Evaluating ESL Students Webpostings

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Evaluating ESL Students Web-postings

• A Text Analysis Approach

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Technology Enhanced Teaching

• Technology is providing new means of interaction
  between students themselves and between teachers
  and students.
• Emails form an alternative to face-to-face
  interaction that may demand a constant flow of
  language production, mainly for ESL students.

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Class Webs

• Class webs are also an alternative means to
  energize a dialogue between students.
• If opted for, a Discussion Forum can be used as
  an integral part of the class instruction, e.g.
  to communicate with a specific group of students
  to prepare a class project, or to post responses
  to prompts that relate to class instruction.

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Class Webs

• The administrative aspect of a class web is to
  place class documents on the web for students to
  read online or to retrieve and print out.
• The instructional aspect of a class web is to
  web-enhance instruction, and eventually to teach
  online with or without the scheduling of class
  meetings.

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A Sample Writing PromptDiscussion topic At her
death, Emily Dickinson left 1,775 poems, only
seven of which were published anonymously.Prompt
Why was Emily Dickinson reluctant to have her
poetry published when alive?Responses Use a
new thread and/or respond to a posting.
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The Investigation1. What patterns of
interaction do students use when posting their
messages?2. Do students transfer their knowledge
of traditional writing to writing for the web?
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The Data1. The postings of ten non-native
students of English enrolled in a writing class
were collected ad hoc for this research. The
prompt formed a required task. 2. About 1,800
words were collected, an average of 180 words per
posting.
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Procedure1. The postings were collected and
printed out for the review. 2. The PC copy was
saved as a DOS document and then processed
through a concordancer, for word frequencies and
for concordances.3. The number of sentences in
each posting was then tallied and specific
patterns of interaction were recorded on paper,
as well as the rhetorical pattern used in the
development.
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The Rationale1. The interactive devices were
classified as two types direct and indirect. The
direct devices were those that assumed an initial
position in the sentence such as to me, or I
think. The indirect devices referred to the use
of pronouns, mainly I, you, and we. 2.
The rhetorical patterns used in the responses
were also investigated.
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The Results1. A-synchronous writing for the web
fosters limited interaction. 2. Personal
involvement is limited to the use of expressions,
such as to me, I think, and I believe.
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3. Students favor two rhetorical patterns (i)
cause/effect (ii) enumeration and listing
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Conclusion1. A class web site energizes
students involvement in class activities. 2.
The class Discussion Forum on the web may be
intimidating to non-natives of English, whose
backgrounds are diverse.
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3. A heterogeneous group of students interacts in
a formal way. 4. By contrast to a-synchronic
communication, synchronic communication is likely
to increase the variety of direct and indirect
interactive devices.