The Use of Communication Strategies in Mobile Asynchronous Chat

Introduction

Education 4.0 and 21^st century learning educational advocacy propose that the future of education lies in personalisation and independence in learning. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is recognised as a tool that is closely linked with aiding the development of learner autonomy and independent learning (Kaur & Sidhu, 2010). It also provides the capacity to personalise learning experience based on learner-determined parameters. In this paper, we focus purely on CMC and the way it may be used to facilitate independent learning. CMC is defined as the process where people create, exchange and perceive information through networked telecommunications systems that facilitate encoding, transmitting and decoding messages (December, 1996). There are two major CMC modes i.e. synchronous and asynchronous. The use of asynchronous discussion environments as a platform for academic discussion has been a common mode of course delivery in higher education (Lim & Cheah, 2003; Lew et al., 2018; Malkin, Rehfeldt & Shayter, 2018). Previous studies (Ene & Upton, 2018; Perveen, 2016; Khamis, 2008) further prove the increasing attention from the field of education, especially in the area of English language teaching (ELT) given to asynchronous CMC. Largely, studies on how the asynchronous medium enhances students’ writing and speaking skills are the focus in the literature. Limited attention has been given to how the asynchronous medium can support students’ collaborative learning, even less so in studying this from teachers’ perspectives. Additionally, the asynchronous oral medium has received even less attention despite the introduction of asynchronous oral CMC tools such as NetOP, Wimba Voice and Voice Forum.

This paper is aimed at identifying the Communication Strategies (CS) used in mediating the problem-solving process. In this paper, CS refers to a range of pragmatic strategies to solve, or pre-empt potential non-understandings (Vettorel, 2018). Problem solving refers to the process of the participants in joining their understandings to work on solving a situation (OECD, 2013). It also explores the teachers’ opinions on the usefulness and practicality of using the oral asynchronous communication mode for academic discussion.

The following research questions guided the investigation:

• 1.

  What are the communication strategies that emerge in the mobile asynchronous oral communication within an academic problem-solving activity?

• 2.

  What do participants think of the role of asynchronous oral communication as a useful and practical academic problem-solving activity?

This study addresses the inquiries above by analysing data from WeChat, a mobile social media app via its Voice Chat function. The study adopts a case study mixed-method approach where a quantitative frequency count of CS is cross-referenced with post-activity interviews. Details of the methodology are discussed later in this paper.