ENTRY 3: Computer Mediated Communication and ESL


Selamat hari raya!!!! Sorry for the late entry with the raya celebrations, open house and what not. So let’s get back to business.


This week we learned about Computer Mediated Communication and ESL. Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) is any form of communication or interaction between two or more people via separate computers through network of communication. Simply put, CMC is like a platform for people to interact or communicate over the net by using a computer, It is like the social media that we use in our daily life from Facebook to Twitter and emails.


CMC has been used in education since the late 80s and 90s with the introduction of CALL. As we learned in the previous chapter, CALL started off as an ideology that turned into reality with the advancement of technology. Incorporating CMC into CALL became widespread with the use of Emails and forums. Internet Chat Rooms (ICR) allowed direct and simultaneous communications for information exchange and this allows long-distance teaching/learning since it is a simultaneous/synchronous communication. Synchronous communication allows teacher and learner to interact without being in the same location. Nowadays, there has been an increase in popularity of e-tutoring through forums, video conferencing and even Facebook and Instagram.



Collaborative learning is an educational approach that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product. Computers are used in the lesson as it can help to enhance peer interactions and group work. This is due to the fact that the students can communicate via the internet anytime and anywhere they want. Therefore, they can have their discussions online and share ideas in their private chat room/class chat room or emails. Other than that, students and teachers can also share their works online with Google Doc, Google Drive, blogs and messenger since it can be shared online.


Other than collaborative learning, CMC also promotes authentic communication. This is because it offers learners easy access and opportunity to communicate with other learners as well as native speakers.


One of the advantages of CMC is there would be no distance barrier as CMC can bridge the distance gap between one person to another, in this case between students and teachers. Other than that, it also time efficient as there are a lot of software or programs that can help the teachers in prepping their materials or lessons. Project collaboration or information sharing has become easier with CMC as the information can easily be shared with anyone with the programs or software used such as Google Drive, Google Doc, etc.


However, the downside of CMC is not everyone is IT literate. This is due to the fact that not everyone is fortunate enough to be exposed to technologies such as laptops, PCs and smartphones. And when these things are used in the lesson, some students do not know how to use it making the lesson ineffective. Other than that, sometimes problems occur in terms of the devices itself such as problems with the WiFi etc. CMC in a way is demoting the teacher’s role from the instructor to facilitator. When that happens, students will rely solely on the computer to learn and this causes lack of socio-emotional and non-verbal cues needed for the students to learn. Some students need to feel the presence of a teacher when they are learning as CMC lack of real human contact.

If it was up to me, I would use CMC for most part of my lesson as it will lessen the burden of me going around the classroom to check on my students’ work. Other than that, note-sharing can easily be shared online and we do not have to spend a dime to photocopy the notes as it can be downloaded on the net. And lastly, I will ask my students to submit their assignments online (Email or Dropbox) so that I can monitor their work and identify late submissions.


That’s it for now. Toodles~

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