CMC-Nur'ain Balqis

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

Introduction:

Title:
The Role of Online Chatting in the Development of Competence in Oral Interaction (Vincenza Tudini)

Journal:
Proceedings of Innovations in Italian Teaching Workshop, Griffith University (By Vincenza Tudini)

The Objective:
This paper considers the differences and the similarities between face-to-face oral interaction and chatting via computer, with a view to assess the place of synchronous text-based communication tools in language programmes.

Methodology:

Research Question:
What exactly is it about chatting that resembles oral interaction, apart from real-time communication?

Population:
Intermediate level Italian 3B course, University of South Australia (10 students)

Duration:
30 minutes

Method:
Tudini uses UniSAnet for the chat session, which is user-friendly, password-protected teaching and learning environment set up by the university’s Flexible Learning Centre (http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/unisanet/). The students have to tackle two questions:

- If you had the opportunity, which of the novels you read this semester would you keep and which you would discard?
- If you were in charge, what would you do with the culture and society side of the course?

The rationale of this task, according to Tudini is to engage them by offering them the opportunity to debate on a matter of interest to them. Tudini also provides the students’ evaluation by asking 4 questions on their chatting experience:

- Do you consider yourself a good typist?
- Are you more confident in expressing yourself in Italian in oral classroom discussions or via computer?
- Why do you think is so?
- Do you think that Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) could assist you in improving your spoken Italian? Why/why not? If yes, how?

Data Analysis:
Tudini analyzes the “conversations” by the students during the chat session and focuses on identification of key elements of oral interaction. Moreover, the students’ evaluations on their chatting experience provide some insights into the effectiveness of chatting as a tool for speaking practice in the target language.

Findings:

Tudini notes that the chat line discussion was without doubt conversational in style because it is a constant series of speech acts, including exclamations, greetings, leave taking and well wishing, from auguri (best wishes), bueno fortuna (good luck), and spero che tutti I vostri sogni vengano veri (I hope all your dreams come true). There were 41 questions out of 263 turns, which indicate to bring the session closer to spoken discourse than written discourse. Furthermore, there were many feedback tokens and discourse markers during the discussion:

a) Feedback Tokens:
Davvero! (Really!), anch’io! (me too!), ah! (ah!)

b) Discourse Markers (to elicit response):
D’accordo, no? (Do you agree, no?) & e tu? (What do you think?)

c) Discourse Markers (to draw attention to a statement, questions and opinion):
Scusa… (Sorry…) & Scusa volovo dire (sorry, I meant…)

d) Discourse Markers (to take the floor or introduce an opinion):
Beh! (Well!) & Per rispondere alla tua domanda (to answer your question)

In the total of 263 turns, 86 feedback tokens and discourse markers were present. Si and no are included as indicators of feedback to questions and observations, as in conversation.