Reflection 5 : Negotiation of Meaning and Construction of Knowledge by Madam Mazni

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This reflection is based on the presentation of the thesis by Madam Noor Mazni binti Abdul Karim. She was invited to our classroom to share about her thesis. She is a PHD student from Institut Pendidikan Guru Ilmu Khas. We were introduced to her research pertaining to Negotiation of Meaning which is falls under the Discourse Analysis field of work. 

Negotiation of meaning is a process occurred in an interaction between speakers in order to resolve their communication problems. Madam Mazni shared her thesis research in the discussions that requires participants to produce and receive comprehensive input in Online Forum. Focusing on her research, Madam Mazni selected corpus is the comments in forms of questions and answers related to the articles that has been posted online for the forum discussion.

She analyzed the comments within the pedagogical framework which include how the teachers giving explanation or elaborate some ideas in order to create an agreement for meaning towards topic within the context of the discussion. Thus, she can observed how negotiation of meaning occurs. She also shared the theoretical framework in conducting the research. All the theories of language learning included are Social Constructivism, Construction of Knowledge, Negotiation of Meaning and Computer Mediated Communication. Thus, she can observed how negotiation of meaning occurs.

To analyze the corpus, Madam Mazni introduced us to the software called Atlas that is an effective software to analyze huge textual data. She finds it comfortable as it helps her in completing her research.  In conclusion, Madam Mazni research may benefits the learners in learning English as they will understand the language better. She also managed to observe how negotiation of meaning occurs in the online forum discussion helps learners to improve their language learning.