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IATEFL Poland A Journal for Teachers of English ISSN 1642-1027 Vol. 3, Issue 2 (April 2003) |
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AN INITIAL STUDY ON EFL LEARNERS' ATTITUDE Abstract This paper focuses on the attitude
of EFL learners towards the integration of multimedia into a language learning
program. It reports on a questionnaire-based survey administered at the end of
the first semester of 2001 to 46 first year junior college students at Wenzao
Ursuline College of Languages in Taiwan. All of these students were majoring in
Spanish but were also taking English Listening and Writing as one of their required
language courses. The survey was related to the English Listening and Writing
course. The results of the survey indicate that the majority of EFL learners
had a positive attitude towards the use of multimedia resources in their
language program, appreciating, in particular, opportunities to practice and
extend their language abilities by surfing the Internet, to take
laboratory-based listening tests via a test analyzer, and to record and save
their own writing and to make use of multi-media resources in developing their
reading skills. Introduction Multimedia technology has been used
worldwide and its application in the field of education has provided teachers a
great deal of convenience in terms of teaching, learning, research, and
communication. It also offers learners an alternative way of learning like
e-mailing, discussing online, self-access learning, presenting assignments or
projects with software. Multimedia application in language
learning has positive influence on students' attitude. Researches show that
students have positive attitude toward the use of computers for language
learning (Fujieda, 1999, Levine, Ferenz, & Reves, 2000). Warschauer (1996)
reports that most students become motivated if teachers integrate multimedia in
the curriculum, provide opportunities of interactivities, and help them get
knowledge and computer skills. The more familiar students were with technology,
the more positive attitude they had toward technology (Jones, 1992). Furthermore,
self-access learning is one of the appealing characteristics of using computers
in the language classrooms. Students develop learner autonomy through web-based
learning individually or cooperatively (Brajcich, 2000). Believing that Information
Technology makes a difference in language learning and teaching and that
learners' needs and learning styles should be taken into account when designing
lessons, the writer has endeavored to reach out for available resources in
terms of hardware and software to enrich her teaching, such as using the
equipment in the language lab. The convenient devices of the test analyzer
accompanying with the audio tape device to check listening comprehension with
instant feedback and the online recording tool which enables learners to
record, save, and submit their reading saves time and highlights the learning
atmosphere. In order to find out the learners' feedback about such integration,
the writer designed a questionnaire with statements and open-ended questions
for the first-year Spanish major students and conducted the survey at the end
of the first semester in 2001. Presenting lessons with Power Point
slides is a new way in the classroom instruction. Practicing listening and
reading with technology is full of novelty. Active participation leads to
motivation of students. The results of the study showed that most learners had
positive feedback toward such computer-based learning procedures as, for
example, taking listening tests with the test analyzer in the lab, recording
and saving their story reading with the lab facilities, and surfing the
Internet to appreciate other people's works online. Literature Review Computer Assisted Language Learning
has been used in the field of language teaching for decades and has been
regarded as a powerful tool for both the teachers and learners. Recently
multimedia and Computer-Mediated Communication have been utilized to affect a
whole new learning experience. Many teachers and scholars have reported studies
of the effectiveness of educational instruction on achievement and students'
attitudes regarding learning with technology (Salaberry, 2001; Oladejo, 2001). Learners' motivation and attitudes
are correlated with their language acquisition (Mantle-Bromleyan, Miller, 1991;
Mantle-Bromley, 1995). According to Schoepp and Erogul (2001), the use of
computer technology helps develop learner autonomy and independence as well as
the growth of self-access language learning. Students gain confidence through
"learning-by-doing" in an interactive environment. Affective domain
does make a difference for language learners. When working online, especially
in Internet-based collaborative learning, students develop the sense of
community and respect different opinions. Computer-based learning provides an
environment that combines the feeling of security, novelty, and exposure to the
real world. It also makes students control their own learning pace, increase
self-esteem, and improve academic skills. Pow (1999) indicated that learners
experienced the value of group work when they were engaged in interactive
activites online. Fujieda (1999) stated that learners who were involved in
group work had positive feedback to the application of technology. Students
perceived the value of word processing, paid more attention to mechanics in
writing and favored computer-based writing (Cunningham, 2000). As for the teacher's role, it has
remained almost the same as the facilitator, designer, advisor, cooperator,
except that the instructor has to develop computer literacy, manage links of
resources, and create interactivities based on his/ her understanding of the
characteristics of the modern "magic". Teachers who use computer or
Internet as a tool in language teaching also develop their professional growth.
The exposure to numerous teaching websites and authentic resources enables
teachers to retrieve valuable materials and make necessary adaptations to meet
learners' needs. Technology-supported tasks foster the development of cognitive
strategies, socioaffective strategies, and metacognitive strategies (Loyo,
deMagnago, 2001). In the new trend of technology-based learning, only through
the teacher's experimenting with using IT, like the Internet and
Computer-Mediated Communication, can both learners and teachers realize what
they can or cannot do (Chen, 2001, Mantel-Bromley, Miller, 1991). The purpose
of this study is mainly to examine students' attitude toward the application of
multimedia. More specifically, it reports the perceptions of junior college
freshmen who have never taken a formal language class with computer class as a
whole group in school. This study is to be used as a pilot study for the
upcoming project undertaken by the writer and the other two colleagues in the
second semester to investigate the correlation between the learners' performance
and the exposure to the technology-enhanced environment. Method Subjects The study took place in the first
semester of academic year of 2001 and the subjects in this study were the
46-freshman class of Spanish Department in Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages.
The population was the first year junior college students who were taking first
year English Listening and Writing as one of the required language courses
while the study was conducted. The instructor met the class four hours a week,
i.e. two hours in the classroom and the other two hours in the language lab
where there are individual audio devices for students (a headphone set, a
cassette tape booth) and for teachers (a teacher's control counsel with two
cassette decks, a test analyzer, a videotape player, a screen, a projector, and
a computer.) A new multimedia language lab with all the equipment mentioned
above in addition to individual computer connecting to the Internet was
installed while the study was undertaken. The writer reserved it twice in order
to offer them an extra opportunity to actually learn with technology. Instruments and Materials The writer used the following
instruments in the study: 1) a questionnaire with Likert
Scale, a five-point scale ranging from 5 strongly agree to 1 strongly disagree
and open-ended questions, 2) the regular language lab (E301)
and the multimedia language lab (W002), 3) Statistics Package for Social
Studies (SPSS) for Windows to analyze collected data quantitatively. The materials used in this study
included OHP slides for dicto compositions and the websites for teachers: ALELA
(http://alela.wtuc.edu.tw) which students logged in with a fixed user name and password (the user
name: ALELA, the password: antonialin), and ALELA at Blackboard, which was a
free-of-charge website and was available before June, 2002. Dicto composition
is a dictation training that has been practiced for more than a decade in
Wenzao Ursuline College. At the first stage, students are given two to four
pictures and listen to the teacher's story once without writing anything down
in the first listening. Then the teacher reads a couple of sentences three
times and students concentrate on listening to the sentences, which they write
down after the teacher finishes each section. The same process continues until
the whole story is done. At the final stage, students may check their writing
while the teacher reads the whole story again. All the lessons covered in the
first semester were presented in the transparencies in the PowerPoint format
which were also uploaded to the teacher's website for learners to explore as
supplementary learning or take an adventure in listening and writing on their
own in their spare time. Procedures The first year students were
scheduled to learn writing through dicto composition with which they were
trained to listen to a passage and write down what they heard correctly. The
principal instruction tool was transparencies and the writer’s ALELA website. The
instructor used transparencies in the classroom for each lesson and students
gave feedback on such an alternative way in learning English writing. The
writer's website ALELA was introduced to the students in the language lab. Besides
dicto composition, students were required to make a series of story mini books
by using all the stories they had written. In order to accomplish this task,
the newly installed multimedia language lab was reserved twice (four hours) for
the class to experience computer-mediated learning in the last month of the
semester. A guideline was provided to the learners so that they could operate
the computer on their own with less anxiety. The main task of the first two
hours was to practice how to surf ALELA page by page, appreciate the works in
words or in sound, and practice using the recording devices to read their
stories in the mini books. The instructor prepared a guideline as shown below
for the class so that they could follow the steps of recording their stories,
which the instructor had posted online. Thus, they could save their stories in
the text file and voice file on the Internet as well as a sound file on a tape.
As for the other two hours in
the multimedia language lab, students were invited to record their favorite
story formally and then mail it to the instructor who then classified them by
topic and uploaded the learners' read-aloud to the website. Students were also
invited to reflect on such a project in ALELA's guest book. In the last period of the course, a
questionnaire with a 5-point Likert Scale and open-ended questions was
conducted with instructions. (See Appendix). The questions were grouped
according to 1) learning in the first semester, 2) computer literacy, and 3)
suggestions to classmates, teacher, oneself, and ALELA. This questionnaire took
place in the lab and it took about fifteen minutes. Afterwards, the collected
data were run under SPSS for Windows. In the questionnaire, part I
consisted of 16 questions, of which questions 7-16 were followed by reasons in
addition to the scale. Part II consisted of 6 questions, of which questions 1-5
were the opinion scale and question 6 was to figure out the length of time
these learners had worked on computers. Part III consisted of open-ended
questions allowing them to evaluate their own learning, reflect on their peers'
and the teacher's work. Results and Discussion Data collected from the
questionnaire were qualitatively transcribed and quantitatively analyzed. The
following tables show the results of students' preference in terms of learning
in the first semester, multimedia application, and computer literacy. As for
the open-ended questions, a summary of students' opinions follows the tables. Additionally, the feedback of
students' experience in the multimedia language lab is also summarized in this
section. My learning in the first semester Eight statements concerning the
activities of dicto composition are listed below. 1. In dicto composition I like listening to one sentence three times. 2. In dicto composition I like listening to two sentences three times. 3. In dicto composition I like listening to three sentences three times. 4. I can write well when listening to one sentence read three times. 5. I can write well when listening to two sentences read three times. 6. I can write well when listening to three sentences read three times. 7. I like using transparencies to learn writing. 8. I like revising writing with transparencies. As shown in Table 1.1 below, over 73
% of the subjects agreed or strongly agreed that they liked listening to one
sentence three times, and only 1 of the students (2.2 %) disagreed. Over 58 %
of the subjects agreed or strongly agreed that they liked listening to two
sentences three times, and 13 % of them disagreed. Only 6.5 % of the learners
agreed that they liked the listening to three sentences three times, and over
60% of the subjects disagreed or strongly disagreed. As for being able to dictate well,
over 82 % of the students agreed or strongly agreed that they could write well
when listening to one sentence read three times, and only one student (2.2 %)
disagreed. Over 39 % of the students agreed or strongly agreed that they could
write well when listening to two sentences read three times, and about 17 % of
them disagreed. About 4 % of the students agreed or strongly agreed that they
could write well when listening to three sentences read three times, and over
67 % of them disagreed or strongly disagreed. In response to using transparencies
as an instructional tool to learn writing, over 63 % of the students agreed or
strongly agreed, and about 6 % disagreed or strongly disagreed. As regards
revising writing with transparencies, more than 52 % of the students agreed or
strongly agreed, and 13 % disagreed or strongly disagreed. Table 1.2 indicates the mean and
standard deviation of students' responses towards dicto composition. Most of
them gave positive feedback (1 = 1.74, 2 = 2.41, 4 = 1.67, 5 = 2.74, 7 = 2.28,
8 = 2.48) except having the three sentences read thrice (3 = 3.63, 6 = 3.89).
Table 1.1. The Percentage Analysis of Students' Responses to Dicto
Composition
Table 1.2. The mean and standard deviation of questions 1 to 8 The subjects had positive response
to listening to one sentence read three times as well as writing well when
listening to one sentence read three times. Likewise, they seemed to respond
negatively to listening to three sentences read three times and writing well
when listening to three sentences read three times. It appeared that listening
to one sentence read three times was preferred since it was easier for the
learners to handle. Listening to three sentences read three times was the least
preferred since it was more challenging and stressful than the others. Reasons Showing transparencies in the
classroom seemed to be less effective than in the multimedia language lab. The
instructor orally inquired the learners' opinions about the transparency
presentation in order to make improvement of the font, size, and the layout of
the page. As for the use of transparency, over half of the students agreed or
strongly agreed. This could be continuously used in the second semester, but
the font of the words and the distance between the lines should be modified. It
seemed that the class had never had the experience of learning English through
transparencies. As regards the use of transparencies to learn writing, the
learners made the following suggestions: 1. It is clear but the font should be enlarged. They also gave the following
positive feedback: 1. I can concentrate on the lesson. As for the revision of writing with
transparencies, students thought they could see their mistakes immediately. Nevertheless,
some of them were unable to catch up with the pace, and they could not see the
text clearly. Multimedia application Eight statements in terms of
multimedia application in language learning are listed below. 1. I like listening test with buttons in the lab. Table 2.1 shows the descriptive
report of multimedia application. In response to the use of the test analyzer
in the language lab (E301), more than 80 % of the students strongly agreed or
agreed, and only 4 % disagreed. In terms of recording, over 80 % of the
learners agreed or strongly agreed that they liked recording the stories in the
language-computer lab, and only one student (2.2 %) out of 46 disagreed. More
than 78 % of the learners agreed or strongly agreed that they liked the way of
recording their favorite story in the multimedia language lab, and about 6 % disagreed.
Almost 70 % of the students liked sending their reading via email, and only one
student (2.2 %) disagreed. More than three quarters (76.1 %) of the students
liked surfing ALELA, and only two students (4.3 %) disagreed. As regards individual work in
association with creative work, about 32 % of the students liked the way of
making storybooks, and about 15 % of them disagreed or strongly disagreed. With
regard to making stories with the chosen words listed in ALELA, nearly 37 % of
the learners agreed or strongly agreed, and about 15 % disagreed. When being
asked about reading their story on the platform, over one fourth of the
learners (28.2 %) agreed or strongly agreed, and about 13 % of them disagreed
or strongly disagreed. Regarding the mean and standard
deviation of students' responses towards their preference to multimedia
application, all of them gave positive feedback as shown in Table 2.2. Their
attitude towards story recording and sending the story via e-mail was positive.
However, the means of their preference for story making and reading their
stories out loud were not so high as the other activities in the category of
multimedia application.
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