COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION: Use of Target Language and Learner Perceptions

Among the challenges many teachers face in facilitating the improvement of speaking skills are sparing sufficient time for practice to enable students to achieve fluency in speaking through internalizing the structures, and establishing a balance between fluency and accuracy. This study aimed to seek an answer to the question as to whether Computer-Mediated Communication Technologies be a solution for overcoming these problems. The study was conducted as additional practice to the foreign language lessons with the participation of 60 students. Task-based language teaching principles were taken as basis in preparation of the teaching materials in the study, in which text and voice chat applications among the Computer-Mediated Communication Technologies were used. During the applications data were collected in several ways: participants’ perspectives regarding their changing experiences and the types of tasks used were investigated through the use of open-ended questionnaires after each session; a general insight was obtained into the students’ experiences with close-ended questionnaires given at the end of the study; and the use of the target language in communications among students were determined by investigating the text communication logs. From a user-oriented perspective, the results of the study shed light on the strategies that can be used in computer-mediated communication technologies valuing the experiences and perceptions of the learners.