the effectiveness of employing discussion boards on improving efl learners’ speaking skill and autonomy: a mixed-methods perspective

Educational technologies have changed the traditional boundaries and limitations of teaching and learning, and have become essential components of modern education. in the same vein, the importance of applying cooperative approach and supporting learners in online learning to enable them as autonomous learners in online pedagogy programs and practices is being emphasized. this study was undertaken to investigate the impact of applying asynchronous online discussion boards (dbs) on iranian efl learners’ oral performance and autonomy since it seems that dbs and autonomy still have not received the attention deserved in the iranian efl context. to this end, 60 intermediate efl learners were randomly selected from 90 institute language learners through administrating the oxford placement test. they were later divided into two groups. the experimental group was subjected to asynchronous discussion board instruction as a treatment for their course-related contents through skype for 20 sessions while the control group received face-to-face traditional instruction. the data were collected before and after the treatment by administering two instruments, part of the preliminary english test (pet) for testing participants’ speaking and the autonomy questionnaire developed by zhang and li (2004). in addition, at the end of the instructional phase, the experimental group were exposed to a semi-structured interview about the effectiveness of dbs. analyzing the quantitative data using independent samples t-tests indicated that implementing dbs played a prominent role in improving learners’ speaking skill and their autonomy. moreover, the results of the interviews confirmed the abovementioned findings. the majority of the participants believed that employing online dbs was useful and effective for them; specifically under time limitation, the provision of words and topics significantly improved their speaking skill. these results are discussed and practical implications for efl professionals on using dbs in language classrooms are offered.