Tracing L2 Learners’Accuracy Development in CMC

While CMC (Computer-Mediated Communication) has established itself as a powerful motivator for authentic interaction and social collaboration, there have been mixed results about the efficacy of CMC as a vehicle for grammar acquisition. Some researchers claim that formal accuracy may suffer since participants tend to respond to this environment as an informal arena for information exchange while others suggest that text-based interaction in CMC may promote conscious attention to language forms in the course of meaningful communication. This study addresses this controversial issue by investigating whether content-based asynchronous CMC interaction with native speakers of English enhances L2 learners’ linguistic accuracy over a period of three months. There was no evidence for a statistically significant development of accuracy reflected in the reduction of error counts in three categories of morphological, syntactic, and lexical errors. It was also found that some frequent errors including misuse of determiners, numbers, and prepositions recurred over the course of three interactions. The findings of the study underscore little accuracy development over a period of three months of CMC interactions when the focus of interactions is primarily on meaning, and thus point to the necessity of form-focused instruction on the frequent errors observed in this study.