Fostering Communication Through Collaboration

• In Event: 81.032 - MTCC Roundtable Session 37
  In Roundtable Session: 81.032-9 - Supporting Multilingual Learners Across Diverse Teaching Contexts

Abstract

This study explored the effects of Collaborative Reasoning (CR; meaning-focused instruction) and Dictogloss (form-focused instruction) on aspects of foreign-language learner’s spoken English. Chinese-speaking college freshmen in four English classes (N=132) participated in CR or Dictogloss discussions on four controversial topics, each topic for a 60-minute class session for four weeks. Assessments included an open-ended speaking task, a reading fluency test, and a standardized English test before and after the intervention. Results indicated that CR students performed better in speaking fluency and reading fluency than Dictogloss students. These findings reflect the critical functions that instructional activities have for enabling some degree of fluency in the second language even though it is rarely used for extended communication inside and outside the classroom.

Authors

• Judy Yu-Li Hsu

• Shufeng Ma, Tsinghua University

• Melissa A. Bowles, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Richard C. Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign