There are many reasons that motivate people to build online communities.
The purpose of this study was to identify the topics that learners discuss when
they are part of a computer assisted language learning course in order to answer
the question “What are they talking about?”. We have examined an
e-community of 618 students who were learning the Modern Greek language
online. We analyzed their conversation topics directly from the discussion
boards of the web-based course and sorted them into the pre-defined topic
categories. The results of the study showed that during the first lessons of the
course the students contributed more to social discussions which were unrelated
to the course material. The reason of this outcome is that the students
want to introduce themselves and meet their peers. As they progressed
through the course’s lessons, however, their discussion topics became more
course material related. The study ends with implications of the results and
future research directions.
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