Online collaborative learning via astronomy online lab: a cross-cultural communicative experience for Malaysian and UK students

Abstract

Communication poses several problems, particularly to English second language (ESL) learners. In overcoming these problems, some ESL learners employ communicative strategies. This study reports the efforts undertaken by Malaysian ESL learners in enhancing their communication with the native speakers during collaborative cross-cultural online activities through Astronomy Online Lab (AOL). This AOL module was utilized to achieve twofold objectives namely enhancing students' communication skills and promoting knowledge exchange during the live discussions. 29 undergraduate students from a Malaysian public university and a UK university explored the Astronomy topics online and experienced the simulation during the two live sessions conducted for one month. Data were collected from a face-to-face interview with all the Malaysian students. The students' expectations before the live sessions, difficulties confronted when communicating with the native speakers, the communicative strategies and experience during the interactive activities were explored. The findings revealed that conversational issues such as the native's accent and the challenge in formulating strategies for solving communication problems during the conversations posed difficulties to the students. A general pattern of indirect and interactional communicative strategies as promoted by Dörnyei and Scott (1997) was evident during the interactions.