Social Presence of Saudi EFL Learners
On Monday, November 16, 2015, Dr. Ali Alamir, the Vice Dean, delivered a presentation titled "Saudi EFL Students' Perceptions toward the Online Interactions of their Peers and Instructors." The focus of Dr. Alamir's presentation was to examine how Saudi students perceive and evaluate the online interactions of their peers and instructors in order to enhance their second language (L2) learning in online educational discussion forums.
The findings of the study revealed that Saudi EFL students had a more positive perception of their instructor-student online interactions compared to their student-student online interactions. They considered the online interactions with their EFL instructors to be more valuable and beneficial for their L2 learning compared to the interactions with their EFL peers. Dr. Alamir encouraged the participants to discuss the need for further research on how students perform in their L2 and maintain their social presence during online exchanges with both peers and instructors.
In conclusion, Dr. Alamir noted that the online presence of instructors seemed to encourage students to think critically, express their thoughts, and improve their grammatical and spelling accuracy.
For further details, you can review the presentation by clicking on the following link: Click Here.
