Interaction CALL Principles in Sentence Writing Class

e. Interaction

Interaction in CALL environments is important for the students‟ language learning and development. Based on the questionnaire results, the interaction principle was also applied in Sentence Writing class, receiving a high total score of 3.76. The students‟ responses indicated that they had the opportunities to receive comprehensible input by the sentence and passage comment interactions. The interview results also supported this. The interactions only take place during giving comments ... so we can improve our grammar, etc ... and help each other. SV2 As suggested by Ellis 2008, interaction provides students with the opportunities to negotiate forms and meaning. Within the sentence and passage comment interactions in the web-based Sentence Writing class, the students checked and responded to their peer sentences and passages in terms of grammar accuracy and message. As the students gave and received comments and corrections about their grammatical errors, the students were engaged in negotiation of form. Also, when the students gave and received comments and corrections about the message conveyed in the sentences or passage, such as related to the words or expressions used, they experienced negotiation of meaning. From the classmate s‟ comments, the students received the comprehensible input and could use them to revise and improve their sentences and passages. The writing, commenting, and revising series of activities in the Sentence Writing class also allowed the students to use the target language in a meaningful situation. As suggested by Swain 1985: 252, as cited by Peyton 1999: 18, the use of language in interaction with others “provides opportunities for contextualized, meaningful use, to test out hypotheses about the target language, and to move the learner from purely semantic analysis of the language to a syntactic analysis of it.” In giving comments to their friends‟ works, the students used English allowing them to use the target language in a meaningful situation as well as test out their own use of the target language. The series of giving and receiving comments, reviewing the comments, and further revising their works activities also helped the students within their linguistic analyses in learning. As the students were frequently engaged with the activities, this allowed them to build up their awareness of the features of the grammatical item and, thus, develop their grammatical skill Dwijatmoko 2014. The discussions above also revealed the relation of interaction and the opportunities for language exposure and production principles in Sentence Writing class. In that, the student-student and student-teacher interactions provided opportunities for language input and production. Following the typical web-based writing class Ferris Hedgcock 2005, the interactions in the web-based Sentence Writing class occurred not only via online but also in the classroom. The results of the questionnaire showed that the interactions in Sentence Writing class, especially in receiving and giving comments, could be applied well because of the simplicity to do online interaction. As confirmed in the interview: Within the online learning we can check each other’s works we did in ELTGallery. We can know our friends’ and own writing mistakes directly and then correct them right away. ... because the system is online, so we can do this faster and easier. MD3 The access to work with the system online enabled the students to give and receive comments fast and easily. Further, the results of the questionnaire indicated that interactions in Sentence Writing class could also be applied well because of the simplicity to do face-to-face interaction. In that, most students agreed that they could ask questions or request for clarifications about comments or grammar lessons during the regular face-to-face meeting. The interview results also confirmed this. Yes, we surely can ask helpquestions and have discussion. The teacher is so open and patient. LN8 ... moreover, after the face-to-face meeting, usually the teacher opens a question-answer session, so for those who are still confused can ask the teacher directly. MD14 From the students‟ responses above, it was revealed that the teacher factor was very important in assuring the classroom interaction went well. The teacher who was open to class discussions and willing to answer the students‟ problems made the classroom interaction lively. Related to this, the interview results also identified the importance of face-to-face meeting of a web-based class. In that, the students could get more assistance of learning from the teacher. That the face-to-face meeting is very helpful because we can know our writing mistakes. ... we can get explanations about writing, the sentence patterns from the teacher. MD9 The benefit of the face-to-face meeting is that we can interact more with the teacher and the teacher assistant, understand the material better because they explain to us directly, we can also ask questions to them directly. LN4 I advantage it the face-to-face interaction to ask about the grammatical practice to ... the teacher assistant. So, for example, when there’s something I don’t understand, I can ask him directly. If I rely only on the comments from others , it won’t be maximal. SV5 In Sentence Writing class, depending learning only on student-web interaction turned out to be not enough. Some students found that some materials in the web were too difficult to learn by themselves. The face-to-face classroom meeting gave the students with the opportunity to interact with the teacher, providing more clarifications and helps on difficult materials. In short, the interaction in Sentence Writing class took place mostly when giving and receiving comments among the students and between the teacher and the students. The online activities and in-class meeting of the web-based Sentence Writing class provided the students with more opportunities for student-web, student-student, and student-teacher interactions. The interactions in the web- based writing class could be applied well because of the ease in doing both online and face-to-face interactions.

f. Atmosphere with ideal anxiety level