Investigating the Use of Public Online Writing as a Pedagogical Aid for Taiwanese College Students Studying Japanese as a Foreign Language Writing Course

DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L315.16

Authors: Makiko Tanaka

Abstract: 

The paper investigated whether the use of the discussion forum, which is called My digital learning, in a course management system would serve as a pedagogical aid for Taiwanese college students of Japanese as a foreign language in a writing course. In particular the research focused on (1) to what extent students participate in online dairy writing in comparison with traditional pen-and-paper writing in terms of utterance length, grammatical errors and written style, and (2) what affective factors are observed in open computer mediated writing interactions as opposed to closed pen-and-paper interactions. The results showed that students produced longer utterances via computer, and the total number of errors made by the students in computer decreased. Finally, most of students agreed that public online writing holds several advantages. This positive outcome should encourage language instructors to integrate computer mediated communication (CMC) into Japanese teaching practice.

Keywords: writing; L2; Japanese; CMC