The Impact of Online Chatting on EFL Learners’ Oral Fluency

Journal of English Language Studies

مقاله 4، دوره 1، شماره 1، آذر 2009، صفحه 63-77   

نویسندگان

Abdollah Baradaran¹؛ Ahad Ahad²

¹Assistant Professor of Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch

²MA in TEFL from Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch

چکیده

Teaching how to speak English is of great importance to educational practitioners and thus finding efficient techniques to improve this ability has long been under research. The present study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of using chat rooms as a newly-developed technique on the oral fluency of EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of the study, among 81 junior students of English translation, 52 were ed based on their performances on two proficiency tests and subsequently divided into two control and experimental groups. The only treatment difference between the two groups was using chat rooms among the subjects in the experimental group. After 20 sessions of instruction, the subjects took part in a posttest. The analysis of the data revealed that the learners who underwent the chat room treatment significantly outperformed those who did not in terms of oral fluency. Hence, using chat rooms in the EFL context can be recommended as an efficient technique in improving this attribute among EFL learners.

کلیدواژه‌ها

online chatting؛ Oral fluency؛ chat room؛ distance education