M.Shirazi



The Effect of using Video Game(s) as a tool of CMC on Pragmatic Competence of ESL Students/Learners 



(Speaking skill) 





By: '

Mahshid Shirazi 



 Professor:

 Dr. Ahmadi



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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;tab-stops:378.55pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:115%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Abstract: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;tab-stops:378.55pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">  <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">In this paper, I will do the research about the Effect of CMC tools like Video game(s) on the Pragmatic competence of the ESL students or Learners’ Speaking skill. In the introduction part, I introduced and explained a little about the independent and dependent variable(s) of this research. Then, after some steps, I choose 20 ESL students or learners randomly from a university or an Institute in order to take the Pragmatic test and filling out one Questionnaire of CMC.I divide the students to two groups and give them the tests to do and after these works occured, I started to collect the data and do the statistical calculations on these data and in the last step, make a conclusion for this cause-effect research.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;tab-stops:378.55pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Key words-CMC (Computer-mediated Communicatin); Video game(s); Pragmatic Competence; Speaking Skill

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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%; tab-stops:378.55pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Chapter I 

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:200%; tab-stops:378.55pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Introduction 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">     In this research, I have to search about many subjects of CMC tools like Video game(s) that have effect on the second variable (Pragmatic Competence of ESL students) like their speaking. For example: The anxiety that has an effective role in using Video game on the Pragmatic competence of the ESL students/learners who are learning English As their second language by their Speaking after the using of video game.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">By using Video games, that are exist in one subdivision of CMC which has the name of: Synchronous <span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"; mso-ansi-language:TR"> Communication <span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">, we can do the research that, the students/learners of ESL have stress by using these tools or not and it has negative or positive effect on their Pragmatic competence like their Speaking.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Nowadays, the institutions, schools, universities are using CMC tools and the technology has an effective role in young people’s life. It is like teenagers either boys or girls that use games, blogs, social networking such as; Facebook.com, You tube.com, Twitter.com, or Yahoo messenger for chatting with each other wherever that they are at that time. We have another subcategory of CMC which includes Aynchronous Communication that in the following I’m explaining about them.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">What is Computer Mediated Communication?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is any form of communication between two or more individual people who interact and/or influence each other via separate computers through the Internet or a network connection - using social software. CMC does not include the methods by which two computers communicate, but rather how people communicate via computers <span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-ansi-language:TR">.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span lang="TR" style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-ansi-language: TR">The <span lang="DE" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%; font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-ansi-language:DE">u <span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"; mso-ansi-language:TR">se of CMC: <span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Educators often categorize the use of instructional CMC in three ways; <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"; mso-ansi-language:TR"> <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%; font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">For conferencing, Informatics and Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) Informatics (repositories or maintainers of organized information) include library online public access catalogs (OPACs), interactive access to remote databases, program/data archive sites (e.g., archives of files for pictures, sound, text, movies), campus-wide information systems, wide-area information systems <span lang="TR" style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-ansi-language: TR">, <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">and information managers. <span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-ansi-language:TR">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Types of Computer mediated communication:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">1)Asyncronous '<span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-ansi-language:TR"> Communication: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Asynchronous activities are independent of real-time and are comprised of activities, such as, viewing a web page, composing an Electronic Mail (e-mail), watching a video clip, or downloading a file.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"; mso-ansi-language:TR"> 2) ''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> Synchronous Communication:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Synchronous activities occur concurrently between two or more users including such real-time applications as chat rooms or instant messaging which allow users to interact simultaneously through text, audio, and video with other users located anywhere in the world. <span lang="TR" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"; mso-ansi-language:TR"> Synchronous CMC includes: Chat and Instant messaging.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Learning is an active, personal experience that allows the student to reﬂect on what they know (e.g. beliefs, ideas, mis conceptions, etc.) and how this knowledge shapes their un- derstanding of the world and sense of self [Pia70].Game- based learning refers to embedded instructional content in video games [BDM05,Gee03,Gee04]. Though video games provide motivation for learning, game-based learning does not necessarily result in positive learning outcomes. Research shows that embedded instructional content does not necessarily lead to positive learning outcomes. In contrast, game informed learning uses game play components to facilitate learning process. Game-informed practices give students an opportunity to learn concepts in a situated manner. For example, students who play video sports games (i.e. football) learn about the rules of the game and the social practices (e.g. huddle to discuss strategy) associated with the game. Rather than evaluating computer games for their educational content, Gee recommends emulating the characteristics of games for traditional and informal learning environments. Despite the fact that computer and video games have the same multimedia capability as CAI programs, their potential learning impact is often discounted by parents and educators. According to the findings, today’s children are starting to be exposed to technologies and media at a much younger age than previously thought. Therefore, educators’ investigations become critical concerning the impact of technologies and media on children’s development. The ubiquity and prevalence  of  new  information  and  communication  technologies  have  made  entertainment  products  such  as  games  readily  available  at  our  fingertips  and  transformed  our  consumer  experience  and notion of  enjoyment. In  addition,  significant  advances  in  sound  and  graphic  cards  coupled  with  increased  computational  processing  power  on commodity PCs support  the popularity of 3D game engine use and  deployment for games and other applications. The  growing  proliferation  of  computer  games  is  not  a  surprise and clearly presents a unique opportunity to tap into and harness the  captivating  power  of  play,  fun,  and  enjoyment.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Since  the  1980Os,  Entertainment-Education represents the effort to optimize  socially  desirable  outcomes  (such  as  learning)  through  entertainment media. Commercially  available  entertainment-education  offerings have included computer games  targeting  users  generally  under  the  age  of  ten  and  primarily improving  their  knowledge,  skills,  and  the  overall  learning  experiences  through  play. The  emergence  of  serious  games  broadens  the  discipline  of  entertainment-education  in  numerous dimensions,  while  keeping  the  tenet  of  balancing  educating,  training, and  informing on health and public policy  issues  through  entertainment at the core. Serious games are being designed, developed, and assessed for a diverse  population  of  users  and  encompass  a  broad  spectrum  of  varied content  for education, government, health, military, science,  and corporate  training Videogames have great positive potential in addition to their entertainment value and there has been considerable success when games are designed to address a specific problem or to teach a certain skill. Most reported effects of videogames -particularly in the popular press – appear to centre upon the alleged negative consequences. Since videogames have the capacity to engage children in learning experiences, this has led to the rise of “edu-tainment” media. Just by watching children it becomes very clear that they prefer this type of approach to learning. In contrast to video games that have traditionally been developed for personal computers and gaming consoles, mini-games can also be found on mobile phones and the web. Hence, language learning exercises should not merely be disguised as a game, but integrated as part of a game that is fun to play.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Overview of Computer-Mediated Communication tools: <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Statement of the problem: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">In order to have a good Pragmatic competence, the ESL student or learner has to overpower his/her stress and anxiety which has an important role in his/her Speaking. Having a vast lexicon can help a lot in speaking about the video game that was shown to these students.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Significance of the study: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">This research is not significant. because of this reason: the importance of this research is to concluding that by using videogame as a CMC tool, the students or learners of ESL can have a good speaking by their Pragmatic competence or not? By this research I can find that how Video gaming can help in speaking of the students or learners of ESL (by their Pragmatic competence).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Research question(s) and hypothesis: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Does using some varieties of Video games help the students or learners of ESL in their speaking (in order to their Pragmatic competence)?

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Definition of key terms: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">CMC- <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) is any form of communication between two or more individual people who interact and/or influence each other via separate computers through the Internet or a network connection - using social software.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Video game- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">The " <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">video" in "video game" traditionally refers to a raster display device. However, with the popular use of the term "video game", it now implies any type of display device. The electronic systems used to play video games are known as platforms; examples of these are personal computers and video game consoles. These platforms are broad in range, from large computers such as mainframes, to handheld devices such as cell phones and PDAs.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Pragmatics- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;"> is a subfield of  <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, linguistics and anthropology.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Pragmatic Competence- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called pragmatic competence.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Watching- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">look at or observe attentively over a period of time.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Speaking- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">the action of conveying information or expressing one’s feelings in speech or the activity of delivering speeches.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Synchronous- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">(one subdivision of CMC) which means that: <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">existing or occurring at the same time.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Asynchronous- <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">(the other subdivision of CMC) which means that: <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">not <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">existing or occurring at the same time.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">Limitations and Delimitations: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">Although the researcher has tried very much to eliminate factors influencing the students’ Pragmatic competence about their speaking by the using of one CMC tool like video game(s), the limitations seems to be imposed on this study. First, the researcher was supposed to measure one hundred students’ performance in their speaking and its improvements, but due to few numbers of college students that I selected fifty students.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">Second <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">, because it is impossible to gather all of the ESL students/learners in one room and request them to speak fluently by watching the video game(s) that they saw or used by their classes, this request have done in difficult times of day and under different contexts by their scope of affective vocabularies and careful attention to the CMC tool which is the Video game here (in this research). Moreover, although the speaking ways of students are believed to be the same level, they have different mind ability and Pragmatic competence to remember about related vocabularies or subjects for using in their speaking time (as their skill that they are learning on that time) and also background knowledge which would interfere with the speaking time request.

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<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">Chapter II: 

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">In this chapter, I mean chapter two of this research, I want to review about the variables that my research includes: CMC, Pragmatic Competence, Speaking skill and etc.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;background-position:initialinitial;background-repeat:initialinitial;">First, I have to define CMC, Video games, Pragmatic competence, Speaking Skill and their history up to now.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">CMC <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;"> can be broadly defined as "human communication via computer" (Higgins, 1991). It involves interaction between humans using computers to connect to each other and generally refers to "any communication pattern mediated through the computer" (Metz, 1994: 32). What is significant is that the communication takes place "through a computer between human beings, instead of to an already determined computer system" (Ferrara et al, 1991: 31). Today, the technology for CMC has advanced to incorporating aural and visual input into text.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">CMC was originally, in the 1960s, associated with communication in the defence and academic domains for military research purposes (Hiltz and Turoff, 1993). Over time, technological advancement enabled greater and more extensive use of CMC for commercial purposes, and encouraged the exponential spread and development of commercial networking on the global Internet scenario. Electronic mail (email) is recognized as the most popular application of CMC where it is more widely used than other services of the Net (Anderson, 1987; Blackwell, 1987; Weisband, 1987). Today, a total of 498 million people have Internet access from home (Nielsen NetRatings, 2002).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Communication media used to support the role of communication within organizations have been and continue to be changed by the evolution of information technology with much of the communication now mediated by computers (D’Ambra et al., 1998). Computer mediated communication (CMC) dates back to more than fifty years as it has been around since the early 1960s. The rapidly-growing popularity and ubiquity of personal computers has caused CMC to become very attractive to scholarly communication (Thurlow et al., 2004). CMC is a form of human communication using computer and Internet network and this Internet-based communication takes place on a global collection of networks that utilise the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite for data exchange (December, 1996). It is a type of communication which allows people to combine numerous media in a single message when conversing. CMC is an interactive channel which allows users to be active and engage in two-way communication. It is therefore an inexpensive way of information-seeking for increased efficiency and productivity (Miller, 2009).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">The mediated nature of CMC allows greater manipulation and a more careful construction of personal information; the delayed nature gives participants the opportunity to review, revise or cancel their communications before the information is sent (Heisler and Crabill, 2006). Besides, CMC is a form of asynchronous communication which has the advantages of: (i) eliminating problems created by barriers of time and space; (ii) being cost effective and fairly easy to use;  and (iii) has the potential of being more personal and customizable (Provenzo, 1986). CMC technologies include computer conferencing, e-mail, online chat, instant messaging, database utilities, multimedia and Web-based environments.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">In a nutshell, “the new communication technologies offer organizational participants a wide array of interaction and decision-making options that can differ substantially from the traditional ways of working” (Miller, 2009:  241).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Computers have changed the way humans collaborate and work in teams both in the professional and educational worlds. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has many benefits, saving businesses money and time by allowing teams separated by distance to work together. Often times this allows consultants and experts from all over the world to collaborate with teams. Similarly, educators and students can interact with experts in a given field thanks to distance learning opportunities that would have never been possible without CMC. However, CMC also can have negative effects on collaborative work because it makes communication more difficult according the traditional communication models.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Communication has been defined, re-defined, modeled, and re-modeled as theorists attempt to understand and improve human communication. Wilbur Schramm’s (1954) model of communication emphasized feedback between two communicators showing communication is more than just a sender, a message, and a receiver, but a cyclical process in which feedback can be given and interpreted at various speeds. Sending and interpreting a message correctly is an essential part of collaborative work.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">CMC is often perceived as a second-rate form of communication that makes encoding, decoding, and interpreting difficult for those communicating, while FtF collaboration is perceived as the best and easiest form of communication according to communication theories such as media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1986) and social presence theory (Short et al., 1976).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Many organizations, educators, and students can be dissuaded from using CMC collaboration, because of the negative stigma CMC has. This negative stigma can hinder them from growing and exploring new technologies, products, and ideas that could be useful in certain types of collaboration. However, the fundamental assumption in this research is that all communication can be flawed, even FtF, but that all forms of communication also have benefits. By highlighting CMC benefits and finding if and where CMC is lacking, we can learn to use correctly in collaborative work. Understanding the limitations and benefits of CMC can help develop virtual environments in which collaborative work is natural and easy, promoting successful group outcomes no matter what the project goal.Organizations, teachers, and students should be excited about virtual collaboration and distance learning instead of fearing it.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Though Video games have been criticized as being mind- less entertainment with no educational value or content, Gee [Gee03, Gee04] and others argue that video games model effective learning practices [BDM05,Gee03,Gee04,Kos05, Mai02, Pre01]. Game play experiences foster learning in the virtual world as players accomplish game tasks. Pillay et al. [PBW99] support the theory that recreational video games engage players in complex cognitive processes that are employed in problem-solving tasks. Thus, video games increase players’ cognitive abilities which transfer to learning in the real world [BDM05,Gee03,Gee04,Kos05,Nor93, Pre01,PBW99].

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Game designers utilize motivation to entice players to numerous hours of game play [FSH04]. Players attribute successful game play to the following components:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">1.freedom to explore an immersive, virtual environment that adapts to player’s skills

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">2.clear goals and objectives that determine game progression

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">3. resources that enable players to complete game tasks

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">4.and visually displayed feedback (e.g. level of difﬁculty that informs players’ decisions and outcomes [BDM05,FSH04].

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The components of game play are ideal for creating effective digital learning environments. If we replace "player" with "student," then we have the model for the active, constructive learner [BDM05,Gee03, Gee04, Kos05, Pia70].

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Recently, computer- based video games’ presence and popularity have been ever-growing, and game developers and researchers have started to investigate video games’ impact on students’ cognitive learning (Begg, Dewhurst, & Macleod, 2005; Squire, 2003;  Vaupel, 2002). For example, Pillay commenced a study investigating the influence of recreational computer games  on children’s subsequent  performance on instructional tasks (Pillay, 2002). While game-playing is regarded  somewhat negative in educational settings, particularly for young children, re scrutinization of its  influence in a  teaching and learning context is crucial.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Research results from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children’s Digital  Media Centers (Rideout, Vandewater, & Wartella, 2003)  found that children in the United States are growing up with media and are spending hours a day watching  television and videos, using computers, and playing video  games. According to the findings, today’s children are  starting to be exposed to technologies and media at a  much younger age than previously thought.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Despite the traditional belief that games, as opposed to work, are unproductive and non-utilitarian, some scholars have challenged this view and attempted to paint a different picture on this issue. Johan Huizinga (1944) for example maintained in his book Homo Ludens that the earliest stage of culture is in the form of play and that culture proceeds in the shape and the mood of play. He also claimed that some elements of play crystallise as knowledge such as folklore, poetry and philosophy as culture wears on. A more contemporary play scholar, Chris Crawford (1982), in his seminal book ‘The Art of Computer Game Design’ scrutinised play within computer games and maintained in line with Huizinga that play is the sources of knowledge and that the most fundamental motivation of play is, in fact, to learn. New technologies such as the computer have revolutionised the way games are played. Nowadays, computer games are being used for more than simply entertainment. Some even argue that it is time for games to deal with more serious matters. One of the mentioned serious uses of games is educational games. Research in game-based learning emphasizes the natural learning process that happens within the game and how this could inform the design of educational games developed explicitly to support the learning of a subject matter. Some research has been conducted to investigate the potential of computer games in  providing a language learning environment (Stubbs 2003; Rong & Topolewski 2002;  Mich et. al 2004). In the last few years, there has been an increasing interest in the e-learning research community for gaming and simulation technology as they allow close reproductions of immersive experiences. The ﬁrst experiments in language teaching go back to the 1990’s when the ﬁrst computer-aided learning software was produced on CD-ROM. Escape From Planet Arizona and Who is Oscar Lake2 for instance, are examples of those early language games created for learning English as a second language. These language games represent ﬁrst attempts to integrate traditional learning content, i.e. vocabulary, grammar exercises, etc.in a situational context (an adventure story), thus producing in the learner an impression of immersive experience.In the last decade, some research on computer aided second language acquisition has focused on using online 3D virtual reality environments and video game technology for teaching languages. This type of environment further promotes learning as a social experience allowing learners to practice active communication over the web by means of chatting, emails etc. Thethis (Segond et al., 2005), for instance, implements a web application providing a learning software for the language training of hotel receptionists.The learner is exposed to similar situations as if he were in the reception of an hotel. He can interact both with virtual agents simulating telephone calls, hotel guests arriving, etc. by means of preset dialogues or with a human tutor or other learners by means of chatting. The main innovative aspect of Thethis is the social, communicative aspect of the learning platform which allows learners to share the learning experience with fellow students and tutors. More recently, the 3D video game technology has been used in so called culturally-aware tutorial systems such as ATL (Raybourn et al., 2005), TLCTS (Johnson and Valente, 2009) and BiLAT (Kim et al.,2009) to train social cultural skills in a military scenario. The learner acts as an avatar in the simulated environment and must provide natural language utterances and in some systems even gestures there by learning not only grammar but also cultural skills of the target language/society.In these systems however, the virtual world is used mainly as a mean to immerse the learner in a simulation of the societal and cultural world of the L2 language. The linguistic sophistication of the exercises remains limited covering, e.g. preset dialogs and simple language exercises such as vocabulary training or drills. Moreover, these exercises are hard coded and all the systems described above rely on human authoring for the learning content. Recently, some work has aimed at automatizing the generation of learning content and learning activities. Indeed, teachers very often lament the high expense on time to produce different learning activities. Examples of works in this direction are for instance, VISL (Bick, 2005), a visual interactive syntax learning tool accessible though the internet for learning the syntax of different languages and TAGARELLA (Amaral and Meurers,2007), an intelligent web-based workbook for learning Portuguese and more recently WERTI3, a proto type of a system for the automatic generating of exercises (Metcalf and Meurers, 2006) based on arbitrary web content selected by the learner. Interactive or situated learning has been acknowledged as one of the main pedagogical principle in second language acquisition. Indeed, many observations substantiate the role of immersive environments in facilitating learning. It has been noticed (Krashen,1997), for instance, that adult learners acquire a second language more easily and their knowledge is more anchored, if they are exposed during learning to situations similar to real life, like those that children experience by acquiring the ﬁrst language and further, that (Rutherford, 1987) raising the awareness of the learner on the phenomena of the target language in context, i.e. by noticing or highlighting them in a particular situation, fosters learning. For over 20 years researchers have been using videogames as a means of researching individuals. Many of these reasons also provide an insight as to why they may be useful educationally. For instance: Videogames can be used as research and/or measurement tools. Furthermore, as research tools they have great diversity.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">In  the  United  States,  digital  games–games  played  on  computers  or  consoles  and  portable devices—are regularly played by 97 percent of teenagers, and the video game industry in the U.S., was worth $19 billion  in 2007  (Lenhart, Kahne, Middaugh, Macgill, Evans, & Vitak,n 2008). There is little reliable data regarding the gaming industry in the Arab world, but it has an  estimated  value  of  somewhere  between  $1  billion  and  $2.6  billion  (Khasawneh,  2011).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Given  that more  than 50 percent of  the population  in  the region  is under  the age of 25, and that youth  in  the  region  are  fueling  a  rapid  rise  in digital media  consumption  (Dubai Press Club,  2010),  the  gaming  industry  is  certain  to  grow  quickly. The  regional  online  gaming industry,  for  example,  grew  by more  than  50  percent  between  2009  and  2010  (Cherrayil,2010). The  emergence  of  a  gaming  culture  in  the  Arab  world  constitutes  not  only  a tremendous business opportunity, but also an educational one.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The  impact  of  digital  games  on  the  learning  styles  of  young  people  is  significant. Prensky (2001) argues  that young people  today possess  a different  set of cognitive preferences  than their  predecessors. They  prefer  twitch  speed  to  conventional  speed,  view  technology  as  an asset  rather  than  a hindrance, value payoff over  patience,  and  assign  greater  importance  to play  than work. Play, however, has been  identified as an essential 21st century  literacy skill; one that encourages experimentation and risk-taking … [and] views the process of solving a problem  as  important  as  finding  the  answer‖  (Jenkins,  Clinton,  Purushotma,  Robison,  & Weigel,  2006,  p.24). Play teaches  and  maintains  skills  that  are  highly  desirable  in educational, professional, and personal contexts (Rieber, 1996). Despite the many objections  raised  to  the use of digital games  in  learning contexts, gaming seems  to have a positive effect on young  learners (Zyda, 2005; Squire, 2006;  Jenkins et al., 2006).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Popular discourses and some of the literature (Gilder, 1992; Kelly, 1998; McLuhan, 1964; Negroponte, 1996; Poster, 1995; Rheingold, 1993; Tapscott, 1996, 1998; Toffler, 1980) have been imbued with deterministic assumptions about the impact of technologies on society. Even if there is a feeling that theoretical perspectives have moved on (MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1998), deterministic ideas have persisted especially in discourses and reports on young people’s use of the Internet. The obduracy of such ideas has undoubtedly been sustained by young people’s image and position in relation to adults. Young people are often considered more future oriented (Rushkoff, 1996), more apt and technologically aware and interested than adults. These characteristics of young people can be explained by their early adoption and adaptation to technology because they are often provided with the resources and basic training to use computer in their schools. Computer can be an effective tool for enhancing learning even though they pass much time by playing online games. The use of multimedia in education has significantly changed people’s  learning processes. Results from a number of research studies indicate that appropriately  designed multimedia instruction enhances students’ learning performance in science, mathematics, and literacy (Gee, 2003).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> Previous studies indicate that computer-assisted  instruction (CAI) programs have important factors that can motivate, challenge, increase curiosity and control, and promote fantasy in children (Tzeng, 1999). Recently, computer- based video games’ presence and popularity have been ever-growing, and game developers and researchers have started to investigate video games’ impact on students’ cognitive learning (Begg, Dewhurst, & Macleod, 2005; Squire, 2003;  Vaupel, 2002).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Research results from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Children’s Digital  Media Centers (Rideout, Vandewater, & Wartella, 2003)  found that children in the United States are growing up with media and are spending hours a day watching  television and videos, using computers, and playing video games.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Learning via computer games can be considered as surreal and outrageous. Many people are troubled with the themes that constitute certain games, and concerned with the intensity of involvement and amount of time that youth devote to playing computer games. However, some games can be quite instructive and enlightening. For example, Simon (1996) has noted how we view learning has changed from being able to recall information to being able to find and use information. Some empirical evidence exists that games can be effective tools for enhancing learning and understanding of complex subject matter (Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Ricci, Salas, & Cannon-Bowers, 1996).Various technologies can be used to facilitate learning. Using online games has been a much thought about, yet rarely achieved goal. Educational software developers have struggled to present a substantial amount of content; context and feedback without sacrificing the degree of control game players expect (Buckingham & Scanlon, 2003).Although there are several instances of games used in educational settings (Seay, 1997; Kirriemuir, 2002), as well as proponents of using computer games to educate (Prensky, 2002), the question of whether games are instructionally beneficial is far from answered.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Alongside the question of online games’ capacity to teach content is the question of whether mass-marketed games may be used by players who want to learn a foreign language. Very little research has specifically targeted language acquisition through games; however, various second language acquisition theories and study results, as well as current language teaching methodologies may support the use of online games in ELT. While recently numerous suggestions have been advanced for enlivening the language learning experience with interactive activities and online collaboration (LeLoup & Ponterio,  2003), much of the potential for the integration of entertainment media with mainstream language learning remains untapped.Video games are good for learning (Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, & Gee, in press; Gee 2003, 2005). What makes video games good for learning has little or nothing to do directly with the fact that they are games. Furthermore, the video games that are most interesting for learning are not just any video games. Different types of games can have different effects. Puzzle games like Tetris and Bejeweled may very well exercise pattern recognition capacities; Trivial Pursuit games may well make learning facts fun. But these are not, in my view, the sorts of video games which are most interesting in regard to learning. Nowadays, video games are no longer designed solely for entertainment purposes. The resurged interest in serious games shows that many areas can benefit from the engaging experience that video games offer. For instance, video games have been designed to help people in various therapeutic contexts ,as well as for explicitly educational purposes .In the field of Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), games have been developed specifically for language instruction ,and have, to a more limited extent and much more recently, been subjected to empirical research.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Recently, a movement has been a foot to examine how online games work as pedagogical devices.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Pragmatic competence <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;"> and communicative competence are two related conceptions, but, by Rose (1997b), they are not synonymous. Certain aspects of communicative competence (such as sociolinguistic competence) may be related in some way to pragmatic competence.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">In fact, Pragmatic competence is considered as one of the components of communicative competence (Bachman, 1990b; Bachman & Palmer, 1996b; Simpson, 1997). However, a common agreement for the definition of pragmatic competence has not been reached, though such a definition is quite necessary when we begin to consider syllabus design, materials development, and proficiency assessment (Rose, 1997b).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Chomsky (1980) views pragmatic competence as a system that underlies the ability to use ‘grammatical competence’ for the purpose of achieving certain ends or purposes. He distinguishes grammatical competence from pragmatic competence. By, grammatical competence’, he means the cognitive state that encompasses all those aspects of form and meaning and their relations, including underlying structures that enter into that relation, which are properly assigned to the specific subsystem of the human mind that relates representations of form and meaning. He restricts pragmatic competence to knowledge of conditions and manner of appropriate use, in conformity with various purposes. He suggests the possibility of a person having ‘‘full grammatical competence and no pragmatic competence, hence no ability to use a language appropriately’’ (p.59). So, for Chomsky, pragmatic competence consists of the knowledge of the rules and principles which determine how to effectively use the grammar of a language. But this definition is inadequate because it does not recognize the speaker’s knowledge of a pragmatic system as distinct from his/her knowledge of a grammatical system (Rose, 1997b).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Thomas (1983), different from Chomsky, defines pragmatic competence as the ability to use language effectively in order to achieve a specific purpose and to understand language in context. Rubin (1983) extends the function of pragmatic competence, proposing three levels of knowledge which are essential for the realization of pragmatically composed speech: the appropriate form-function relation, the social parameters which enter into the act, and the underlying social values in a society. Fraser(1983:30f.) describes pragmatic competence in terms of conveying an attitude, and sees linguistic communication, or pragmatics, as an interaction of speaker-meaning and hearer-effects in which a speaker is attempting to communicate to the hearer by relying at least in part on the semantic interpretation of the linguistic from uttered, and success is achieved only when the speaker has an attitude which he or she intends to convey to the hearer in using language and the hearer recognizes this attitude. While the contexts of speaking are numerous, speaker attitudes can be divided into four main categories-belief, desire, commitment, and evaluation-and successful communication can be said to be achieved when the hearer recognizes what has been said and the attitude of the speaker towards the prepositional content of the utterance. When the hearer understands that the speaker intends to convey a request, an apology or a statement, communication has been successfully achieved.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Bachman (1990b), aiming at providing directions for research and development in language testing, brings together many of the features of the earlier models of communicative competence and extends the definition even further. In this model, pragmatic competence, together with organizational  competence, forms what he lables as language competence, and it is divided into illocutionary competence, that is, knowledge  of speech acts and speech functions, and sociolinguistic competence, knowledge of dialect, register and various factors in language use. Bachman and Palmer (1996) proposed a modified version of pragmatic competence. They use ‘pragmatic knowledge’ instead of ‘pragmatic competence’, and define ‘pragmatic knowledge’ as comprising functional knowledge (equaling to what Bachman (1990) calls ‘illocutionary competence’) and sociolinguistic knowledge. Functional knowledge includes knowledge of four categories of language functions: ideational, manipulative, instrumental and imaginative.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Sociolinguistic knowledge enables people to create or interpret language that is appropriate to a particular language use setting and includes knowledge of the conventions that determine the appropriate use of dialects or varieties, registers, natural or idiomatic, expressions, cultural references, and figures of speech. These developments in terms of pragmatic competence, as Skehan (1995: 93) notes, constitute a more organized and differentiated account of the underlying and basic competences concerned than does the Canale and Swain model.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Two conclusions can thus be made about pragmatic competence ( Rose,1997b; Taylor, 1988). First, pragmatic competence consists of knowledge, and not the ability to use knowledge. Second, pragmatic competence consists of (at least) two components: knowledge of a pragmatic system, and knowledge of its appropriate use. The former provides the range of linguistic options available to individuals for performing various acts, while the latter enables them to select the appropriate choice given a particular goal in a particular setting. The second one is a discussion between illocutionary competence and sociolinguistic competence.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">There are many definitions of Speaking that have been proposed by some experts in language learning. Brown (2001: 267) cites that when someone can speak a language it means that he can carry on a conversation reasonably competently. In addition, he states that the benchmark of successful acquisition of language is almost always the demonstration of an ability to accomplish pragmatic goals through an interactive discourse with other language speakers. Richards and Renandya (2002: 204) state that effective oral communication requires the ability to use the language appropriately in social interactions that involves not only verbal communication but also paralinguistic elements of speech such as pitch, stress, and intonation. Moreover, nonlinguistic elements such as gestures, body language, and expressions are needed in conveying messages directly without any accompanying speech. Brown (2007: 237) states that social contact in interactive language functions is a key importance and in which it is not what you say that counts but how you say it what you convey with body language, gestures, eye contact, physical distance and other nonverbal messages. In their discussion on the nature of spoken language, Brown and Yule in Nunan (1989: 26) distinguish spoken language from written language. They point out that for most of its history. The teaching of language has not been concerned with spoken language teaching. This language comprises short, often fragmentary utterances, in pronunciation range. On the contrary, written language is characterized by well-formed sentences which are integrated into highly structured paragraphs. Brown and Yule in Nunan (1989) also differentiate between two basic language functions, i.e. the transactional and the interactional functions. The former basically concerns the transfer of information. According to Nunan (1989: 32) successful oral communication involves:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">a. the ability to articulate phonological features of the language comprehensibly

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">b. mastery of stress, rhythm, intonation patterns

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">c. an acceptable degree of fluency

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;tab-stops:259.5pt"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">d. transactional and interpersonal skills

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">e. skills in taking short  and long speaking turns

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">f. skills in the management of interaction

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">g. skills in negotiating meaning

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">h. conversational listening skills (successful conversations require good listeners as well as good speakers)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">i. skills in knowing about and negotiating purposes for conversations

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">j. using appropriate conversational formulae and fillers

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Moreover, he states that the teacher can apply the bottom-up-top-down approach to speaking. The bottom-up approach to speaking means that the learners begin with the smallest units of language, i.e. individual sounds, and move through the mastery of words and sentences to discourse. The top-down view, on the other hand, proposes that the learners start with the larger chunks of language, which are embedded in meaningful contexts, and use their knowledge of the contexts to comprehend and use the smaller language elements correctly. Brown (2001: 271) adds in teaching oral communication, micro skills are very important. One implication is the importance of focusing on both the forms of language and the functions of the language. He also mentions that the pieces of language should be given attention for more that make up to the whole. Furthermore he mentions micro skills of oral communication:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">1. Produce chunks of language of different lengths.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">2. Orally produces differences among the English phonemes and allophonic variants.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">3. Produce English patterns, words in stressed and unstressed positions rhythmic structure, and into national contours.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">4. Produce reduced forms if words and phrases.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">5. Use an adequate number of lexical units (words) in order to accomplish pragmatic purpose.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">6. Produce fluent speech at different rates of delivery.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">7. Monitor your own oral production and use various strategic devices- pauses, fillers, self-corrections, backtracking- to enhance the clarity of the message.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">8. Use grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc), system (e.g. tense, agreement, and pluralization), word order, patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">9. Produce speech in natural constituent in appropriate phrases, pause groups, breath groups, and sentences.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">10. Express a particular meaning in different grammatical forms.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">11. Use cohesive devices in spoken discourse.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">12. Accomplish appropriately communicative functions according to the situation, participants and goals.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">13. Use appropriate registers, implicative, pragmatic conventions, and other sociolinguistics features in face to face conversations.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">14. Convey links and connections between events and communicate such relations as main idea, supporting idea, new information, given information, generalization, and exemplification.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">15. Use facial features, kinetics, body languages, and other non verbal cues among with verbal language to convey meanings.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">16. Develop and use a battery of speaking strategies such as emphasizing key words, rephrasing, providing a context for interpreting the meaning of words, appealing for help, and accurately assessing how well interlocutor is understanding you.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">From some definitions above it can be concluded that speaking skill is always related to communication. Speaking skill itself can be stated as the skill to use the language accurately to express meanings in order to transfer or to get knowledge and information from other people in the whole life situation.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Types of Speaking Performances 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Brown (2004: 271) describes six categories of speaking skill area. Those six categories are as follows:

<p class="MsoListParagraph" style="text-indent:-.25in;line-height:200%; mso-list:l0level1lfo1"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "TimesNewRoman"">a. <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%; font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Imitative

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">This category includes the ability to practice an intonation and focusing on some particular elements of language form. That is just imitating a word, phrase or sentence. The important thing here is focusing on pronunciation. The teacher uses drilling in the teaching learning process. The reason is by using drilling, students get opportunity to listen and to orally repeat some words.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">b. Intensive

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">This is the students’ speaking performance that is practicing some phonological and grammatical aspects of language. It usually places students doing the task in pairs (group work), for example, reading aloud that includes reading paragraph, reading dialogue with partner in turn, reading information from chart, etc.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">c. Responsive

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Responsive performance includes interaction and test comprehension but at the somewhat limited level of very short conversation, standard greeting and small talk, simple request and comments. This is a kind of short replies to teacher or student-initiated questions or comments, giving instructions and directions. Those replies are usually sufficient and meaningful.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">d. Transactional (dialogue)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">It is carried out for the purpose of conveying or exchanging specific information. For example here is conversation which is done in pair work.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">e. Interpersonal (dialogue)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">It is carried out more for the purpose of maintaining social relationships than for the transmission of facts and information. The forms of interpersonal speaking performance are interview, role play, discussions, conversations and games.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">f. Extensive (monologue)

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Teacher gives students extended monologues in the form of oral reports, summaries, and storytelling and short speeches. Based on the theory above, it can be concluded that there are some points that should be considered in assessing speaking. The students need to know at least the pronunciation, vocabularies, and language functions that they are going to use. When the students have been ready and prepared for the activity, they can use the language appropriately.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The Nature of Teaching Speaking 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Since English is included as a compulsory subject in senior high schools in Indonesia, the learners have the same need. The need is passing the examinations to move to the next level and graduate from the school, and the general requirement is the students are able to speak and hold conversations. From a communicative purpose, speaking is closely related to listening. The interaction between these two skills is shown in the conversation. Brown (2001: 275-276) states that there are seven principles for designing speaking techniques.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">a. Use techniques that cover the spectrum of learner needs, from language based

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">focus on accuracy to message-based on interaction, meaning, and fluency.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">b. Provide intrinsically motivating techniques.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">c. Encourage the use of authentic language in meaningful contexts.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">d. Provide appropriate feedback and correction.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">e. Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">f. Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">g. Encourage the development of speaking strategies.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The process of teaching speaking itself can be done in several stages. Scott (1981) mentions three stages to complete the teaching of speaking. The first stage is stating objectives. The teacher has to put across what operation the students are going to learn. When the students understand the objectives of learning, the instruction will be done communicatively. The teacher could tell students the objective of the lesson directly. Giving students clues for brainstorming the objectives is preferable. Another way is using visual aids to attract students’ attention and participation.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">The next stage is presentation. One thing that should be considered in this stage is the whole language operations that will be given in the lesson are presented in context. It is very important to make language items clear. To contextualize a language item, the teacher can use text, video, recorded or picture in the form of transaction of native speaker and the like. The last is practice and production. Drilling check will be given to the students in the phase to see if they have understood of what is being learnt through choral repetition of language presented and then move to individual responses. The teacher will direct the students by providing information gap and feedback for students. And the students’ replies are not only seen from the grammatical accuracy point of view but rather of language appropriateness and acceptability. Then, there are some important points that should be considered in teaching speaking to young learners. The first thing to be considered is who the learner is and why they are. The clear objective is the next. In the end of the lesson, students at least are able to do something using oral English. The third is since the final objective of learning speaking is communication, all materials that are given to the students such as vocabulary, grammatical structures, and other language items, are expected to be applied by students in the daily life. Teacher’s role in the speaking learning is creating activities in which the students can practice and apply what they have learnt orally. In other words, this is the turn of the students to practice communication.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:150%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">  <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Chapter III: 

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Methodology 

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:150%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">  

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">In this chapter, I want to take a test of Pragmatic among the ESL university students of Islamic Azad University and after that, score their answer sheets and by their scores, I have to analyze their answers, make a lot of mathematical calculation. Then, I can find a result about my research question and hypothesis and how to answer it.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Participants: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">The participants of this study were go male and female students majoring in Teaching ESL or English Translation who were randomly selected from 20 ESL students/learners of  a university, or either from an Institute and they give tests of Pragmatic and CMC is the treatment of this research.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Instruments: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">One test of Pragmatic(s) and one questionnaire of CMC were employed. Furthermore, CMC is our treatment here, in this research.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Procedure: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Through this study, the researcher has sought to examine the possible effect that CMC tools may have on the Pragmatic competence of ESL students/learners. To achieve this goal, they were divided into two groups (i.e. those who got higher marks and those who got lower one).The two groups, then, took the second Pragmatic competence test which includes Speaking test. The results were then used in verification of the research hypothesis.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Design: <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;"> The study is not a descriptive one. (Because this research is the cause-effect one).

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Data analysis: 

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">The data that is used in this study was the results of the two tests that were administered, that is, two Pragmatic tests (which were related to Speaking skill of the ESL students/learners). After the Pragmatic test was administered, the results were used in order to divide the subjects into two groups.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">The second Pragmatic test was then administered to the two groups. After the tests were scored, statistical procedures were employed to measure the descriptive statistics of the results which will be reported below in the future.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:200%;font-family:'TimesNewRoman',serif;">Furthermore, a questionnaire of CMC which <span style="font-size: 12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> is an attempt to gather information about students’ attitudes towards Computer -Mediated Communication (CMC) was used.

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