Using chat in a language teaching

Chapter 6

Using chat in a language teaching

a-With text chat, we need to teach learners to use to speak chat, e.g.L8er for later.

I agree with this statement because I think it is useful to teach common abbreviations such as: brb; btw; cu; f2f, and so on.  I would recommend that students generally use standard written English conventions in text chat and email. As they are more likely to be interacting with other non-native speaker and writers and abbreviated forms can be confusing. They are meant to be using chat as another way of improving and practicing their English.

b- Voice chat is easier to use than text chat.

Learners are using two different sets of skills for these two means of communication; but text chat and voice chat have some advantages and disadvantages.

 Text chat requires less bandwidth, microphone, no sound card and headsets. On the contrary text chat can be slow and a problem to weaker typist. Also if we just have a single computer, with larger groups’ students can take part in voice chat more easily than in a text chat, so which one is easier to use with learners depends on your teaching context.

c-The teacher requires a lot of technical to use text or voice chat with learners.

The teacher just need to install and learn to use the software. Download a popular instant messaging program which includes both text and voice chat facilities to your school computers.

d- It’s a good idea to teach learners some chat conventions, e.g. how to take turns.

The text or voice chat conventions will depend on the size of the group in the chat. But for larger groups conventions are a good idea for text chat.

e- Using chat is best between classes who already meet regularly face to face.

For the use of chat to be meaningful for learners; we would suggest that chat is used outside class between class members or between two classes who are in separate classes.