Telecommunications and the second language classroom

The purpose of this study was to determine whether having an audience of native speakers has any effect on high school students' attitudes towards writing in their second languages, their attitudes towards learning second languages, and their acquisition of writing skills in their second languages. The students involved in this study were from two small rural Midwest high schools and were in their second year of studying either Spanish or German. A comparison group used a more traditional approach to writing, having the teacher and one other student in their class read their three assignments. The experimental group used computers to write to a partner class of native speakers outside of the United States as their audience. paragraphs was exchanged over a two month period. A total of three Statistics show that telecommunications did influence the students' attitudes positively towards learning to write in their second languages, but its use did not influence their general attitudes towards learning second languages. While both groups did steadily improve their writing skills, the experimental group was more motivated to write and wanted to continue the writing project. On the other hand, the comparison group did not wish to continue writing to each other in their classrooms.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Teaching English as a Second Language

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

1996

Author dc:creator

• Wickline, Kathy Jo

Contributors dc:contributor

• Davidson, Fred

• Teaching English as Second Language
• Audience effect
• High school students
• Second language writing
• Telecommunications in language learning

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright owned by the author.

Language dc:language

eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125931

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/125931