Computer Mediated Communication Voice and Text Chat: Iranian EFL Teachers' and Students' Attitudes and Motivation

This study was conducted to investigate attitudes and motivation of Iranian EFL teachers and students towards use of computer mediated communication (CMC) in support of teaching speaking skill. To this end the data was collected through questionnaires distributed to 150 EFL undergraduate students and 25 EFL teachers. In order to get in-depth results, interviews with four CMC-experienced instructors were conducted to explore the EFL instructors' perceptions about teaching speaking skills, use of voice chat as an instructional source for speaking instruction, and instructional advantages and disadvantages of voice chat. Findings gathered from students' questionnaires revealed that students were highly eager to improve their speaking, the EFL teachers and students were positive in support of using CMC as an instructional source, although teacher responses indicated anticipation of some problems - fit to the curriculum, computer and the Internet access, finding appropriate international partners - in implementing classroom CMC. All respondents indicated that, for implementing CMC tools, needs analysis, appropriate training and administrative support was required.