The purpose of this study is to find the effects of using Videoconferencing (VC) as a tool for foreign language instructions in a semester long research study. The research questions focus on the effects of VC (1) on speaking skills, and (2) on general proficiency scores. English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in a university in Japan were divided into an Experimental Group (EG) with weekly VC outside the classroom, and a Control Group (CG) provided with 'shadowing practice' and written assignments instead of VC. Both groups spent eight weeks under the treatments with pre and post measurements. The results showed improvement in holistic ratings and temporal measurement in transcribed speech data, but not statistically significant in interaction between time and treatments. Speaking performance of the EG showed statistically more significant progress in fluency and lexical variation, and in general proficiency. The results suggest that using VC with tasks in a blended manner with classroom instruction develops balanced L2 competence and performance.
This study investigated the change of listeners' responses of Japanese learners of English over a semester of presentation training sessions. We were also concerned with the relationship between speaking ability and perceived use of listeners' responses. In this paper, the listeners' responses we focused on were: acknowledging signals, repetition of the teacher's utterances, and asking questions to the teacher. Therefore, the research questions were: (1) how did the learners' perceived use of listener's responses change over time?, and (2) what is the relationship between speaking ability and listeners' responses? The participants were 21 Japanese university students whose majors were in Economics. During the English teacher in charge of a group of three Japanese learners listened to three presentations during a 50-minute session. Speaking ability was assessed through an interview test following the format of STEP Eiken test for Japanese learners of English. To obtain the data of the listeners' responses, a questionnaire was provided after each session, asking how much they could actually put into practice from the three types of responses. The results indicated that as for RQ (1), three learners' responses changed to some extent over the sessions. Concerning RQ (2), of the teacher's utterance. From these results it can be said that videoconferencing interaction, particularly after presentation, provided opportunities for the learners to increase output and interaction, which boosts their L2 performance development.
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