The Effect of Applying Laurillard’s Conversational Framework (LCF) on the Development of Writing Skills: Perceptions and Engagement of Students in a Middle East Context

This study investigates and evaluates the effectiveness of Laurillard’s Conversational Framework (LCF) in developing the writing component of foreign language learners’ (FLLs’) communicative competence in a blended learning (BL) context, as compared to a face-to-face (F2F) context. The FLLs in this study comprised three intact classes from a foundation course at a Saudi university. The three skills addressed consisted of the use of the past tense to describe past events and form wh-questions, as part of grammatical competence, and writing a letter of complaint, as part of sociolinguistic competence. To evaluate the effectiveness of LCF, a mixed-methods approach was used. The quasi-experimental design was applied by measuring learners’ development in the three aforementioned skills. The corresponding test results were then compared with those of a control group. Moreover, the benefits of LCF were examined by gathering the learners’ perceptions of the intervention and analysing their engagement with the teacher, peers, tasks and language. The study revealed that LCF was more effective in the BL than in the F2F context, in terms of developing the learners’ skill in forming wh-questions. However, both contexts almost equally developed the learners’ skills in using the past tense and writing a letter of complaint. Moreover, interviews with volunteers from the two experimental groups, observing their engagement, and analysing their conversations revealed positive perceptions amongst learners with an intermediate level of English language proficiency. On the other hand, two different factors affected their perceptions of the intervention: language proficiency and the willingness of peers to collaborate. Another factor affecting perceptions of BL was a lack of familiarity with the technology applied. It is therefore recommended to overcome this barrier and thus encourage the use of BL, given its effectiveness for the development of more writing skills in the present study, in comparison to an F2F approach.