COMPARATIVO DE COSTOS MANTENIMIENTO CORRECTIVO

The current study is significant in practical terms. At the empirical level, this study contributes to the growing body o f literature on academic writing by providing much needed information on the nature of academic writing of EFL students in a computer- mediated environment in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where CMC applications to ELT are scanty and under-researched. Since academic writing is one of the weakest areas of skills amongst Saudis (McMullen 2009), this exploration will pave the way to reveal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges inherent in a CMC environment exploited to teach academic writing.

The findings o f this study have shown that CMC technology can be effective in improving Saudi Arabian EFL students' academic literacy skills from the perspective o f interaction and collaboration. In this way, the impact o f CMC technology may be more influential in providing learners with interaction and psychological/emotional support to enhance their cognitive/linguistic writing abilities. This implies that w riting instructors in the region should be aware of both the advantages and disadvantages o f the use o f CMC technology as a pedagogical tool for academic writing development.

Teachers of EFL writing in Saudi Arabia can devise strategies in order to gain from the advantages related to social constructive aspects of writing difficulties. W ith this

perspective, teachers can devise such activities which enhance collaboration among the learners. EFL teachers in Saudi Arabia can use CMC for peer feedback in a more comprehensive way than was witnessed in this study. Most students pointed out during the interviews that providing feedback that could substantially help peers in revising their drafts was difficult, specifically the type of feedback in which they could suggest changes involving elucidation and elaboration of ideas. So the teachers may start first with structural errors below sentence level and once students are happy with this and have gained proficiency after practice, they could move on to more constructive feedback. Perhaps the next step would be to ask students to critically reflect on the changes they made in response to feedback and why they made some changes and why they chose not to make others (if they did not make some).

Some participants also expressed the need for training in using the technology and in giving feedback. So teachers could provide some initial instruction on how to give feedback that can help peers in a substantial way. For example they could learn that a good way o f giving feedback is to say something supportive and then give a criticism and then finish on something supportive. This would thus extend what students were already trying to do in the present study. To start with the teachers could prepare a mock essay for students to critique, perhaps one that has some really obvious mistakes that they will be able to critique. This way they w on't have to worry about the other students' feelings, which as pointed in the interviews was an issue which kept a few students from critiquing their peers.

As reported in the findings, overall the students had a low level o f English proficiency but of course there were some who were proficient and had good w riting skills. So learners could be asked to produce jointly w ritten texts. They might work in pairs

or in groups of 3 to 4 students o f mixed ability. Learners could be engaged in this activity through asking them to divide their work among themselves. For instance, in a group of 3 to 4 students of mixed ability, one o f them can be assigned the task o f finding relevant information on the internet about the topic o f their assignment. Another can sift information and write the introduction and the conclusion part. Still another one can w rite the main body. In the process, they can provide feedback to one another about the structure and editing. It is expected that such a task will provide a collaborative environment where the writing anxiety could be reduced making the learners more confident and less able students would gain by learning form able students than themselves. They will also be exposed to multiple perspectives that can enhance their critical thinking.

On a practical level, findings from this investigation will help faculty members of academic writing and other literacy skills make informed decisions about how to effectively acculturate EFL students into the discourse community o f their choice w ith the help o f computer technology. I feel that the teachers need to scaffold their tasks more than they presently do. They may plan to design their online course components in a way that builds upon the classroom teaching. In other words, there should be coherence between the face-to-face and online components of the course. The scaffolding can be achieved through establishing a link between face-to-face interactions, supplementing it by providing online resources and providing practice to create the desirable style of w riting through online activities.

Another observation of interest was that the online activities could pave the way towards a more student centred environment. In addition to teacher initiated discussions in both the synchronous and asynchronous modes, the students should be given a chance

to decide the topics for online discussions and after the teacher's approval, one of the students should play the role of the initiator and mediator of the discussion rather than the teacher. In such a scenario, the teachers should closely monitor the proceedings and provide reflective feedback as to how well the activity went and how it could be improved in future.

One im portant issue reported in the findings of the quantitative data was related to the technical issues related to internet and Bb learning management system. The university authorities can ensure provision of fast internet access by employing highly skilled technical support staff. The university may also request the Bb LMS authorities of the difficulty o f commenting on the text written in the Bb forums since most students reported that they were frustrated to use this facility. Until this problem is fixed and presumably it may take quite a long time, the teachers can ask students that in addition to posting their essay drafts in the text box o f the discussion forum, they should also attach the required essay as MS Word file as an attachment to the forum postings. In this way the students will have the option to download their peers' essays in MS Word form at and easily insert comments and feedback. They may then attach the documents with their comments in the Bb forum activity threads.

While providing background information o f the setting of the study in Chapter 3 , 1 mentioned that the teachers were free to assign any percentage of term work marks to various online activities. I also mentioned that participation in asynchronous online was not compulsory, while presence was marked during the synchronous activities. So the teachers can make participation in asynchronous online activities compulsory and assign some marks to ensure participation, so that participants have to submit their first drafts, final drafts and a certain number of comments that they make on others' drafts. To

increase students' participation, both the synchronous and asynchronous activities can be linked to formative assessment, thereby providing external motivation to the students.

To conclude, students need ample time, clear instruction and training in addition to emotionally comforting activities in order to profitably interact with their peers in the CMC environment. It may be concluded that the e-learning technology o f Blackboard® LMS can only support but not replace group collaborative processes as it occurs in natural traditional settings. Teachers still need to design teaching activities primarily with the purpose to facilitate online collaborative learning to work effectively.