A Case Study of Social Learning in ICALL-Based English Writing Course from Learners’ Perspectives

Abstract

As one of the essential theoretical concepts in sociocultural theory, social learning addresses that any learning is fundamentally a social learning process, which results from the interaction between individuals and their social context. The principal aim of this study is to explore what has come out of the social learning process in a case of a iCALL-based EFL writing course in a university in China. The study investigated 54 learners’ attitudes towards the iCALL-based English writing course and what they really gained from peers’ interaction (reading and commenting on peers’ writings). Data was collected by means of structured and semi-structured questionnaire, open-ended interview, and collection of online-texts; data analysis was done both quantitatively and qualitatively via SPSSAU, coding and content analysis. The results demonstrate that the majority of the students have a positive attitude toward this iCALL-based English writing course, and their gains from the dialogic activity include not only their improvement in language writing ability, but also non-linguistic aspects falling into the following four aspects: cognitive domain, meta-cognitive domain, affective domain, and meaning of life. The researcher concludes that the social learning process in this case was not only a good source for languaging, which leads to the improvement of learners’ language ability in the process of joint construction, but also a good source for affective and social communication within the learning community.