Abstract

This study investigates the effect of the online English Teachers’ Stroking Behaviors on EFL learners’ L2 grammar learning through online learning of L2 grammar. For this purpose, sixty females intermediate EFL learners were selected and randomly divided to three telegram groups. Before starting the online course, a researcher-made grammar test was administered as the pretest. The determined grammar points were instructed by one teacher in the same way for all three groups during one month. In the first group, the teacher frequently included some pre-planned words and expressions implying positive conditional stroke in her feedback during teaching process. For the next group, she frequently used some per-planned words and expressions bearing negative conditional stroke and for the last group as the control group, the teacher provided the learners with the feedback implying no emotional themes. At the final session, another researcher-made grammar test was administered for three groups as the post test. The results revealed that teacher’s positive verbal conditional stroke was significantly more effective than the negative conditional strokes; however, the negative ones were more effective than no stroke. Findings of interviews showed that the participants prefer receiving strokes from teacher, even the negative ones, in comparison with receiving no strokes.

Key words: Stroke; positive verbal conditional stroke (PVC); negative verbal conditional strokes (NVC); no stroke (NS); online learning; social networks