Abstract

This study investigated the effect of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) text chat and voice chat on Iranian EFL learners’ oral proficiency and anxiety. To this aim, 81 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners were selected from among 125 students at private English language institutes. The selected participants were divided into two experimental groups (synchronous text chat group and synchronous voice chat group) and a control group; each consisting of 27 pre-intermediate learners of English as a foreign language. Over a 6-week period, the participants in the experimental groups engaged in 60–75-minute-long chat sessions in dyads guided by a total of 10 tasks. The data were collected through pre-anxiety and post-anxiety scales and speaking tests. The analysis of the data revealed that both experimental groups had better performance on their post-test compared to their pretest scores, whereas there was a decrease in the anxiety levels only for the text chat group. The practical implications of the study and suggestions for further research are presented.

摘要

本研究调查了同步计算机介导交流 (CMC) 文本聊天和语音聊天对伊朗 EFL 学习者口语水平和焦虑的影响。为此，从私立英语语言学院的 125 名学生中选出了 81 名伊朗中级 EFL 学习者。选定的参与者分为两个实验组（同步文字聊天组和同步语音聊天组）和一个对照组；每个由 27 名英语作为外语的预中级学习者组成。在 6 周的时间里，实验组的参与者在总共 10 项任务的指导下进行了 60-75 分钟的聊天会话。这些数据是通过焦虑前和焦虑后量表以及口语测试收集的。数据分析显示，两个实验组的后测成绩均优于前测成绩，而仅文本聊天组的焦虑水平有所下降。提出了研究的实际意义和进一步研究的建议。