74 Ulf Schuetze and Erin Lowey
The analysis distinguished between the ‘auxiliary/modal verbs’ and the ‘regular/irregular verbs.’ The number of participants in each group was eight. That number was too small for infer- ential statistics. The data presented here is based on descriptive statistics.
All in all, students were very much engaged in the discussions. In part one, discussing the first topic, the sixteen students at the West Coast University exchanged 126 messages in 29 discussions with the sixteen native speakers at the Gymnasium Kiel in Germany. The longest message written by a North American participant was 184 words long, by a German participant 181 words. The longest thread of any discussion had 14 messages, the shortest 3. The North American students using the toolbar spent on average 57 minutes per session in the Moodle forum. In summary, the exchange was very well balanced with students on both sides of the Atlantic being engaged in the topic and participants in North America having the opportunity to see how native speakers their own age use the subjunctive II.
The same can be said for part two in which students discussed the second topic. The exchange was shorter. Students participated in 16 discussions, sending 90 messages back and forth, the longest message by a North American student being 154 words long, the shortest 12 words, and by a German student 188 words, the shortest 13 words. The longest thread had 9 messages and the shortest 3. The North American students using the toolbar spent on average 49 minutes per session in the Moodle forum.
The pre/post-test tested comprehension, controlled production as well as free production. For comprehension, four ‘auxiliary/modal verbs’ and four ‘regular/irregular verbs’ were tested. For controlled production, four ‘auxiliary/modal verbs’, four ‘regular verbs’ and four ‘irregular verbs’ were tested. For free production, participants were asked to write four sentences using one auxilia- ry, one modal, one regular and one irregular verb. This was the same task for the post-tests, alt- hough the topic of the post-test was different in order to avoid repetition.
The pre/post-test for the ‘auxiliary/modal verbs’ (see Table 1) showed that participants of both groups identified almost all of the subjunctive II forms in the pre-test as well as the post-test. In regard to the output (controlled and free production), there was little difference between the two groups. Both groups used four more subjunctive II forms correctly when transforming sentences in the post-test, but did not improve in the free production. These results were to be expected, as the- se forms can be memorized and do not require much practice.