Chat / Online Forum

Reflection of Chatting

At this time, I was experienced a virtual chatting with 6 classmates at the same time in on-line chatting room. We were discussing about the plagiarism in the writing process. Everybody had agreed that it was not easy to follow whole rules and frames up in detail in APA style. Also as a foreigner and our mother of tongues are not English, it is hard to paraphrase and summarize the ideas or facts borrowed from original papers. It is also difficult to transform someone else’s thought into my own words. However, I felt much better when I discussed with my classmates, and realized that everybody feels the same way and it is hard for them too.

Even though I couldn’t get answered all of my questions about what is right way of citation in case by case, it helped to see myself more objectively and recognize the common mistakes which people, especially foreigners, usually make without notice, and I could be more prepared in future.


1. Finally, let's evaluate your learning processes in chatting. Were there any new ideas or approaches to plagiarism that you didn't know before this chatting? What were they?

Chatting on-line to discuss about plagiarism was little too short for everybody. We were kind of mentioning each other’s problems and didn’t reach the solution yet. We shared the problems in everybody’s cases and agreed the pitfalls in English writing.

2. What did you do well in this chatting session?

Like every other group, we need a leader or facilitator to lead the discussion into one direction. I kind of try to grasp what is the main topic, even though it is keep changing, and bring more issues around it.

3. What do you think you needed to improve this kind of communication skill, which consists of partially verbal and partially written language?

For on-line chatting, we need both skills, verbal and written language, harmonized well at the same time. Since informal dialogues are using a lot in the on-line chatting room along with good typing skill, we need to get exposed ourselves to lots of chatting experiences in English.
On-line chatting is different communication tool in different culture and people uses lots of abbreviations and slang. Even on-line chatting in my country is taking time for myself to get used to.

4. In your opinion, do ESL students need to practice chatting in English? Why? Or why not?

On-line chatting is even harder than verbal discussion in person-to-person or conference call. As I mention above, it is the one of ways to learn the informal English and slang. As an ESL student, I think I need more practice to talk in on-line chatting to feel more comfortable to get used to in this on-line culture and learn English without worry about my pronunciation.