Learners’ Attitudes to Language-productive Tasks via Internet Relay Chat
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Abstract
Based on the theories from social constructivism, task-based learning, and social psychology on attitudes, this paper reports and analyzes an investigation into learners’ attitudes to language-productive tasks via Internet relay chat (A-LPT via IRC). Data were collected by questionnaires and interviews from international students learning English language in a British university. Results reveal learners hold positive A-LPT via IRC, which can be developed with the lack of any component(s) of attitudes and be influenced by many factors via the social interaction. It is also shown that learners’ A-LPT via IRC are strongly related to the attitudes to Internet relay chat in language-productive tasks (A-IRC in LPT), weakly to the frequency of IRC, computer or Internet in everyday use, and rarely to the history of IRC everyday use. Simultaneously, learners hold positive attitudes to most of the task-criterial features, especially the interactive, authentic and interesting tasks and those with native speakers’ participation, multi-skill and multi-ability involvement, and comfortable engagement.
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