
Purpose of this Study
1.
Bring more authentic language to the EFL classroom.
2.
Create opportunities/tasks that give learners the chance to use English with less sympathetic interlocutors.
3.
Create tasks that exploit CALL resources.
4.
Create tasks that provide opportunities for both oral language practice and second language acquisition.
Guiding Questions
To what degree is SLA theory for task design applicable in the design of CALL tasks? Specifically, can SLA theory be used to design CMC tasks which facilitate the negotiation of meaning?
Research Questions
1.
Does the type of task, (jigsaw or decision-making) used in online collaborative learning projects affect the amount of oral language produced by learners of English?
2.
What effects will NS/NNS oral online collaboration have on NS and NNS participation and negotiation of meaning, especially as compared to NNS/NNS dyads?
3.
Will CMC using voice-chat support prior SLA research which found that jigsaw tasks facilitated greater amounts of negotiation of meaning than did decision-making tasks?
The Jigsaw Task – Problem Gradschool
A mutual friend from China named Harry needs help deciding whether he should apply to MIT or Stanford to study for his MS in Computer Science. Both dyad members possess five different bits of information about
Harry, such as his TOEFL and GRE scores, his wife’s intent to study linguistics, or his financial situation.
After using their respective pieces of information to investigate both universities’ websites to see which of the two schools fulfils Harry’s needs, both partners must meet online, compare information, and select the one school that would suit Harry the best.
The Decision-Making Task – Problem Hawaii
In this scenario both members of the dyad work for a travel magazine but write two very different types of articles, either adventure travel articles or high culture and luxury travel articles. Both writers are being sent to
Hawaii for a week to prepare material for an upcoming issue. However, they have been given a US$5000 budget which they need to share between them for all expenses. Their boss would like an approximate budget breakdown, so both writers need to research various websites to determine transportation and hotel costs in addition to the cost of appropriate tourist activities. They will then meet online to negotiate a budget, which they must email to the boss.
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Participants
NNS Participants
Ages 21-28
NS Participants
Ages 20 and 27
5 male, 1 female 2 male
5 Computer Science/1 Hotel & Restaurant Mgmt. 1 Electrical Engineering/1 City Planning
3 Korean/3 Japanese
TOEFL 500-550
9 to 20 months in US
Dyad Members and Order of Task Completion
2 American
Native Language
Japanese
Korean
First Task
Hawaii
Second Task
Gradschool
Dyad Participants
Dyad 1 Yama
Kelly
Dyad 2 Callis
BB
Dyad 3 Ingan
Mogador
Dyad 4 Hajime
Escort
Korean
Japanese
Korean
American English
Japanese
American English
Gradschool
Hawaii
Gradschool
Hawaii
Gradschool
Hawaii
Note. All names in this study are pseudonyms chosen by the participants themselves.
Example Negotiation Routine Following the Varonis & Gass (1985) Model
Ingan: Okay. My budget is over than $1000 except the airplane ticket and hotel fee.
Mogador:
Ingan:
Mogador:
Um, a total of 1000?
Uh-huh, yes.
Okay. Um, do you know if you were going to stay on one island or if you
were going to go to some of the other islands?
Misunderstandings which occurred for the following reasons were excluded from being counted as negotiation of meaning: (1) inaudibility, (2) technical problems, (3) task misunderstandings, (4) outside distractions – telephone calls, interruptions by the researcher.
Results
1.
Does the type of task, (jigsaw or decision-making) used in online collaborative learning projects affect the amount of oral language produced by learners of English?
Spoken Turns for Dyads 2, 3, and 4
Dyad Gradschool
(Jigsaw)
Hawaii
(Decision-Making)

2
Dyad 2
Dyad 3
Dyad 4
35
65
68
47
83
53
1.756
2.189
1.256
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Spoken Turns for Dyad 1
Dyad Gradschool
(Jigsaw)
Dyad 1 90
Note. df =1, p<.0029
Hawaii
(Decision-Making)
218

2
26.597
2.
What effects will NS/NNS oral online collaboration have on NS and NNS participation and negotiation of meaning, especially as compared to NNS/NNS dyads?
Turns Dedicated to Negotiation of Meaning by Order of Task Completion Among NS/NNS
Dyads
Dyads Task 1 Task 2

2
Dyad 3
Dyad 4
16
32
10
13
11.834
Note. df =1, p<.0029
NS participants had a tendency to rely on text-chat to avoid miscommunication with their NNS partners during whichever task they performed second.
“I used text-chat much more than my partner, and I used it to list things we were agreeing on or negotiating. The effort was to keep some things in visual memory and to allow for resolving errors.”
(Mogador, Dyad 3)
(Excerpt from Dyad 4)
Escort: Okay. Um, I guess what I could do is I could type out a list of the things that I have already come up with and send it to you. And I guess we could agree on something. And then you could do the same back for me. So type out what you’ve done and I’ll post it on here, and then we’ll go through it if we think that something is just too expensive or whatnot we can mark it out, okay?
3.
Will CMC using voice-chat support prior SLA research which found that jigsaw tasks facilitated greater amounts of negotiation of meaning than did decision-making tasks?
Turns Dedicated to Negotiation of Meaning for Dyads 2, 3, and 4
Dyad Gradschool Hawaii

2
(Jigsaw) (Decision-Making)
Dyad 2
Dyad 3
Dyad 4
20
10
32
24
16
13
0.367
1.385
8.022
3

Discussion
Why didn’t
Turns Dedicated to Negotiation of Meaning for Dyad 1
Dyad Gradschool
(Jigsaw)
Hawaii
(Decision-Making)
Dyad 1 25 125
Note. df =1, p<.0029

2
112.5
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Tasks that Exploit CALL Resources – Network Oriented Tasks
Because voicechat can be used to link such a diverse population of students who may be unfamiliar with each other’s accents, idioms, etc., and because chatters must communicate in real-time, voicechatting lends itself to the creation of more challenging tasks for advanced learners. Such tasks, however, need to be designed to give learners as significant support and opportunities for interaction. In a study which looked at which tasks facilitated more opportunities for interaction and the negotiation of meaning, the following three characteristics were found to be vital task features:
Pre-task preparation – giving learners an assignment to look up information on the Internet related to the task solution goes a long way in helping chatters have enough to say.
Flexibility to search relevant network sources – the chance to be creative in searching for various solutions to a problem can lead to greater amounts of discussion than when both voicechatters are limited to discussing a set number of facts or pieces of information.
Complex solution - requiring learners to collaborate in writing a letter, producing an itinerary, or writing up a budget gives them more opportunities for interaction than do either/or or yes/no solutions to a task.
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