外国語教育研究ジャーナル 第 2 巻（JOURNAL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, VOL. 2）【Research Brief】

Maintaining Discourse Competence in a Synchronous Online
Discussion Board Activity
Justin Rooks
AbstractMoving to an online environment as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic necessitated a careful consideration about
how the aims of a language course could be maintained despite the disruption to regular classes. This paper outlines
how a synchronous online discussion board activity was used to maintain and develop the discourse competence ofEnglish language students at a university in Tokyo. It offers a three-point definition of discourse, explains why
discourse competence is crucial to the development of a second language learner’s ability, and analyzes an extractfrom an online discussion to find evidence of whether students were able to demonstrate a sound understanding of
discourse. Finally, there is a brief description of how students perceived the activity and a conclusion that points topotential areas of further study.
Keywords: Discourse, Discourse Competence, Discussion board, Synchronous,

Discussion
Developing a strong understanding of how language is used in context is essential for becoming
proficient in a second language. Almost everything we say is intended for a receiver, so when we
speak, we are conveying messages that serve a purpose connected to the context in which theutterance is made. This elaboration of language use is one way to define the concept of discourse,
though it does in fact carry a wide range of meanings related to a large number of academic fields.
Thornbury was right to point out that the concept is “slippery” as it eludes neat definition andembraces a wide range of linguistic and social phenomena (Thornbury, 2010). Here, discourse will be
understood in three key ways: as connected language, as language in use, and as language as a social
practice. Each one of these concepts will be used to consider student language use and to assess
more generally what can be considered their discourse competence. Discourse competence should bea familiar area of research in second language learning as it is part of a suite of competences thatcombine to make up a second language learner’s overall communicative competence. Communicativecompetence, developed by Hymes (1972) and elaborated by others (Canale, 1983; Celce-Mucia, 2007)
describes a person’s knowledge of when something is not only formally possible in a language butwhen it is also feasible, appropriate, and done in specific speech communities (Richards & Schmidt,
2002). Language use is made up of so much more than grammatical rules, and it follows conventions
and patterns that are essential to understanding actual instances of language used in specificsituations and contexts. According to Hymes “there are rules of use without which the rules ofgrammar would be useless (1972), and this position has been taken up in the field of second language
learning and acquisition ever since. Communicative competence and its pedagogical corollary
Communicative Language Teaching are central tenets in most modern teaching philosophies. In
addition, it has been argued (Celce-Mucia, 2007) that discourse is itself central to any understandingof communicative competence, and this centrality makes it all the more important when considering
what should be taught in second language classes and the methods used therein.

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When we consider discourse as a series of connected utterances, we rely on the concepts oftextual coherence and cohesive devices. Halliday and Hasan (1976) suggested that spoken andwritten passages that connected to form a unified whole should be considered a text – a unit oflanguage above the level of the sentence. They analyzed how one utterance in a discussion, forexample, connected to previous and subsequent utterances to create a unified and connected unit.
There are a number of formal elements that make it possible for sentences to connect and form acomplete text. These include lexical and grammatical similarities and repetition, reference
expressions that create chains of reference throughout a text, as well as conjunctions that explicitly
draw attention to the type of relationship between two statements. These formal elements allow for
the interpretation of certain elements that are dependent on other elements for their meaning(Flowerdew, 2013). In addition to such formal elements, connections can be created when eachparticipant in a discussion makes utterances that are contextually suitable and appropriate. This
principle of cooperation was first expounded by Grice (1975) and helps us to understand how
language use is so often coherent in terms of manner, relevance, quality, and quantity. Helping asecond language learner to develop this understanding of language use is essential if they are to
become adept at using the language in a variety of situations. Moreover, they will need to understandthat there is more to producing and understanding language than producing and receiving a series ofgrammatically correct sentences.
Discourse also relates to the way speakers use a language, the purpose, intention, and functionof the utterances that they make. This approach to understanding discourse, and language generally,
was made popular by theorists like J.L. Austin (1962) and John Searle (1969). They recognized that
there are discernible functions below the formal layer of language that enact and achieve pragmatic
goals. People do things with language – they invite and offer, negotiate and assess, clarify and agree,
among many other things – and expect the receiver to respond accordingly and appropriately.
Invitations, for example, call for either an acceptance or a refusal and thus limit the amount ofpossible or preferable responses that can be made. Speech acts and their possible pairs help us
understand how utterances can cohere even when there is an absence of formal markers. Formal
links are not always necessary if people are able to identify the underlying purpose and function of anutterance and respond accordingly in terms of the context in which the utterance is made (Cook,
1989). When form diverges from function, however, or when speakers use indirect speech, second
language learners can experience difficulties, as they may not be as adept at determining the functionof an utterance without explicit formal clues (Cook, 1989). It therefore becomes important to develop
their understanding of language and raise their awareness in terms of its pragmatic nature andpossibilities. Focusing on functional language items in the classroom and giving students anopportunity to use and understand them therefore becomes a profitable experience. Discourse ismutually constructed and negotiated by its participants, and second language learners will not beable to participate equally without a certain level of discourse competence.
The third form of discourse is concerned with language as social practice, as Thornbury (2010)
described it, and suggests that social practices are encoded in language. Gee (1999) has further
expounded this understanding of discourse by suggesting that the function of language is to scaffold
the performance of social activities and a person’s affiliation within cultures and social groups. For
second language learners, this involves expressing their identity and a sense of belonging throughtheir use of the second language, as well as the ability to identify and respond to the cultural norms

167外国語教育研究ジャーナル 第 2 巻（JOURNAL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION AND RESEARCH, VOL. 2）of the language community into which they have entered. Discourse can reflect an array of different
identities clustered around concepts like gender, age, and class, to name but a few, and how society
has constructed the relationships between these different groups of people (O’Sullivan, Hartley,
Saunders, & Fiske, 1983). Language use therefore does more than perform certain acts likeinvitations and suggestions. It enacts a person’s identity and their willingness – or lack thereof - tobelong to certain groups and communities. Furthermore, the unit of meaning most commonly
associated with discourse, the text, is intertextual as it is related to and reflects the nature of otherexamples of the same genre of communication. Usually, these are shaped by specific rules andstandards that can be culturally specific. A student’s use of language can therefore reflect theiracceptance of and conformity to dominant social rules and norms. This is an area that can sometimes
cause problems for second language learners as they may lack the culturally specific backgroundknowledge needed to use language and discourse appropriately (Flowerdew, 2013). This can be
nurtured in the classroom, however, with appropriate instruction and practice, and along with theother aspects of discourse competence, should be an important teaching goal in any language course.

Context
All first-year students at Rikkyo University are required to complete a set of compulsory English
classes, including one that is focused on English Discussion. In these discussion classes students are
introduced to a variety of contemporary topics and a suite of discussion and communication skills
that facilitate their ability to talk about these topics. As the classes are small, comprising of aroundten students, there is ample opportunity for each student to learn, practice, and use the skills andimprove their discourse competence. The course emphasis the importance of co-constructing thediscussion, which means they must be sensitive to how their utterances connect to those of the otherstudents to form a unified text. They develop an understanding of language in use as the items
introduced each week are constantly related to the function that they perform. Finally, as each classcomprises freshman students, many of whom have never met each other before class, the students
find themselves in a position to engage in a variety of social practices: they can establish relationships,
enact values of good discursive behavior, and express not only their ideas, but a sense of theiridentity. The course is especially valuable to Japanese speakers of English who often begin the course
lacking not only in discourse competence but communicative competence more generally. Despite
the general move towards a more communicative approach to language learning and teaching, many
Japanese students have continued to experience being taught English at the level of the sentence andhave focused on grammatical competence as well as reading and writing ability as a measure of theiroverall linguistic proficiency (Kikuchi, 2006). It is therefore a valuable experience that fosters thestudents’ ability to become more complete language learners with a better understanding of what
language is and how it is used.
At least, this was the case until a decision was made to move all discussion classes online as aconsequence of the Coronavirus pandemic starting in 2020. It therefore became important to think
about how students at Rikkyo could continue to gain exposure to this valuable language input while
studying from home. It was decided that classes would be conducted at least partially via Zoom, andthat in doing so, students would still be given a considerable opportunity to engage in the kind of
speaking activities that promoted their discourse competence - albeit on a screen rather than face toface. However, part of the lesson was to be conducted using online resources other than Zoom, and168

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this led to the activity discussed in this paper. The following is an explication of an activity that wasdeveloped on the discussion board feature of Blackboard. It is important to note that this was thethird iteration of the activity, as previous versions of the activity had been less successful in developing
the students discourse competence. Furthermore, it should also be noted that the activity represented
here focuses on the experience of students in the Level I and Level II cohort at Rikkyo. It is beyond
the purview of this research brief to elaborate the problems encountered in earlier versions of theactivity and the experience of students less proficient than the ones mentioned here.

Online Discussion Board Activity
The discussion board activity attempted to replicate the actual in-class discussion activity in an
online environment. Obviously, this presented a number of challenges: the participants werecommunicating via a computer rather than communicating face to face, and there is an obvious
difference in typing and writing messages instead of speaking. Nevertheless, it was thought that they
could discuss topics in real time with each other via the discussion board. Each group did the activity
either before or after their 40-minute Zoom lesson, so it either acted as a preparation for the Zoom
class or as a post-lesson extension. In terms of preparation, the students were given ten minutes tothink about a topic question on their own and complete a pre-discussion activity in the textbook. They
were then told to enter a group thread and discuss the topic together for about thirty minutes. The
target language and the topic were the same in both parts of the lesson. Each group consisted of twoor three students, as this gave each student a greater opportunity to co-create the discussion byincreasing the number of interactions they were able to make. Furthermore, it enabled them to use
the lesson’s discussion skills more often and thus promote their acquisition of some useful functional
language. The overall aim of the activity was to promote their discourse competence. The following
is a typical exchange between three members of a Level 1 class.
Excerpt from Discussion Board: Week 10 University students and social media
How does social media affect these areas of a student’s life?
Social life and hobbies
Studying
Family life and relaxing
1. A. How do you guys think social media affect our social life?
2.
B. I think by using social media, we can connect with people who have same hobbies.
3.
A. That is true. It is easy to look for people who have the same hobbies by using social
media, such as Instagram.
4.
C. Right. Thanks to social media, we can share our ideas and what we like more easily,
and then we can make friends all over the world!
5.
C. Social media has allowed us to do anything online, like we can take classes through ZOOM
and we can buy outfits online. What do you think?
6.
B. That is true! Without social media, stude can’t take classes in this situation, so it isnecessary for their lives.
7.
A. I totally agree with you. As you said, from the perspective of people who buy clothes
online can be more usuful for those who do not like face to face communication.

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8. B. How about the affection to studies?
9.
C. Some students (including me) sometimes distracted by social media. When using it
effectively, social media works well.
10.
B. I agree with you. Social media annoys me when I’m studying, like the notifications
from line or Instagram.
11.
A. I totally agree with you. As you said, notification distract students whateversituation, and they feel stressed about it but they cannot avoid it because theywant to connected with other people.

Analysis
The students in this activity have clearly been able to co-create a good discussion in which they
respond to the topic question. Student A begins the discussion by first selecting a speaking point(social media’s influence on social lives) and inviting the others to respond. Her use of ‘guys’ as asalutation suggests that the other students are fairly well known to her, and her word choice operates
phatically in terms of establishing the social group. This is an excellent representation of discourse
as social practice in which identities and communities are brought about through language use.
Student B takes the following turn with her response, and it is cohesive in two ways: she connects
formally to the theme by repeating the lexical item ‘social media’ and also offers an appropriate
response to the question. She has recognized that the function of the opening question is asking for
an opinion and responds accordingly by opening her contribution with “I think…”. Her use of theterm “we” also reinforces the fact that these students share a common experience and belong to thesame social group. Student C also responds to the question and her opening “Right” serves both toindicate agreement with the previous statement as well as to pre-empt a discursive turn, which shethen proceeds to complete. This opening sequence establishes a good discursive base from which
the discussion can proceed, and even a short sequence like this suggests that these students have afairly high level of discourse competence.
In Line 5, however, we can see that Student C had previously responded to the question in Line1, but her response had not been noticed at the time by the other participants. It was an issue withthe medium of communication though and not one that reflects poorly on the students. In fact,
Student B eventually takes up this new line of discussion. Her emphatic response “That is true!” evenacts to reassure Student C, whose question had gone unanswered by the group, that this was not an
instance of conversational implicature of the type articulated by Grice (1975) and that her question is
one that Student B wants to discuss. It revolves around their shared experience of using Zoom andtaking classes online because of the pandemic, and once again it hints at the fact that these students
share an experience and belong to the same community. Student A also responds to Students C’squestion and connects to it lexically by repeating the term “online” and adds to the theme bycomparing it to “face to face communication”. Face-to-face communication would be a familiar topic to
all these students as it is something they had discussed in two previous lessons. Drawing on theirshared knowledge, even implicitly, once again marks this discussion as being held by people with ashared experience: students enrolled in a discussion class who communicate with each other online.
In terms of the target language that these students had been addressing in their discussion
course, there is evidence that this activity is giving them a good opportunity to repeatedly use a170

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variety of functional items. In Line 7, Student A has combined a number of these into a single
utterance. “I totally agree with you” is a phrase she practiced in the second lesson of the course. “Asyou said…” comes from the sixth lesson in which students were encouraged to clearly markagreement by repeating what a previous speaker had said. Finally, by saying “from the perspective ofpeople who buy clothes online”, she is using a phrase from the previous lesson in which students
considered a variety of different points of view. She repeats most of this pattern in Line 11, whichsuggests a level of comfort in using these discursive structures in her output. There are enoughexamples in this excerpt to suggest that the activity was successful in providing students with theopportunity to practice these functional items and to develop their discourse competence. Though
brief, this analysis demonstrates that these students have a high degree of discourse competence ineach of the three areas outlined previously and that the activity has provided them with an opportunity
to develop it further.

Student Sur vey
To learn whether these students found the activity useful, they were asked to complete a survey(Appendix). Participants (n=41) were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed
with four statements regarding the activity and to respond to two open questions. For the first fourquestions they indicated their responses on a five-point Likert scale in which 5 represents strongly
agree and 1 represents strongly disagree. Question one asked whether the activity was enjoyable,
and students responded favorably with 91.9% indicating that they either strongly agreed or agreed.
Enjoyment may not necessarily indicate an activity’s usefulness, but it helps students stay motivated
if they have a positive attitude toward it. The following two questions asked students directly whether
the activity was useful and whether it helped them to use the discussion skills. Again, there was astrong endorsement of the activity’s efficacy with 87.4% reporting their strong agreement oragreement for Question 2 and 76.8% reporting the same for Question 3. As this was the main aim of
the activity, it was important to receive a positive response. The fourth question focused on thecommunication skills they had learned, and 67.9% said that the activity had helped them. For
Questions 5 and 6 in which students typed their responses to open questions about the advantages
and disadvantages of using the discussion board, a number of answers appeared numerous times.
The most common criticism was about the need to refresh the page in order to see any new responses
and the time lag between responses. The discussion board on Blackboard does not operate assmoothly as other familiar chat applications, and students seemed to have felt this keenly. In terms ofadvantages, one commonly reported answer was the ability to think more clearly about how toarticulate themselves. Again, this indicates how the discussion board activity is not as free flowing asa face-to-face discussion. Overall, the results were very positive and suggest that the students felt it
was a good use of their class time.

Conclusion
This research brief has outlined three key features of discourse competence and reviewed howthat understanding was applied in the development of an online discussion board activity. The activity
was generally successful in helping students in the Level I and Level II cohort at Rikkyo University
to develop and consolidate their discourse competence. They could connect to each other’sutterances, they demonstrated an understanding of the functional intention of language items, and171

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were able to establish and maintain their discursive community. It would be rewarding to follow up
this initial investigation with a few other lines of inquiry. Specifically, it would be interesting to note
how lower-level students were able to manage this activity and to consider how it could be targetedto their needs. It would also be worth investigating any shortcomings in the activity, such as thereported technical concerns regarding Blackboard’s discussion board feature, and consider ways inwhich the students’ experience could be improved. Finally, it would also be of interest to note how
the language used on the discussion board differed from the language used in the classroom. Spoken
and written discourses have their own characteristics, and this could be compared in a future study.

References
Austin, J. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Canale, M. (1983). From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy. In J.
Richards, & R. Schmidt, Language and Communication (pp. 2-27). London: Longman.
Celce-Mucia, M. (2007). Rethinking the role of communicative competence in language teaching. In
E. Alcón Soler, & M. P. Safont Jordà, Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning (pp.
41-57). Berlin: Springer.
Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Flowerdew, J. (2013). Discourse in English language education. New York: Routledge.
Gee, J. P. (1999). An introduction to discourse analysis: theory and method. London: Routledge.
Grice, H. (1975). Logic and conversation. (P. Cole, & J. Morgan, Eds.) Syntax and Semantics, 3, 41 58.
Halliday, M., & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
Hymes, D. (1972). On communicative competence. In J. Pride, & J. Holmes, Sociolinguistics: Selected
readings (pp. 269-293). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Kikuchi, K. (2006). Revisiting English Entrance Examinations at Japanese Universities after a
Decade. JALT Journal, 28(1), 77-96.
O’Sullivan, T., Hartley, J., Saunders, D., & Fiske, J. (1983). Key Concepts in Communication. London:
Methuen.
Richards, J. C., & Schmidt, R. (2002). Longman dictionary of language teaching and applied linguistics.
Harlow: Longman.
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge
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Thornbury, S. (2010). What can a corpus tell us about discourse? In A. O’Keeffe, & M. McCarthy, The
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Appendix – Student Sur vey
I would like to learn more about how you feel about using the discussion board for your classes. Youranswers are completely anonymous, so please feel free to be honest. Thank you very much for yourparticipation.
Strongly agree		
非常にそう思う
Agree			 そう思う
Neutral			
どちらでもない
Disagree 			
そう思わないStrongly disagree		
全くそう思わない1. I think using the Discussion Board for classes is enjoyable. 私はディスカッションボードを授業で使うのは楽しいと思います
Strongly agree
Agree
NeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree
2. I think using the Discussion Board for classes is useful. 私はディスカッションボードを授業で使
うのは役に立つと思います。
Strongly agree
Agree
NeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree
3. I think using the discussion board helped me use the discussion skills. ディスカッションボード
はディスカッションスキルを使うのに役立った。
Strongly agree
Agree
NeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree
4. I think using the discussion board helped me use the communication skills. ディスカッションボ
ードはコミュニケーションスキルを使うのに役立った。
Strongly agree
Agree
NeutralDisagreeStrongly disagree
5. What are the disadvantages of using the Discussion Board?
ディスカッションボードの不利／不便な点は何ですか？
6. What are the advantages of using the Discussion Board? ディスカッションボードの強みは何ですか？

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