Computer mediated communication impact on EFL learners' fluency

Abstract EN

The present study aims at investigating the impact of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) on first year students' oral fluency in an EFL classroom setting at the department of English in the University of Abbes Laghrour Khenchela.

An Ex Post Facto research was conducted.

We hypothesized that students who are exposed to a certain amount of computer mediated communication are more likely to produce more authentic conversations, in particular, and oral fluency, in general.

To verify our hypothesis, we identified two groups among 40 students, one having our independent variable (CMC exposure) and the second relatively lacking it.

To perform this selection, we conducted oral interviews with and administered a questionnaire to the students.

Subsequently, to measure our dependent variable (oral fluency), we submitted the students to the speaking section of the TOEFL test.

Analysis of the results revealed a significantly higher oral fluency amongst computer mediated communication users.

From those findings we recommend implementing CMC tools and methods in EFL classroom settings to help increase oral fluency amongst EFL learners