E-Portfolio Suraya

Suraya Hasniza Binti Hashim
0522866


Summary: A comparison of chat room productivity: in-class versus out-of-class

The research article that I have chosen to review is “A comparison of chat room productivity: in-class versus out-of-class”, taken from CALICO Journal (2006) written by Robert Sanders. The purpose of the study is to compare the chat room productivity between students taking Spanish course during class time with the supervision of the instructors and students who scheduled their own time to meet in chat room outside of class without supervision by the instructors.
This research employs quantitative design because the findings deal with numerical data and measured using t test. The research question for this study is: “Is student productivity greater when SCMC is used in class, or when it is used out of class by students working collaboratively to schedule and complete their assignments?” .It is the study on linguistics and it focuses on the language production among the participants in this research. The participants in this research are 100 students from Spanish 101 course in one of the university in United States. There are two groups involve in the study: the control group and the experimental group. The control group has average 2.0 years of experience studying Spanish language while the experimental group has average 1.9 years of experience studying Spanish language. In week seven of the research, there are 46 participants involve in the control group and 54 participants in experimental group. In week eight, the numbers of students from the control group who completed their assignment and submit their transcripts are 42 students and 57 students from the experimental group. There are three instructors involve in monitoring the control group and three different instructors and one course coordinator involve in teaching the experimental groups during class time. The chat room transcripts were taken from week seven and week eight because it is assumed that the students and the instructors were more familiar to the tasks. The control group completes their assignment in class in their self-selected group with the instructors’ supervision through chatting in chat room while the experimental group schedules their own time outside of class time to meet in the chat room. They collaborate more than the control group to work on their own and to chat without supervision by the instructors. Students’ experiences of studying Spanish were surveyed during the first week of classes. Then the transcript from week seven and week eight were chosen to be analyzed. The topics; which are taken from the textbook are a typical day in the student’s life (week seven) and favorite places (week eight). The data that have been analyzed from students’ chat room transcripts are: minutes of activity, turns, Spanish words, correctly spelled Spanish words (both accounting for accents and not accounting for accents), non-Spanish words, comments off task, and socially appropriate comments. Four Spanish word counts have been used in this study and three of them were measured by one of graduate research assistant. The remaining word count that has been used is Concordance and it has been measured by the author.
The system of grading is different in both groups. In the control group, the grading is based on the instructors and in contrast, in the experimental group the grading is based on their own transcripts. The students produce more in chat room outside of class as compared to in-class. It shows that the students are more comfortable to work on their own outside of class and they can perform better when there are no supervision from the instructors where they can schedule their own time to meet in the chat room. Even though they are in two different settings, both groups are committed to the tasks given to them and they are motivated to communicate with each other via chat room. The finding also shown that the students from the experimental groups use code switch more than the control group perhaps because of the absence of the instructors and other fellow students to help them in finding the suitable vocabulary to be used in chatting.


Reaction to the Findings

In my point of view, the CMC genre used in this study which is chat room is effective for language learning because it is synchronized which it occurs almost at real time. It is mostly the same with oral face-to-face interaction but we are not in the same setting or place with other people that we are communicating with. It will help the students to increase their competency in target language that they are learning. The use of chat room in teaching and learning target language will also make the students to use the language in authentic language environment.
In Malaysian context, the use of chat room will make the students who are shy or nervous o speak in front of class get the courage to communicate with the fellow classmates and the instructors. It will trigger them to participate in the communication in order to respond to others. It is also will make the process of teaching and learning more interesting because instructors can employ other teaching aids which is computer apart from PowerPoint slides or lecture because they are boring. When the students learning language through communicating in chat room, they will apply their knowledge and it will help them to sharpen their communicating skill as well their proficiency in the target language.
As a student, I would like to have assignment to chat with my instructors and fellow classmates outside of class hour because I can communicate more with them since it is limited to communicate with each other in class. Chat room also can be one of medium for me to apply my communication skill in authentic language environment.
Using synchronous CMC in Malaysian context is affordable since nowadays we have computer labs in campus as well as most of the students have their own personal computers or laptops. They can be connected to the Internet or chat room through broadband connection or wireless network provided in the campus or going to cybercafés in the campus. They can also surf the Internet outside of campus at the outlets equipped with Internet hotspot.



Analysis of Chat Room Transcript

The transcript that is going to be analyzed is taken from MS Trust website chat room which took place on 3rd of December 2002. The participants in the chat room include the MS specialist nurse (Megan), Occupational therapist (Gail Townsend), Charles, Alico, Jay and Chloe. The chat room was moderated by Simon from MS Trust. The topic for this chat room was about wellness, focused on (Multiple Sclerosis) MS patients. During this particular session, the patients can interact with the experts mainly the specialist nurse and the occupational therapist about any inquiries regarding MS and they can also interact with each other to share their opinion regarding the disease.
In this analysis, the aspect of discourse analysis that will be analyzed is jargon. Jargon can be defined as the specialized language used by people who share same profession, occupation, and so on which the meanings are seem meaningless to others outside the group (“Jargon”). For example, students who are taking Sociolinguistics will be familiar with the term “code-switching” as compared to other students who do not taking the course. In short jargon is language or terms that are specific to one group of people and in this chat room, the jargon that has been used is related to the medication for the MS patients. The MS patients in this chat room used the terms in order to consult with the experts who are presented during that session and the experts on the other hand used it to respond to the queries raised by the patients.
In the transcript, Charles, one of the MS patients checked with the nurse about the effect of steroids which he said that are no longer effective for the symptom of MS that he experienced. Alico, on the other hand used names of the remedy for MS such as dothiepin and paroxetine when she interacted with the specialist nurse. These two patients introduced terms that related to the drug that they are taking when they consulted with the nurse. Megan, the specialist nurse, on the other hand made use of the jargon in the MS medication to answer the question asked by the patients. In addition, the she gave some names of the prescription that can help reduce pains that experienced by Jay who joined the chat room later. The examples are carbamazepine, Neurontin and amitriptyline. As the patients of MS, they understood the terms and the understandings made the communication between them and the specialist more effective. The specialist did not have to explain more on the terms related to the MS medicine since they were already familiar with the terms on the drugs that help to reduce the symptoms of MS.
From the transcript, we can consider some reasons behind the use of jargon on MS medications by the participants in the chat room, including the patients and the experts. Firstly, we can say that they are using it because the chat room is designed specifically for the patients of MS to interact with the MS specialist nurse and the therapists. The patients can chat and consult with the specialists who are online about anything regarding the disease. Secondly, specific terms on the prescriptions are used by the patients perhaps because they are familiar with the prescriptions since they are taking them as remedies for their illness. The MS patients and the experts in the chat room used jargon because both parties are already understood and know the meaning of the jargon that they used. It is impossible for other people who are outside the group to understand the terms unless they do some homework to find out the meaning of the terms.

In a nutshell, the use of jargon in the chat room shows that the people who participated in it have similar background regardless whether they are the patients or the experts and they are familiar with the terms. Being an outsider will make us wonder the meanings of the special terms since we do not posses the same knowledge or experience with them. It is the unique feature of discourse analysis that can be found in this chat room.

Reflection

For me, I do not have much difficulty in finding the article to review. I found two articles from the same journal in the library and I brought both when I met Madam. Unfortunately, one of it was “rejected” because Madam said that somebody has taken the article. However, it is difficult to find the chat room transcript and to analyse it. Doing this assignment also consuming my time since I have a lot of other assignment to be completed. Even though it is time consuming, Alhamdulillah, I manage to finish all my works. I love the part when we are asked to do the reaction based on the findings since I can voice out my own opinion regarding the research.