Abstract
The sudden transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for many learners and teachers due to the fact that most universities suddenly shifted to online learning without providing adequate time for preparing and training teachers and learners in using interactive educational technologies. Such challenges are even more pronounced for language instructors in cultivating and sustaining interactions among learners, especially in writing courses that demand active engagement and interactions. Therefore, this study focused on what and how a writing instructor did through technology in creating an interactive writing environment for KSA learners joining five online writing courses and how learners perceived interactions and identifies the major factors affecting their perceptions. The data were collected from multiple sources: WhatsApp chats, Google Docs chats and comments, screencast recorded discussions, students’ texts, and their responses to an electronic (e-) survey as well as follow-up interviews. The study revealed that in connecting Google Docs to the Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, the instructor engaged learners in multidirectional and multimodal interactions and text writing and revising. The WhatsApp group was also used for individual learner-learner and learner-teacher interaction illustrating support and consultation-seeking behaviors of learners beyond the online classroom time. The learners’ perceptions of technology-mediated interactions (overall, learner-learner and learner-teacher) in the online writing courses were at high levels, though such perceptions varied according to several factors, including socio-demographic characteristics. The study concludes by offering useful pedagogical and research implications.
Highlights
Writing a good text in English represents a challenging task for many learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), including EFL Arab learners
While the above-mentioned challenges are often related to those learners joining face-to-face and or blended writing courses, what about these learners joining fully online writing courses? These challenges are more pronounced for students joining fully online language learning courses [8], including writing courses, especially during the global
Due to the challenges involved in engaging learners in interactions and sustaining such interactions in writing courses, especially during the COVID-19, the current paper reported an empirical study on how a university writing instructor in the KSA context sustained learners’ interactions online through three different technological tools
Summary
Writing a good text in English represents a challenging task for many learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), including EFL Arab learners. One common pedagogical approach to teaching writing is to engage learners in peer writing since it is a healthy way to encourage learners to practice writing in English, exchange ideas and feedback, construct their knowledge and understanding, and collaborate towards a jointly written text through collaborative dialogue/interaction [1,2] Despite this emphasis, students do not engage in spontaneously collaborative interactions [1,3,4], especially in the target language [5]. Saudi Arabia, the context of the current study, was no exception, as all universities have shifted to distance education during the COVID19 outbreak [11] In such emergency online learning, sustaining interaction is important in order to reduce learners’ feeling of physical and psychological distance and disconnection to their online learning environments [12].
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