Validity of pushed output of English determiners during text-based online chat.

Abstract

This study was motivated by the potential use of text-based online chat to teach English determiners. Thestudy aimed to investigate whether students, when asked to, could attend to and improve their use ofEnglish determiners during chat sessions. Students in the experimental group were asked to use Englishdeterminers, as correctly as possible, during the chat session. Thirty eight students―20 and 18 in theexperimental/control groups respectively―from two Advanced English Conversation classes participatedin a one-hour chat session, which was followed by answering a survey that asked how they felt about usingthe target items consciously. The results showed that there were no significant differences in the overallratio of deletions of total errors and the ratio of errors to total head nouns between the two groups. Manyof the students in both groups reported they had difficulty focusing on communication while consciouslyusing the target item. Yet, some reported they would not mind using determiners consciously if required foreducational purposes. The findings suggest that creating a chat environment in which students can discusswith each other specific target L2 features, using meta-language, could potentially improve the use of the L2features.