Exploring Indonesian EFL Teacher-Student Interactions in Online Learning

The use of online platforms has been shown to help students engage in learning writing. The student ’ s engagement in revising their writing draft can be seen from the interactions between the teacher and the students or among the students. This study aims to determine teacher-student interactions in a writing class conducted synchronously and asynchronously via Google Classroom, Google Meet, and WhatsApp. The data were derived from the teacher ’ s and students ’ discussions posted in written and oral modes in the applications. A qualitative approach in designing and gathering the data was used in this study. The findings show that the interactions between the teacher and the students raised the students ’ understanding of the teacher ’ s instruction so that the students were engaged in writing their drafts and revising them properly. The patterns of the teacher ’ s interactions can be categorised into giving feedback (39%) followed respectively by prescribing the editor role (17.7%), promoting individual contributions (13.3%), promoting joint construction of meaning and form (11%), thanking and praising (10%), guiding through the writing steps (5.7%) and stimulating students (3.3%).


INTRODUCTION
It is a truism that interactions between a teacher and students in a writing class are one of the ways to increase the student's understanding of the feedback given by the teacher. Students can revise their drafts by considering the feedback. In addition, interactions foster learners' engagement in in-person and online learning classes (Tang, 2021). Interactions among students and between teachers and students are essential as they increase their motivation to engage in an online class (Tang, 2021). Student-student interactions help students stay motivated in the learning process (Hu et al., 2020;Kellogg et al., 2014;Tang, 2021). It has also been documented that teacher-student interactions foster the students' course completion; this happens when the teacher provides individualised feedback to students (Xing et al., 2019).
Recent educational enterprise has witnessed that digital technology plays a vital role in facilitating teacher-student interactions (Major et al., 2018). One advantage of using digital technologies in teaching and learning is that they help students interact with the teacher. By embedding technology into classrooms, the teaching and learning process can be done both inside and outside of the classroom so that technology opens more expansive opportunities for learning (Ivone et al., 2020). The flexibility of technology use can be one reason for teachers to embed technology in their classrooms (Daud, 2019). In a writing class, for example, using a particular technological platform, the teacher can provide feedback wherever and whenever she/he is convenient so that the schedule does not limit the teacher in the class. Another advantage is that each student has the same chance to learn (Sortkaer, 2019). In addition, the students also get the advantage of receiving feedback from the teacher simultaneously.
Various technological applications or platforms have been developed and are accessible for use to support the online teaching and learning process, such as Edmodo (Graham, 2016;Purnawarman et al., 2016), mobile instant messaging (Andujar, 2016), Wiki (Alghasab et al., 2019), and Google Classroom (Kasula, 2016). In particular, Google Classroom, released in 2014, is one of the online learning platforms some teachers have widely used. Kasula (2016) reported many advantages of using Google Classroom. The platform has a wide range of features, and it is connected to other Google applications such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Meet so that teachers can embed the teaching materials from other Google applications. The convenience of using Google Classroom allows teachers to post learning materials, announcements, and assignments (Daud, 2019). These materials and assignments allow teacher-student interactions and discussions. The interaction is one indicator that the virtual classroom is interactive. Unlike face-to-face interactions that seem to lead to hierarchal relationships, online interactions lead to more egalitarian relationships (Jones et al., 2006). In different online interaction patterns, teachers can also invite different responses from their students (Pianta & Hamre, 2009).
Some scholars have investigated teacher-student interactions in a writing class. Alghasab et al. (2019) explored the teacher-student interaction on Wikis, and the results show that the teachers adopted approaches ranging from directive to dialogic. When the teachers took a more directive approach, the students interacted with the teacher rather than their peers and completed writing individually. However, when the teachers adopted a more dialogue approach, student-student interactions, and collaborations were more prominent. The responses in the form of the students' writing revision follow the patterns of the teacher's moves. Michinov and Michinov (2008), using an in-depth and longitudinal examination of a small sample, investigated whether face-to-face contact between participants during online learning influenced the patterns of participation, interaction, and behaviour over time. The results show that this contact positively affects the student's participation in interactions during an online collaboration. Michinov and Michinov (2008) designed blended learning, combining online and face-to-face communication. Since this study combined face-toface and online interactions, online interaction might be influenced by in-person interaction. The results will likely differ if the research only focuses on online learning.
Several studies have also explored discussions involving teachers and students. Suh and Michener (2019), for instance, examined how online discussions were used in one language teacher education program. The findings indicate that linguistically responsive pre-service teachers were engaged in an online dialogue when the prompt was suitable with the content of the discussions. In addition, the prompts make the participants engage more critically with dominant sociocultural discourses than with immediate interlocutor contexts. This means that language teachers should use online discussion prompts to foster engagement. Since they only focused on the teachers' point of view, it is necessary to explore more about discussions from the student's point of view. Blaine (2019) explored teachers' and students' perceptions of online and blended learning interactions. The findings show different perceptions between the teacher and the students. While the teachers perceived that interactions in online learning and blended learning were favourable, the students perceived otherwise.
Interactions between the teacher and the students in a small group discussion through Wiki explored by Alghasab et al. (2019) depended on the teacher's talk. A small group discussion sometimes was dominated by some students. This situation raises questions; therefore, the interactions between a teacher and their students in a whole class are worth researching. Research studies by, for example, Suh and Michener (2019) only focused on the teacher's point of view, and the authors still have limited information about the interactions seen from the students' view. Similarly, Saclarides and Munson (2021) explored the interactions between a coach and a teacher from a teacher's point of view. The results of the study differed from the results of the study on the perception of the interactions between a teacher and students from the student's points of view (Blaine, 2019).
Previous studies above have not provided adequate information on the nature of teacher-student interactions in online class sessions in the Indonesian context. As such, the authors decided to explore this lacuna to address the unclear aspects untouched by the previous research. Many studies have used Learning Management Systems (LMS) suited to the teaching and learning needs, and the interactions between the teacher and the students in a class are also worth exploring since the previous studies focused on different issues. As such, this study aims to explore the Indonesian EFL teacherstudent interactions in an online writing course. The research questions are formulated as follows: • How did Indonesian EFL teachers interact with students in an online writing course? • How did students respond to the teacher's patterns of interactions in an online writing course?

Classroom Interaction
Interactions between teachers and students tend to be projected toward the students' learning improvement (Van Gasse et al., 2020) through dialogue or a turntaking system (Batlle & Deal, 2021). Therefore, interactions in the teaching and learning process are crucial. Sweet (2016) categorised teacher interactions into three general aspects based on personal characteristics or behaviours. The first aspect is a speaker's or the sender's impact, i.e., how far teachers seek interaction. The second aspect is the degree of effects of interactions on addressees or the receivers, and the last one is how far teachers interact with others who have similar characteristics (homophily effect). In general, teacher interactions can be viewed from several aspects, for example, senders or the speakers' view, addressees or anyone to whom speakers talks, and the characteristics of the addressees, whether they are colleagues or students.
Speaker or sender effects depict how teacher characteristics or attitudes affect the interaction (Sweet, 2016). Teachers with a positive attitude are more likely to seek more interaction within their network (Van Gasse et al., 2020). For instance, in this study, an example of a teacher's good attitude influences students' willingness to communicate or interact. Addressee or receiver effects depict how teachers' characteristics or attitudes affect how far they are counselled by colleagues (Sweet, 2016). The number of addressees consulted is considered an aspect of interaction. It means that teachers with a good attitude are more likely to be consulted by colleagues (Van Gasse et al., 2020). For instance, in this study, the more teachers discuss with their students, the more students are willing to consult the teachers about their difficulties in writing. The last aspect is the homophily effect, i.e., the engagement between speakers and addressees in the interaction. It suggests how far the engagement between teachers and students is during the interaction.
One of the functions of interaction in a classroom is to engage students in the teaching and learning process (Jones et al., 2006). The main pedagogical moment is that teachers should initiate interactions with their students (Hofmann & Mercer, 2016). This means that teachers should decide what to do and how to define the scope of interaction. In conducting a dialogue or interaction, teachers are more knowledgeable of the class content based on their knowledge and competencies (Batlle & Deal, 2021). In this case, teachers have an important role in interacting with their classes during the lessons. Branigan and Donaldson (2020) stated that teachers should motivate students to show their thinking and learning performance. Interaction between teachers and students in writing class can be achieved by giving instructions on what students should write. Teacher feedback does not bother teacher-student interaction in the classroom (Sa'adah et al., 2018). In addition, good teachers should conceptualise a good learning track for their students (Mercer, 2008). One of the needs of a good learning track is good interaction between teachers and students. However, the interaction between teachers and their students is rarely fully scripted and needs to be identified (Sybing, 2021).

Teacher-Student Interaction through Online Learning
Online learning is the teaching and learning process separated by time and place (Blaine, 2019;Mayer, 2019). In addition, this type of learning is characterised by teachers and students rarely meeting in a classroom, and the lesson is delivered through a distance learning setting (Gutentag et al., 2022;Raes et al., 2020). Online teaching and learning process has also been used for writing classes where the teacher provides feedback in guiding the students to get better writing performance (Haoucha, 2012;Sheen, 2007;Zacharias, 2007). The feedback can be in the form of interaction between teacher and students, and research has found that students were disappointed by a lack of interaction in online learning (Cole et al., 2014). Saclarides and Munson (2021) coded the teacher interaction between teachers and coaches as building a relationship, discussing the content of the pedagogy and content, collaborative teaching, logistics (timing, materials, or classroom management), noticing student thinking, and performative praising and discipline. Unlike Saclarides and Munson (2021), Alghasab et al. (2019) coded the teacher talk more specifically to the interaction between a teacher and students in a writing class as guiding the writing step, guiding students in outlining or planning their writing, and praising the students who have good writing or understanding about the instruction. Teachers can provide suggestions to students who have difficulties in writing or planning to write.
The authors note, however, that Alghasab et al.'s (2019) coding system has a closer affinity to the nature of the present study. Therefore, the coding from Alghasab et al. (2019) was adapted for the current study. The coding adaptation can be seen in Table 1, which was used in analysing the data. Teacher asks students to contribute to the writing task individually.
Teacher: Please complete the task individually …

7.
Adopting the editor role Teacher directly edits a student's text without or with minimal explanation.
We could go there and we could streets → Go around the site 8.
Prescribing the content and form Teacher prescribes the specific content, structure or format of the text.
Teacher: Eli, you have to simplify your answer since the instruction is only to write your brief answer.

9.
Adopting the monitor role Teacher closely checks the student's writing activity.
Teacher: I have checked your writing draft, please …

Design of the Study
A qualitative approach was used in this study. This approach is suitable for analysing the interactions between a teacher and students through Google Classroom and WhatsApp to answer the research questions in this study. The data were collected through observations. The interactions between the teacher and students were then documented, transcribed, and analysed based on the teacher's moves adapted from Alghasab et al. (2019). The instrument used in this study was an observation sheet.

Participants
Twenty students and one lecturer of English Literature at a private university in Malang City, East Java, Indonesia, voluntarily participated in this study. All participants were second-semester students who joined the Writing 1 course. On average, the participants were 20 years old. In addition, based on the information from the teacher, the pre-test result in the first meeting indicated that only 8% of the total number of students could identify good sentences. As such, this class was suitable for generating data on the interactions between a teacher and students and how students' responses were towards the teacher's feedback.
Referring to the course description documented by the English Education Department, Universitas PGRI Kanjuruhan Malang, the Writing 1 course has been designed to help students write simple sentences, complex sentences, and compoundcomplex sentences. By the end of the course, the students are expected to develop their abilities to recognise and understand the criteria of good English sentences, kinds of sentence structures, subject-verb agreement, common errors, and mechanics and apply them in grammatically-correct English sentences.

Data Collection
Since the teaching and learning process was done in synchronous and asynchronous meetings, the data for this study were gathered from the dialogues between the teacher and the students in the WhatsApp group as asynchronous meetings and Google Meet as synchronous meetings. While the lecturer gave the feedback, the students responded to the teacher's feedback and suggestions, followed by students' revising their tasks. The teacher recommended that the students comment on the feedback given to them. In this session, the dialogues were documented. The students' final drafts were not analysed in this study. After the teacher assigned a task to the students, the students completed it and submitted it in Google Classroom. In the next meeting, the teacher gave feedback and then discussed the feedback with the students. The discussion was done in synchronous and asynchronous meetings since not all students could join the synchronous meetings because of poor internet connection and other obstacles. An example of class discussion on WhatsApp Group is provided in Figure 2, and the example of a synchronous meeting is shown in Figure 3.
Due to the time limit, this study investigated online interactions in four meetings (Meetings 6 to 9). The topic in Meeting 6 was identifying the errors in sentences. The teacher gave the task to the students, and the students submitted it in Google Classroom. Meeting 7 was used to discuss the results of the error analysis submitted by the students. Meeting 8 was the mid-term test (writing sentences and doing errors analysis). Meeting 9 was used to discuss the student's mid-term test results. The data were collected from Meeting 7 and Meeting 9 during the discussions. There were 155 discussion posts from the WhatsApp group and 123 from the Google Meet discussions. The teacher's utterances consisted of 90 utterances and 188 utterances, respectively.

Data Analysis
A discourse analysis was developed to analyse the online interactions arising from the dialogues between the teacher and the students posted on the online board, Google Meet and WhatsApp, which were then collected and analysed. The posts were documented and analysed to capture the patterns of the interactions between the lecturer and the students (Alghasab & Handley, 2017). Besides, this research used teacher code adapted from Alghasab et al. (2019).

Indonesian EFL Teacher-Student Interactions
The results of the data analysis demonstrate the teacher's patterns of stimulating students, guiding the writing steps, thanking and praising, promoting joint construction of meaning and form, giving feedback, promoting individual contributions, and prescribing the editor's role. The percentage of the interaction patterns can be seen in Table 2. Promoting joint construction of meaning and form 11% 5 Giving feedback 39% 6 Promoting individual contributions 13.3% 7 Prescribing the editor's role 17.7% The percentage of giving feedback is the highest of all the teacher's interactions (39%), followed respectively by prescribing the editor's role (17.7%), promoting individual contributions (13.3%), promoting joint construction of meaning and form (11%), thanking and praising (10%), guiding the writing steps (5.7%), and stimulating students (3.3%) In stimulating students, the teacher started by giving stimuli to the students by posting some pictures and asking the students to write sentences based on the pictures. Before asking the students to write, the teacher gave stimuli via voice notes in the WhatsApp group. The following is an example of stimulation given by the teacher.
(1) T : Dear all students, today we will learn about composing compound sentences. I have uploaded some pictures in Google Classroom. We can see that there are activities that can be written using compound sentences. Do you still remember how to write a compound sentence?
After giving the stimulus, the teacher continued guiding them in writing the sentences based on the pictures. Regarding giving guidance in writing, the teacher's utterances came to 5.7% in total. The example of giving guidance in writing steps is as follows.
(2) T : 1. See the series of pictures on page 2 2. Write a story based on it. You must apply simple, complex, compound, and compound-complex sentences in the story. The story consists of 15 to 20 sentences. Use Times New Roman, font 12, and double space Write your full name in your work. Don't forget to write the title of your story.
The example above shows that the instructions consist of writing the task. In writing the story, the students had to write based on the teacher's instruction; that is, the students should examine the pictures before writing the story and apply various types of sentences, from simple to complex compound sentences. The following guide was about the number of sentences that should be included in the student's writing, the types of fonts, font size, and the line space used. In addition, the teacher also reminded the students not to forget to write their names and the title of their stories. With this explicit instruction, the students completed their tasks as expected.
In promoting individual contributions, the teacher did not directly answer the students' questions while discussing their writing or doing error analysis. This code was captured after one of the students asked the teacher how to improve the sentence. The teacher did not directly answer the question but gave the other students a chance to share their opinions. This code is 13.7%, and the following is an example of promoting individual contributions.
(3) T : Who wants to try to answer this? S7 : In my opinion, cycling is more directed towards sports activities using bicycles while playing bikes is how about someone that had the power to ride bicycles In this instance, the teacher withheld the students' direct correction to ensure the analysis was accurate. He first gave the students a chance to talk about the errors. Then the teacher requested assistance from the other students to answer their peers' questions. The discussion ran smoothly since there were many answers from the other students. This part of the discussion gave the students ideas to entertain to revise the sentence the teacher gave. This discussion also made the teacher feel that it would be better if the teacher and the students gave comments and corrections together so that each student was also motivated, if not forced, to share their opinions about the correct answers based on their understanding and argument. The interactions between the teacher and the students were very productive. Both the teacher and the students were engaged in the attempts to solve the problem.
Unlike correction in promoting individual contribution, the teacher directly corrected the student's error by explaining how it could be improved. Immediate correction from the teacher somehow coded as "prescribing the editor role", which gained 17.7%. The following is an example of prescribing the editor role.
(4) S15: The car which is Xenia is belongs to my girl's father.
T : Correct. Drop "is" before the word "belongs".
As shown in the example above, the teacher directly corrected the student's sentence. The purpose was likely to make all the students understand which one was the correct sentence. Sometimes students were unaware of their mistakes in subjectverb agreement. When one student posted his/her sentence, many gave their opinions about how to correct the sentence. The discussion ran well and interactively.
Furthermore, when the teacher interacted with the students, he praised and thanked them. These practices encouraged the students to speak during the discussion session. Thanking and praising gained 10% from the teacher's interactions with the students. The following is an example of thanking and praising addressed to the students. When Eli, one of the students, suggested the correct sentence, and the teacher thanked her and encouraged other students not to worry about possible wrong corrections that they shared. The example of thanking and praising is as follows: Language and Education, 10(2), 686-703, 2023 (5) T : Thanks, Eli. Other suggestions?

| Studies in English
No problem. Don't worry about wrong ideas. but cycling is correct. You see? A good discussion. Thanks.
Thanking and praising sometimes are given at the same time, as shown in the example above; the teacher said, "Thanks, Eli," and ended it with "A good discussion" as a statement of praise. By saying "thanks" and praising the students' ideas, the teacher showed his thanking and praising.
Giving feedback is the highest percentage of the teacher's pattern during the discussion. The frequency of giving feedback is 39%, which means that in Writing 1, the teacher gave feedback to the students more frequently than other patterns. The feedback that the teacher gave was about grammar, the construction of the sentence, and vocabulary use. Based on the example above, the teacher corrected the sentence. The feedback given to the students was related to grammar. S2 shared his opinion about the correct sentence, and the teacher gave feedback by saying, "Should be...The car belongs to my girl's father. It is Xenia. (DROP 'is' after THE CAR)". This feedback was given by the teacher when none of the students who participated in that discussion on Meeting 7 could revise the sentence correctly.

Students' Responses Toward Teacher's Interaction Pattern in the Discussion Session
Students' responses during the interaction with the teacher show a pattern different from that of the teacher. Most students waited for the teacher's talk; they rarely started the interactions. The students' responses toward the interactions with the teacher are presented in Figure 4. Figure 1 shows that students' responses toward the teacher's talks are based on the pattern that the teacher made. When the teacher stimulated the students before asking them to write, 8% of the students responded by saying, "Thank you, Sir", and 2.8% answered the teacher's question regarding the stimuli given by the teacher. Regarding guiding the writing steps, the student's responses are 17.5% in the form of agreeing with the teacher by saying "Okay, Sir" and "Yes, Sir". Thanking and praising given by the teacher received responses of 25 utterances or 13.2%. This is apparent as the students said, "You are welcome, Sir". Moreover, the teacher's interactional pattern of promoting joint construction of meaning and form received responses: thanking (0.5%) and agreeing (24%). Students' responses to the teacher's promoting joint construction of meaning and form received a high frequency of agreement from the students, but when the teacher gave feedback to the students, the student's responses were asking further questions to the teacher about the feedback (5.4%) and thanking (10.5%). Concerning promoting individual contributions, the responses given by the students were questioning (1%), sharing opinions (5.4%), deleting comments (1%), and apologising (0.5%). The following is an example of students' responses when the teacher asked them to contribute to the discussion. Initially, the teacher asked the students to participate in the discussion in Meeting 7, and S20 deleted the message he had typed. Then the teacher reminded him not to delete the message, although it was wrong. S20 then responded to the teacher by saying, "Yes sir, I think that WHICH just for non-human beings because usually WHICH is used to ask about something such as a thing". This statement is categorised as sharing opinions since he wrote his opinion. After sharing his opinion, he continued his statement by apologising that he had deleted his sentence by saying, "I'm so sorry, sir." (7) T : okay students, what do you think of the correct sentence? S20: (message deleted) T : Please don't delete your opinion. It is ok even though wrong. S20: Yes sir, I think that WHICH just for non-human beings because usually WHICH use to ask about something such as thing. I'm so sorry, sir. I forget to write about relative pronouns in the sentence S17: The man that we met yesterday was our headmaster, Mr Lucky, we had a meeting with him S1 : The headmaster that we had meeting with was Mr. Lucky.
The discussion provided a good chance for the students to study together. The students participated actively in the discussion session. The active discussion can be seen in the excerpt above, in that S17 and S1 posted their opinions. They showed their contribution in the discussion forum. The participation from all of the students made the students engaged and the classroom interactive.
The last pattern of the teacher's statement in the discussion is prescribing the editor's role. The student's response to this pattern is that the students simply said, "Thank you." Students' responses depended on the teacher's statement. Most responses were "Yes Sir" and "Thank you."   Language and Education, 10(2), 686-703, 2023 (8) S3 : i have another opinion with this statement " i go to cycling" and i was playing bike" ? T : always write "I" not "i" S3 : Thank you, Sir

DISCUSSION
The results of the study show the interactions between the teacher and the students in the Writing 1 course. Regarding the teacher's interactional patterns, giving feedback has the highest percentage of teacher interaction, followed respectively by prescribing the editor role, promoting individual contributions, promoting joint construction of meaning and form, thanking and praising, guiding the writing steps and stimulating students. As the most frequent interaction pattern, feedback given to the students is one of the ways that the teacher can scaffold the students to write better, and giving immediate feedback makes students aware of their mistakes (Attali, 2011;Sulistyo et al., 2020). The discussion between the teacher and the students involving feedback from the teacher helps the students know what should be revised (Ohlsson, 2018). Although this study did not analyse the effects of the interaction on the quality of the student's final drafts, the students' talk indicated that they understood what they should revise in their drafts. Furthermore, from the interactions, the teacher did not dominate the interactions; instead, the teacher could manage the class well (Sybing, 2021), and the students had opportunities to participate in the interactions. The students' responses when they received feedback from the teacher were in the form of asking further questions about the feedback so that they could understand how to revise their drafts. The students were engaged well in the online class by interacting with the teacher. This affirms the finding of a previous study by Tang (2021).
Concerning the pattern of stimulating the students and guiding writing steps, the teacher gave clear guidance in writing so that the students could engage themselves in a writing class. Consequently, the students were involved in the interactions to show that they understood the instructions given by the teacher. This result aligns with the study conducted by Pritchard and Morrow (2017), showing that instruction is the key to online learning. Moreover, the dialogic interactions between the teacher and the students can create an open discussion. Furthermore, explicit instruction from the teacher has enabled the students to keep their responsibility and continue their work in writing their drafts (Saclarides & Munson, 2021). Furthermore, the teacher made a motivating interaction in the discussion by thanking and praising the students. This interactional pattern motivates the students in the discussion since they receive appreciation from the teacher. Most of the responses for this pattern are in the form of "Thank you." Pertaining to this point, appreciation and praise should be given to the students to encourage them to learn (Guo et al., 2019). In addition, when the students had difficulties revising their sentences, they shared their difficulties in the discussion. After posting their sentences, other students shared their opinions. This condition could not happen instantly. Instead of discussing their writing in an online discussion, they always waited for the teacher to give some stimuli. This finding is in line with that of Hofmann and Mercer (2016), arguing that the teacher should initiate interactions with the students in the main pedagogical aspect. This is in line with Sweet (2016), who stated that teacher's positive attitude affects the student's willingness to communicate or interact with the teacher.
Promoting individual contributions by the teacher raised many responses from the students. The first response was questioning. In this case, the students were confident to ask the teacher about their work, specifically how to revise their writing. At the same time, the teacher invited other students to share their opinions about the correct sentence. This situation initiated the second interactional pattern, sharing opinions. When one of the students was not confident with what he or she shared, he or she deleted the comment and finally asked for an apology from the teacher. This circumstance suggests that interactions between the instructor and the students have increased student engagement in the classroom. This result supports the findings of Jones et al. (2006) and Sweet (2016).
Prescribing the editor's role and promoting joint construction of meaning and form received high student responses. All of the students in the discussion gave responses to these patterns. However, the responses to these interactional patterns were simply "Yes, sir," "Okay, Sir", and "Thank you, Sir", which did not extend the interactional activities. All of the above points lead to our confirmed understanding that the interactions of the teacher with the students raised different responses based on the teacher's talk (Alghasab et al., 2019;Sweet, 2016).

CONCLUSION
The discussion through Google Classroom, as one online platform, makes teaching and learning more fun and interactive. Besides, the teacher can choose interactional patterns and provide a meaningful teaching method. The interactions encourage the teacher and students to revise their sentences during the writing process. In addition, through online interactions, teachers can expand their teaching experience by embedding technology in the teaching and learning process. The interactions in an online platform can help them develop their professionalism and transform beliefs, skills, and commitment in a classroom. Students' satisfaction in the learning process makes the lesson successful. Through interactions between the teacher and the students, misunderstandings of the feedback given by the teacher can be solved. The interactions between the teacher and the students can be implemented well since the teacher can stimulate the students to discuss the materials and the feedback given by the teacher or share opinions regarding how students revise their writing drafts. In addition, a full online teaching and learning process improves students' willingness to interact. In contrast to research in a blended class conducted by Michinov and Michinov (2008), the results of our study show that teacher-student interaction in online discussion was well managed, which is different from face-to-face learning that tended to show students' lack of participation and task-focused interactions.
Moreover, the teacher's willingness to interact with the students encouraged them to share their ideas or opinions, understand the instruction, and comprehend the materials. Since the findings show that the students did not have the initiative to start the conversation or discussion, the teacher should have many techniques to initiate a discussion, such as using a stimulus like pictures or extracting students' knowledge before focusing on the main materials. The absence of initiative from the students to start a discussion can be caused by the student's background, as the first-year students may not be confident to start the discussion. The present study exploring the interactions between the teacher and the students has also noted that some teachers' interactional patterns only stimulate short student responses. This result suggests that teachers need to explore other interactional patterns to ensure longer interactional activities on the part of the students for more engaging teaching and learning activities.