On Using Wiki in an English as a Second Language Course: An Empirical Study

Abstract. In this poster, we concisely summarize and present our recent results of an empirical study of using Wiki in a freshman-level English as a second language (ESL) course in Taiwan. In this study, we faithfully reflect the scenario of students ’ usage on the Wiki website and learning achievements in a real ESL course. A significant, but inverse, relation between students ’ editing usage and academic performance was found. This interesting finding challenges some idealistic hypotheses that Wiki is “naturally beneficial ” to learning. The result is noteworthy for developing a rigorous model of Wiki-based collaborative learning in reaction to the interest of Wiki application from the educational community