The Relationship Between Learners' Proficiency And Focus On Form In Synchronous Computer-mediated Communication

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of learners' proficiency and focus on form during a synchronous computer-mediated communication(SCMC)environment.The focus was on how grouping learners by their relative proficiency affected the frequency,types(lexical or grammatical items)and outcomes(correct,incorrect and unresolved)of their focus on form.36 English major freshmen from a China mainland university participated in the present study and they were paired by their relative proficiency levels.The WeChat was used to collect data while the participants were doing jigsaw and text-reconstruction tasks.The study was conducted in a sociocultural framework,especially Swain's concept of collaborative dialogue.Language-related episodes(LREs)were employed as a research tool to analyze the learners' conversation recordings in the WeChat.All the LREs arising in the conversations were transcribed and identified.In addition,a paper-based interview was also conducted.The findings revealed that the learners,proficiency did affect the frequency and the outcomes of LREs,but learners' proficiency did not affect the types of LREs.For the frequency of LREs,the ratio of LREs in H-H dyads were higher than either the H-L dyads or the L-L dyads and the ratio of LREs in H-L dyads was higher than the L-L dyads.For the types of LREs,the learners' proficiency did not affect the types of LREs,for all the dyads focused on more grammatical LREs.More Specifically,the learners' proficiency affected the grammatical LREs they produce,but the learners'proficiency did not affect the lexical LREs they produce.As for the outcomes of LREs,all the dyads correctly resolved the majority of problems they encountered.And the percentage of their correctly resolved LREs was higher than Lesser's(2004).One possible explanation was that the present study was in a synchronous computer-mediated communication environment.The findings also revealed that the correctly resolved LREs in H-H dyads were higher than either the H-L dyads or the L-L dyads,and the correctly resolved LREs in H-L dyads were higher than the L-L dyads.This result confirmed Yule and Macdonald's point that learners with varying proficiency levels benefited differently from collaborative dialogue.To date,little is known how the proficiency of each dyad affects the learners'focus on form in a computer-mediated communication in a foreign language classroom context.The present study can be seen as an addition to the study of learners' proficiency and focus on form.