محمدحسین حریری اصل

From the dawn of the third millennium, the utilization of state-of-the-art technology for educational purposes, especially computers and the Internet, has become prevalent across the globe. In this regard, flipping EFL classes appears to be an effective approach to practicing second/foreign languages through computer-assisted language learning (CALL) in order to extend the class time to asynchronous activities outside the class, and make the students more autonomous and actively engaged in the painstaking process of language learning. However, this question merits consideration why many current CALL programs run and taught through flipped learning do not seem to take full advantage of collaborative learning and peer-assessment, specifically taking place in asynchronous channels of communication, namely threaded comment forms and discussion boards. The present study investigates the prospect of realizing social presence as a shared feeling of community among the learners by restructuring and optimizing the existing methods for flipping language classes. Employing a qualitative research based on grounded theory and data triangulation, the researchers recorded, transcribed and analyzed 41 semi-structured group and individual interviews with 44 participants attending an online IELTS preparation course on the first researcher’s website for over one year. Additionally, the same interview questions were posed in an open-ended questionnaire accessible to the participants from the website. The obtained results suggested that learner-centered flipped classes in which asynchronous student-driven content development and out-of-class peer-assessment through commenting and replying are adequately practiced can tremendously increase student interactivity, thereby fulfilling the sense of social presence.

With the current availability of state-of-the-art technology, particularly the Internet, people have expanded their channels of communication. This has similarly led to many people utilizing technology to learn second/foreign languages. Nevertheless, many current computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs still appear to be lacking in interactivity and what is termed social presence, which is in turn an obstacle to the learners assuming active roles in their online experience of L2 learning. Consequently, the existing CALL programs do not seem to have updated themselves from the obsolete behavioristic and communicative genres to reach for the integrative one to yield optimum interactivity. The present study has attempted to cast light on the prospect of creating an online learning community that could optimize the patterns of interaction among the students and the teacher with the intention of creating online social presence. Using a qualitative research based on grounded theory, the researchers attempted to collect and analyze the data vis-à-vis the participants’ feedback on the research questions that were cyclically obtained from 42 English students of the first researcher’s weblog through 41 semi-structured interviews at the end of each virtual class on Skype and Discord over one year. The results suggested that content-based instruction (CBI) in which the students can opt for and create the content of the course through engaging in asynchronous activities and performing peer-assessment in the comment forms and discussion boards before practicing negotiation of meaning in each synchronous class could maximize the level of student-student interactivity and social presence among the L2 learners.