Investigating the Interaction Patterns in EFL Virtual Classroom: A Case Study

摘要

In this study, the interaction pattern between teacher and students in a synchronous e-learning system was analyzed. The study focuses on the initiation acts from both teacher and students. Three class-sessions of an EFL virtual classroom were recorder and the whole classroom talk then transcribed. The results suggest that teacher has more initiation acts, as the most dominated initiation acts is elicit the genuine questions in purpose of getting information from the students. While from students' side, the most dominated initiation acts is also elicit the genuine questions in purpose of getting information from teacher. The results also indicate that in this virtual classroom, teacher still dominated most of the classroom talk. This paper offers the preliminary discourse analyses as part of an examination of the value of virtual places for instructional design.