Title= The Impact of Synchronous and Asynchronous Online Interactions on Improving Iranian Intermediate EFL Learners' Speaking Pragmatic Fluency

The current study explored if synchronous and asynchronous online interactions could have any significant effects on Iranian EFL learners’ speaking pragmatic fluency. Furthermore, it explored if there were significant differences between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous online interactions on Iranian EFL learners’ speaking pragmatic fluency.

To this end, 90 Iranian EFL learners from three language institutes (Goya, Naj, Mehr) in Andimeshk, Iran were selected based on a placement test and divided into three equal groups as two experimental groups (synchronous online interaction vs. asynchronous online interaction) and one control group. In synchronous online interaction group, the participants were asked to upload their pragmatic activities days after the class meeting. They had to create a group and added their instructor and leave comments on each other’s pragmatic activities one by one.

In asynchronous online interaction group, the participants were asked to create their own weblogs. They had to upload their speaking tasks on their weblogs. At the end of each session, students were paired randomly. In contrast, the control group was taught via traditional method.Data were also analyzed through a one-way ANOVA test analysis to check the significance of the difference between the pre-test, post-test in terms of pragmatic fluency of the synchronous and asynchronous groups. In addition, an independent samples t-test was utilized to compare the effect of the synchronous and asynchronous groups on speaking pragmatic fluency.The findings revealed that both synchronous and asynchronous online interactions had a positively significant effect on Iranian EFL learners’ speaking pragmatic fluency. Moreover, there was no significant difference between the effects of synchronous and asynchronous online interaction on Iranian EFL learners’ speaking pragmatic fluency.

Key words: synchronous online interaction, asynchronous online interaction, pragmatic fluency.

گردآورنده : یونس پاپی