The Impact of Online Social Presence on Omani Female Student Willingness to Communicate in English

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of one of the first research projects to examine the impact of student online social presence, an emerging concept in computer-mediated communication (CMC), on learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). It also examines how learners’ WTC is affected by CMC based activities. The study was explanatory and used a mixed-method research design. The participants (n=28) first answered questionnaires before and after completing online communication tasks. Volunteer students (n=13) were then invited to follow-up interviews to expand and elaborate on their questionnaire responses. Levels of significance between students’ WTC varied considerably according to communication context and interlocutor types. Interestingly, some respondents indicated that they felt more competent in a F2F environment than an online environment, due mainly to the lower level of social presence of the latter. Students indicated that some aspects of online social contexts, including limited keyboard skills, lack of immediacy, inadequately structured discussion, and limited interactivity had negative effects on their L2 WTC. This study has a number of pedagogical implications that can help EFL instructors to better understand their students’ communicative behaviours.