Studentcentered Writing and Speaking Practice on the Internet

This study researched the effects of studentcentered writing (keypal) and speaking (using an MP3 player) practice on the Cyworld internet site on English writing and speaking. Fortyfive students participated in this study. The students took the pre and postessay writing test and two types of speaking test: topic and picturebased. Their speaking, in terms of the picture task and writing, significantly improved after taking part in the speaking and writing activity, but the improvement in spoken performance for the topicbased task was not significant. The results of the questionnaire supported the idea that students considered writing and speaking exercises on the Cyworld as useful. The results of the study suggested that teachers use a bulletin board for practicing productive skills outside the classroom to improve their writing and speaking.

on the Internet

Jeong-Weon Song

(Konkuk University)

Song, Jeong-W eon (2006) Student-centered writing and speaking practice

on the Internet English Language Teaching, 18(2), 179-202.

This study researched the effects of student-centered writing (key-pal)and speaking (using an MP3 player) practice on the Cyworld internet site

on English writing and speaking Forty-five students participated in thisstudy The students took the pre- and post-essay writing test and twotypes of speaking test: topic and picture-based Their speaking, in terms

of the picture task and writing, significantly improved after taking part inthe speaking and writing activity, but the improvement in spokenperformance for the topic-based task was not significant The results of thequestionnaire supported the idea that students considered writing andspeaking exercises on the Cyworld as useful The results of the studysuggested that teachers use a bulletin board for practicing productiveskills outside the classroom to improve their writing and speaking

I INTRODUCTION

In Korea, where English is in an EFL situation, many learners seem to haveparticular difficulty with speaking and writing Consequently, many universitiestry to employ native English teachers to provide more opportunities for students

to practice productive language skills However, as Lee (2005) reported, outsidethe classroom, Korean students spend less time speaking and writing Englishcompared to listening and reading At most universities, even within the

classroom, non-English major students are required to attend only about 3 hours

of a general English course per week This comes to roughly 45 hours asemester This limited amount of time needs to be increased We, as teachers,suggest that to maximize the opportunities to speak and write, the use of a freebulletin board on the Internet is a possible solution As Korean students learnEnglish as a foreign language, it seems important to investigate whether using abulletin board, such as the Cyworld, for practicing writing and speaking outsidethe classroom is useful for improving these English skills

II LITERATURE REVIEW

This section firstly presents the relationship between writing and speaking, asthese two language skills were practiced together in the present study It thenexplains the kinds of CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) used forteaching productive skills, and introduces the results of some previous studies onspeaking and writing with the use of CMC

1 The Relationship between Speaking and Writing

According to Widdowson (2000), the activities of language users can bedivided into four language skills Writing and speaking are considered to beproductive skills while listening and reading are regarded as receptive AsLawrence (1983) points out, writing and speaking share common characteristicsthat are used to convey meaning to an audience On the other hand, they alsoshare differences Nunan (2000) suggests that written language is more structuredthan its spoken counterpart Bygate (1987) adds that speakers normally use asimplified structure, produce incomplete sentences omitting unnecessary elements,and use fillers or hesitation devices to gain time to speak As Brown (2001)states, in English language education which is based on an integrated approach,language skills can be taught in a unified way, since they are interlinked.Katula, Martin, and Schwegler (1983) demonstrate the benefits of integratingwriting and speaking, by stating that when these are learned together, students

are able to understand different styles In addition, each language skill developed

in one mode can easily be changed into another skill As these two languageskills are interrelated, it would be advantageous for students to practice themtogether

2 CMC and Productive Language Skills

The increased use of the internet and multimedia facilities has affected theway English education is taught in Korea There have been many studiesreviewing the use of multi-media facilities, especially in teaching speaking andwriting These have been taught, for instance, by using CMC, which is defined

as communication among human beings that takes place between human beings,via the instrumentality of computers (Herring, 1996) Dix, Finlay, Abowd, andBeale (1993) divide communication into two forms: synchronous andasynchronous, based on time and space Synchronous CMC contains InternetRelay Chat (IRC), Moos, and the computer video/audio conference, whileasynchronous CMC includes E-mail, the Newsgroup, the Bulletin Board, and theMailing List

The effects of synchronous CMC on speaking have been extensively examined

by a number of researchers (Chang, 2003; Han, 2003, 2005; Min & Choi, 2002;Park, 2003) As Lamy and Goodfellow (1999) suggest, this may be becauseCMC interaction can be considered as a conversation-like form of writtenlanguage exchange These studies support the idea that CMC is helpful forimproving communicative competence and the use of communication strategies interms of negotiation of meaning and self-correction However, as this communication

is based on text, it is difficult to listen to pronunciation or to produce actualspeech

On the other hand, asynchronous CMC, especially the use of e-mail exchangeand key-pal writing activities, has also been widely researched (Cononelos &Oliva, 1993; Ho, 2000; Huh, 2000; Son & O’Neill, 1999) A few studies haveexamined the use of email and the bulletin board, particularly in providingfeedback on English writing (Jun, 2004; Lee, 2002; Park, 2004) Others (Han,

2002; Lee, 2000; Song, 2006) have investigated the effects of the use of thebulletin board on writing, and this is more closely related to the present study.Han (2002) opened an English cyber café for his English composition studentswhose writing improved after engaging in the writing activity Those in Lee’sstudy (2000) also practiced English writing and peer-revision on the bulletinboard Their perceived writing ability showed some improvement, though noactual writing test was taken Song (2006) also researched key-pal writing andpeer-revision activities with 182 Korean students using a bulletin board Theirwriting showed significant progress In terms of a voice bulletin board, Han(2002) reported that the use of a voice bulletin board was effective in improvingspeaking.

Based on a review of previous studies in terms of the use of the bulletinboard for improving English writing, the present study examines whether thismight be useful (in conjunction with an MP3 player) for improving writing aswell as speaking among a small number of students in a Korean context.The research questions were as follows:

(1) Is student-centered speaking practice, using an MP3 player on the Cyworldclub internet site, useful for improving speaking?

(2) Does the student-centered Key-pal writing exercise, among a small number

of students on the Cyworld internet site, have an influence on theimprovement of their writing in English?

(3) What are the students’ attitudes toward Key-pal writing and MP3 speakingpractice on the Cyworld internet site?

III METHODOLOGY

1 Subjects

In the present study, 45 female students, who were enrolled in the GeneralEnglish Program at one of the women’s Universities in Seoul, participated

Among them, 24 students in class A were mostly freshmen and sophomoresmajoring in different courses, and 21 in class B varied from freshmen to seniorsmajoring in various courses The students took part in the Cyworld Internetactivity from the beginning to the end of the course Based on the results of thepre- writing and speaking tests, students were mostly regarded as beginners, with

1) Writing Practice

Writing activity on the Cyworld bulletin board was named ‘Key-pal Writing’since the students could read and respond to each other’s writing there Theresearcher suggested the following topics almost every other week: movie, music,boyfriend, and travel The students were allowed to write on any topic theywished on the ‘Free Topic Write’ bulletin board

2) The MP3 Player Speaking Practice

Speaking practice made use of the MP3 player, which is commonly used bycollege students to listen to music Although there are many different functions

1) The internet address of the Cyworld club for the other class is:

http://club.cyworld.com/gep2writingspeaking2.

on this player, it would appear that few students use it to practice spokenEnglish The participants were required to practice and record their utterances,using the MP3 player three times per week, and to upload the files onto the

‘MP3 Speaking’ bulletin board of the Cyworld club (called ‘MP3 Speaking’ inthe present study).2)

The reasons for using the MP3 player were that it provides an opportunity forlearners to express themselves in speech, and also a chance to listen to theirown spoken performances as well as to those of other students, by uploading theMP3 speaking files onto the Cyworld bulletin board The students were allowed

to record their spoken exercises on any topic and at any length, but wereencouraged to discuss their daily lives, their major course, or the same topics asthe writing practice Figure 1 shows a sample of the MP3 speaking board on theCyworld club of the Internet

3 Instruments

Quantitative data were collected by the pre- and post- writing and speakingtests, and qualitative data by administering a questionnaire In order to collect thequantitative writing data, essay writing (Test of Written English: TWE) wasselected, and two topics provided by the Educational Testing Service (ETS), werechosen for the pre- and post- writing test

Regarding speaking data, the students took the two types of pre- andpost-speaking tests The first was based on a topic that was selected from a listprovided by the ETS The second pre- and post-speaking test was based on a set

of eight pictures, which was selected from the Test of Oral Proficiency (TOP),which is administered by Seoul National University The topics of the pre- andpost-writing and speaking tests are shown in the Appendix A For the qualitativedata, a questionnaire was distributed to investigate the attitudes of studentstowards writing and MP3 speaking practices on the Cyworld (see Appendix B)

2) The few students who did not have an MP3 Player used a cellular phone with an MP3 player function, an ordinary recorder with a tape, an electronic dictionary with a recording function, or a recording program on a computer.

FIGURE 1 Sample of an MP3 Speaking Board

TABLE 1 Number of Writing and Speaking Practice of the Students

Types of Practices Minimum Maximum Mean SD Writing

MP3 Speaking

27 16

70 27

44.25 20.35

11.35 3.15

5 Data Analysis

The pre- and post-writing and the transcribed speaking data of 20 studentswere analyzed, according to the following measures: 1) total number of words;2) total number of word types; 3) TWE; and 4) TSE The total number of wordsand word types are conventionally counted as a type-token ratio (TTR) However,

as this is generally affected by the length of the sentence, this was countedseparately from the number of words and word types in the present study, wherethe length of the writing and speaking samples varied WordSmith Tools version3.0 was used to analyze the total number of words and word types The scores

of both the TWE and the TSE were rated from 1 to 6 on a 0.5 scale Therating scales for the TWE were based on the scoring rubric for the ETS, and theones for the TSE were combined with the scoring rubric for the ETS andO’Loughlin (2001) The researcher analyzed them first, and then randomlyselected samples were rated again by a native speaker The inter-rater reliabilityfor the TWE was 89%, and the one for the TSE was 92% To examine thesignificant mean differences of the pre- and post-tests, the Paired Samples t-testwas used In terms of the results of the questionnaire, the number of answerswas counted and converted into percentages The open-ended responses in thequestionnaire were examined and classified into a categorical list

IV RESULTS

The following sets out the results of the pre- and post- writing tests, and thespeaking test in terms of the topic and picture tasks Then the results of thequestionnaire are also set down

1 The Effects of Key-pal Writing Practice on Writing

Compared to the results of the pre-writing test, the students’ writing abilitywas significantly improved in the post-writing test, as Tables 2 to 4 show

TABLE 2 Words for Writing

46.15 51.74 +36.40 (43.26) -3.763 .001

TABLE 3 Word Types for Writing

20.83 19.46 +9.15 (17.36) -2.357 .029

TABLE 4 TWE for Writing

1.975 2.825

.678 832 +.850 (.671) -5.667 .000

Thus, the students’ writing ability improved after taking part in the writingexercises on the Cyworld In terms of the total number of words, the mean ofthe pre-test was 147.65, and that of the post-test was 184.05, with a notableincrease of 36.40 (p=.001) The mean scores of the total number of word typeswere also substantially increased from 80.95 to 90.10, which represented a 9.15rise (p=.029) The mean scores of the last writing measure of the TWE alsosignificantly improved from 1.975 to 2.825, which shows a gain of 850 (p=.000)

2 The Effects of the MP3 Speaking Exercises on Speaking

Unlike the writing, the results of the speaking were different, depending oneither the picture or the topic task In terms of the results of the picturespeaking test, the means of the post-test were notably better compared to those

of the pre-test However, the results of the topic speaking test show that there

were no significant mean differences between the pre- and the post- tests.

In detail: for the picture speaking test, the mean score of the total number ofwords considerably increased from 100.00 to 134.15, with a rise of 34.15(p=.001) In terms of the total word types, the means also greatly improved from51.65 to 64.95, with an increase of 13.30 (p=.004) For the TSE, the mean ofthe pre-test was 2.675, and this also substantially increased to 3.050 in thepost-test, with a gain of 375 (p=.015) These results are shown in Tables 5 to7

On the other hand, in terms of the topic-speaking test, the mean differencesbetween the pre- and post-tests were in no way significant in any of the threemeasures

Firstly, the mean score of the pre-test for the number of words was 99.80,and that of the post-test was 103.45 Although there was an improvement of3.65, this failed to show any statistical significance (p=.679) Secondly, in terms

of the number of word types, the mean score of the pre test was 55.60 but that

of the post-test was 57.10 The mean difference (1.50) was not large enough toshow any statistical significance (p=.740) Lastly, for the TSE measure, the mean

of the pre-test was 2.850, and that of the post-test was 3.025, which again failed

to show any significant improvement (p=.217) These appear in Tables 8 to 10

TABLE 5 Words for the Picture Speaking Task

42.66 72.38 +34.15 (39.88) -3.830 .001

TABLE 6 Word Types for the Picture Speaking Task

13.28 22.87 +13.30 (18.35) -3.242 .004

TABLE 7 TSE for the Picture Speaking Task

.406 724 +.375 (.626) -2.680 .015

TABLE 8 Words for the Topic Speaking Task

N M SD Mean Differences

M (SD) t p Pre-test

Post-test

20

20

99.80 103.45

67.69 63.99 +3.65 (38.83) -.420 .679

TABLE 9 Word Types for the Topic Speaking Task

N M SD Mean Differences

M (SD) t p Pre-test

Post-test

20

20

55.60 57.10

28.89 24.09 +1.50 (19.92) -.337 .740

TABLE 10 TSE for the Topic Speaking Task

.564 734 +.175 (.613) -1.277 .217

3 The Attitude of the Participants towards the Writing and SpeakingExercises on the Cyworld

The following sets out the results of the questionnaire to investigate thestudents’ attitudes towards the writing and speaking activities on the Cyworldinternet site (see Tables 11 & 12) In detail: in question 1, 43 respondents(95.55%) answered that the writing and MP3 speaking exercises on the Cyworldwere effective in improving their English abilities As a result of taking part in

TABLE 11 Results of the Questionnaire

Summary of Statement Very much much little Verylittle AnswerNo

1 Writing and MP3 speaking

activity to improve English

ability

5 (11.11%)

38 (84.44%)

2 (4.44%)

0 0 (0%) (0%)

2 Increasing interest in

English

3 (6.67%)

31 (68.89%)

10 (22.22%)

0 1 (0%) (2.22%)

3 Decreased anxiety towards

English

7 (15.56%)

27 (60.00%)

11 (24.44%)

0 0 (0%) (0%)

4 The preference of writing

and MP3 speaking on

Cyworld

to using a book

7 (15.56%)

30 (66.18%)

7 (15.56%)

0 0 (0%) (0%) 5

Continuation of the writing

and MP3 speaking practices

5 (11.11%)

31 (68.89%)

9 (20.00%)

0 0 (0%) (0%)

6 Expectation of the

improvement of English

ability

14 (28.89%)

30 (66.67%)

2 (4.44%)

0 0 (0%) (0%) 7

Refer to other resources

while writing/MP3 speaking

practices

15 (33.33%)

30 (66.67%)

0 (0%)

0 0 (0%) (0%)

41 (91.11%)

1 (2.22%)

0 0 (0%) (0%) 9

More motivated after

reading/listening to other

students’ writing/speaking

3 (6.67%)

29 (64.44%)

13 (28.89%)

0 0 (0%) (0%)

10 Preference to the topic Free topic 7 (15.56%)

Given topic from a teacher 3 (6.67%) Free topic+Topic from a teacher 35 (77.78%)

* ( ) = %

the writing and speaking activities, about 76% of them stated that their interest

in English had increased (Q2), while their anxiety towards English had decreased(Q3) The participants preferred the Cyworld writing and speaking activities toexercises using a book (Q4, 37=81.74%), and wanted to continue them on the