ON THE IMPACT OF VIRTUAL LIVE IN-CLASS AND VIRTUAL DISTANCE TEACHING ON WRITING ABILITY

Using technology has for years been a crucial purpose in language teaching and learning. In the last decades, the emergence of CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) significantly changed the educational techniques and environments. Moreover, the rapid development and diffusion of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has led to new types of educational technologies such as Distance Learning. One of the innovative and useful techniques utilized for language teaching and learning process is teaching through virtual classrooms. Accordingly, this study attempted to investigate the effect of employing Virtual Live In-Class Teaching (VLIT) and Virtual Distance Teaching (VDT) techniques on EFL learners' writing ability in comparison with Traditional Teaching (TT) technique. To this end, 45 advanced EFL learners were randomly assigned into one control (TT) and two experimental (VLIT & VDT) groups. In order to determine whether the participants were homogeneous in terms of their writing ability, a writing pretest was administered. During 12 instructional sessions, the participants of the control group received instruction while the teacher was present in the classroom. However, the students of the VLIT group were instructed through mutual and live audio-visual connection, while the teacher was not present in the class. In the VDT group, both the teacher and learners were not present in the classroom and the participants received instruction in the form of films, PDFs, PPTs, and recorded files through Skype software. After the instructional period, all students took a writing posttest. The statistical analysis of results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference among the writing ability of those EFL learners who were involved in TT, VLIT, and VDT. Further analysis indicated that there was also a statistically significant difference among the writing gain scores of the learners in the three groups. In sum, the findings revealed the positive and motivational effect of technology in general, and utilizing VLIT and VDT in particular, on EFL learners' writing ability.