scholarly journals Effects of smartphone-based collaborative vlog projects on EFL learners’ speaking performance and learning engagement

2021 ◽  
pp. 18-40
Author(s):  
Hui-Wen Huang
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Media Production ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Learning Engagement ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Group Collaboration ◽  
Efl Classrooms ◽  
Speaking Performance ◽  
Collaborative Video

This study examined how smartphone-based collaborative video projects influenced English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ speaking performance and learning engagement using blended learning in China. The collaborative video projects helped students engage in two smartphone-based video filming tasks to combine language learning with real-life experiences simultaneously. A total of 65 college students used smartphones to participate in 3-minute collaborative video tasks that were related to the learning context of the classroom textbook. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected during this 8-week intervention. This included pretest and post-test speaking scores, a questionnaire on group collaboration, students’ final reflections and focus group interviews. A paired-sample t test, descriptive analysis and qualitative content analysis were used to analyse the data. The results indicate that students’ speaking abilities were significantly improved at the end of the intervention. They enjoyed group collaboration in the video projects and appreciated acquiring digital media production skills. Interview results highlight the opportunities for and challenges of the educational application of video projects in EFL classrooms.   Implications for practice or policy: Integrating collaborative vlog projects in EFL classrooms can stimulate students’ speaking performance. Student-made collaborative vlogs can help students develop 21st century skills, especially in digital media production. Smartphone-based vlog projects can increase learners’ engagement and enhance their group collaboration skills.  

scholarly journals EFL Learners’ English Speaking Difficulties and Strategy Use

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Ming-yueh Shen ◽  
Tzu-yen Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Body Language ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
The Body ◽  
Primary Reason ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Speaking Performance

This study aimed to explore the factors that caused the EFL learners’ English speaking difficulties and then investigate the successful learners’ strategy use to improve their English speaking performance. A five-level Likert-scale questionnaire was conducted to anonymously investigate 148 EFL sophomore and junior English majors in Taiwan. Results of the analysis showed that (a) psychological problems (e.g. nervousness, fear of making mistakes, and lack of confidence) was the primary reason for English speaking difficulties, followed by linguistic problems (e.g. insufficient vocabulary), and environmental problems (e.g. lack of learning context for English conversation); (b) a majority of successful learners tended to use various speaking strategies to improve their English speaking performance and particularly focused on linguistic accuracy by repeatedly practicing the pitch, pronunciation, and intonation. Furthermore, most of them seized the chances to practice speaking English, such as joining English social activities, or participating in English speech contests etc. They also used the body language (e.g. facial expressions, eye contacts, and gestures) for better communication. The findings suggest pedagogical implications for promoting the EFL learners’ speaking English.

Negotiation of Meaning of Indonesian EFL Learners in Casual Conversation: An SFL Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53
Author(s):  
Fadhila Yonata
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Spoken Discourse ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Exchange Structure

Communicative interaction is demanded by all levels of EFL learners. To prepare them to comply with this purpose, engaging them to deal with the real-life conversation using the target language may have beneficial effects on their second language acquisition process.  However, the way learners negotiating meaning in an understandable way and how they position themselves as the appropriate role of the speakers are still rarely studied, especially in the Indonesian teaching and learning context. This study aims to reveal what type of commodity is being exchanged by graduate learners (3 females and 1 male) when they are assigned to have an unplanned casual conversation. The study further analyzes the nature of the exchange structure of EFL learners' casual conversation seen from the Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective. The data were taken from audio recordings of casual conversations and then transcribed as the written data. The conversation was then divided into clauses as the unit of analysis. In employing a spoken discourse analysis framework, interactive analysis was implemented to discover exchange structure. The results show the exchanged commodity is information through statements. It indicates that as magister students, they always show their knowledge off, and intimacy sometimes matters as the reason for informative conversations. The speakers' role also has been successfully achieved by the speakers since their ability to position themselves as initiators or responders to keep the conversational flow.

Using Blogs to Motivate English as a Foreign Language Writers

2020 ◽  
pp. 257-278
Author(s):  
Selami Aydin ◽  
Emrah Özdemir
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Writing Achievement ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Efl Writing ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Writing Motivation ◽  
Post Test ◽  
Motivation Level

Not many studies have been present on the effects of blogging, particularly with respect to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing motivation. Those studies did not focus on the effect of the use of blogs on Turkish EFL learners' writing motivation. Thus, this chapter examines how the use of blogs affects EFL writing motivation among EFL learners in a Turkish EFL learning context. A questionnaire interrogating demographic information, a pre-test and a post-test measuring writing achievement were administered to a group of participants including 48 language learners. According to results, blogging on its own does not increase motivation; however, the process-based writing instruction mainly has positive influences on EFL learners' motivation in both traditional pen-paper and blog environments. Thus, EFL teachers need to know that the use of blogs does not increase motivation among Turkish EFL learners. To increase their motivation level, it is also recommended that teachers should use a writing environment where their students are encouraged to write in the target language.

scholarly journals Immersive Virtual Reality as an Effective Tool for Second Language Vocabulary Learning

Languages ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Legault ◽  
Jiayan Zhao ◽  
Ying-An Chi ◽  
Weitao Chen ◽  
Alexander Klippel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Second Language ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Significant Benefit ◽  
Immersive Virtual Reality ◽  
Learning Context ◽  
Learning Condition ◽  
Learning Platform ◽  
L2 Learning

Learning a second language (L2) presents a significant challenge to many people in adulthood. Platforms for effective L2 instruction have been developed in both academia and the industry. While real-life (RL) immersion is often lauded as a particularly effective L2 learning platform, little is known about the features of immersive contexts that contribute to the L2 learning process. Immersive virtual reality (iVR) offers a flexible platform to simulate an RL immersive learning situation, while allowing the researcher to have tight experimental control for stimulus delivery and learner interaction with the environment. Using a mixed counterbalanced design, the current study examines individual differences in L2 performance during learning of 60 Mandarin Chinese words across two learning sessions, with each participant learning 30 words in iVR and 30 words via word–word (WW) paired association. Behavioral performance was collected immediately after L2 learning via an alternative forced-choice recognition task. Our results indicate a main effect of L2 learning context, such that accuracy on trials learned via iVR was significantly higher as compared to trials learned in the WW condition. These effects are reflected especially in the differential effects of learning contexts, in that less successful learners show a significant benefit of iVR instruction as compared to WW, whereas successful learners do not show a significant benefit of either learning condition. Our findings have broad implications for L2 education, particularly for those who struggle in learning an L2.

Children and Film-Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Cannon
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Western World ◽  
Media Production ◽  
Cultural Dimension ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Film Making

Youth film-making practices in educational settings are often positioned in discourses that support older teenagers’ career prospects and their training for industry. However, the work detailed in this list is located in formal and informal educational settings that foreground the social and cultural dimension of youth film and media production. As such, this article engages with the role of the moving image in everyday living, in creative arts education, and in the “reframing” of literacy to include visual and audio modes. In this view, film-making opportunities move beyond the formal domains of secondary and higher education film and media studies students, so that learners of all ages can become “writers” of the moving image as well as “readers.” This bibliography lays out the different sites and means through which primary and secondary children encounter film-making in the anglophone world and more internationally. In addition, it details the academic perspectives through which children’s engagements with film are studied and the increasing number of resources available to researchers and educators in the field. As distinct from the broader realm of production activities with digital media (e.g., game authoring or podcasting), research interest in children’s film-making is in the early stages of development in terms of academic literature and its differentiation. The making dimension might occupy part of a text on, for example, the uses of film in the classroom or on media education more broadly. Notably, discourses on youth film-making have increased in recent years with the development of new media technologies, social media platforms, and digital media authoring software. Functionality that used to be mediated through cumbersome professional apparatuses are now at the disposal of many amateurs via mobile digital devices. These ongoing advances coupled with a wide-ranging academic interest in multimodal expression open up new worlds of audiovisual storytelling for children and young people. Readers will notice the multidimensional nature of the categories that serve to demonstrate the versatility of film across social domains. Despite this and the significant uptake of creative media production by educators and practitioners in informal educational settings in the Western world, there is a discernible disinclination for many educational institutions to include film-making programs in formal education. Thus, there is a sense in which film-making for children remains a marginal activity, dependent on local enthusiasts and pockets of random good practice. Many of the authors are keen to see this change and to promote film as a relevant, dynamic, and cross-disciplinary constituent of modern literacy and the visual arts. Legitimizing film-making experience as a systematic literacy practice with a strong creative and critical dimension is seen as a way of enriching cultural expression in schools.

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