A STUDY OF THE USE OF DISCUSSION BOARDS IN L2 WRITING INSTRUCTION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BAHRAIN

Abstract

Abstract : The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of the effectiveness of using academic discussion boards in Bahraini L2 settings, where L2 instruction has many limitations. There were two main research objectives: a) to investigate the pedagogical effectiveness of using discussion boards in regards to students' writing development, and b) to analyze the discoursal features of students' contributions to the discussion board. A variety of data collection and analysis methods were used to fulfill these aims. First, a quasi-experiment was carried out to investigate the impact of discussion boards on students' L2 writing. 41 L2 university students were divided into a control group and an experimental group, the latter using discussion boards for 10 weeks. Pre- and post-study writing tests, questionnaires, and interviews were also used to assess students' perceptions regarding the use of discussion boards. In addition, 30 university teachers completed a questionnaire, and some were interviewed to investigate their perceptions of using discussion boards. A content analysis of the students' online contributions was also undertaken to evaluate their participation and involvement. Finally, a corpus was constructed to examine the second main research question regarding the linguistic features of the discussion board discourse With respect to the quasi-experiment, while there were no significant differences in students' written fluency, significant differences were found between the experimental and control groups regarding accuracy and grammatical and lexical complexity. Secondly, students were also observed to actively participate in the discussions, although some negative behavior was observed. Thirdly, most university teachers and students had positive perceptions of discussion boards, although several disadvantages were also reported. With regard to the second main research question: the linguistic features of discussion board discourse, the findings suggested that the discourse was a register with writing-like and speech-like features but varied according to individuals' linguistic, social, and academic needs and the types of contribution These results contribute further to the existing research on the use of instructional technologies in L2 classrooms and extend our understanding of the pedagogical and linguistic nature of this use. This study also suggests that discussion boards can be an effective addition to L2 instruction through helping teachers overcome some of the limitations of conventional classroom instruction and provide students with opportunities to engage in interactive discussions in a written medium.