MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY --------------- THESIS THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LANGUAGE LEARNING TOOLS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AMONG EFL STUDENTS AT MINH DAM SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL Student’s name: Phạm Thị Phương Lan Student’s code: 18114164 Supervisor: Dr. Tran Quoc Thao BA RIA-VUNG TAU, 2022 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING BA RIA VUNG TAU UNIVERSITY --------------- THESIS THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY-ENHANCED LANGUAGE LEARNING TOOLS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AMONG EFL STUDENTS AT MINH DAM SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL Submitted to the Postgraduate Institute in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL Student’s name: Pham Thi Phuong Lan Student’s code: 18114164 Supervisor: Dr. Tran Quoc Thao BA RIA-VUNG TAU, 2022 i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled: The use of technology-enhanced language learning tools in English language learning in EFL students at Minh Dam Senior High School. In terms of the statement of requirements for Theses in Master’s programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of Postgraduate Institute, Ba Ria Vung Tau University Ba Ria Vung Tau, June 2022 Pham Thi Phuong Lan ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I am Pham Thi Phuong Lan, a candidate for the degree of TESOL accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Theses deposited in the Library.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Librarian for the care, loan, and reproduction for thesis. Ba Ria Vung Tau, June 2022 Signature …………………… Pham Thi Phuong Lan iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My special thanks are due to all those who have made great contributions to my thesis completion. First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Dr. Tran Quoc Thao, my supervisor, for his valuable comments and suggestions during the whole research process.
His dynamism, enthusiasm, vision as well as his patience have deeply inspired me. Without his support and guidance, this thesis would never have been completed. Secondly, I am very grateful to the Postgraduate Institute of Ba Ria – Vung Tau University who have supported me much time to implement this thesis. My sincere thanks also go to my friends and colleagues for all her help and encouragement.
I would like to thank the research participants who have contributed to this study. Last but not least, I warmly thank my family for their countless support, greatest sympathy and unconditional love. iv TABLE OF CONTENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY. i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS.
vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Background of the study. Statement of the problems. The aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Definitions of the terms. Organization of the study.
8 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Definitions of TELL. Types of technology used as language learning tools. Technology-Enhanced Language Learning (TELL).
The use of TELL tools in English language learning. Students’ attitudes toward the use of TELL tools in English language learning. Strategies for English language learning skill area in TELL. 35 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
Description of the data collection instruments. Data collection procedure. Reliability and validity. 42 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Students’ attitudes towards the use of TELL tools in English language learning at Minh Dam senior high school. What TELL tools are used in English language learning at Minh Dam senior high school. Students’ strategies for using of TELL tools for English language learning. The relationship between students’ attitudes and the use of TELL tools.
Discussions of the findings. 53 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .60 vi ABSTRACT In the era 4.0 of information and technology explosion, learning English is a must which not only helps the students know how to communicate well, but also know how to access, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize the vast quantities of information from the Internet in order to solve complex problems. Therefore, teaching is now becoming a more difficult job in which the teachers’ role and responsibility is also becoming as crucial as they are expected to lead the change of strategies, approaches, and tools in language learning and teaching. They have to replace their obsolete methods with the new one, the student-centered approach, where teachers should not teach everything to the students by using their own tools, strategies, approaches in order to guide them the way to study by themselves.
One of the methods the teacher can apply to improve the effectiveness of English teaching and learning is to motivate and help students using technology in learning themselves. From these views, the research aims at investigating EFL students’ attitudes toward the use of technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) tools in English language learning, finding out EFL students’ use of TELL tools in English language learning, and examining the relationship between EFL students’ attitudes toward the use of TELL tools in English language learning and their use of TELL tools. The results show that they strongly agree TELL tools are good methods to help them improve English and encourage them autonomy learning effectively. Keywords: EFL; Technology-enhanced language learning; Student attitudes vii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.
1 Cronbach’s Alpha of the questionnaire. Students’ attitudes towards the use of TELL tools in English language learning. 2 Students’ cognition towards the use of TELL tools in English language learning. 3 Students’ affection towards the use of TELL tools in English language learning.
4 Students’ behavior towards the use of TELL tools in English language learning. 5 Students used TELL tools. 6 Students’ attitudes and use of TELL tools. 7 Improve target language or language skills.
50 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. 1 Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). 2 Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989). 3 The conceptual framework of the study.
Background of the study The effect of the use of technology on education has been studied by a number of researchers in different settings and situations. Most of those researches shared a common result that is related to the effectiveness of the use of technology in education and how it assists in developing teaching methods and students’ knowledge such as (Frigaard, 2002; Schofield & Davidson, 2003; Miner, 2004; Timucin, 2006). According to Directive 3031 on August 26th 2016 of the Minister of Education and Training, Vietnam on the central duty of primary, secondary, high education is: to diversify teaching forms, pay attention to creative experience activities; to enhance the application of information technology in teaching and learning through the use of learning models combining traditional classrooms with online classes to save time and costs as well as enhance fairness in access to high quality educational services, etc. In addition, to organize students to perform learning tasks in the classroom, it is important to attach assigning tasks and guiding students to study at home or out of class.
From then until now, technology- enhanced education is becoming an increasingly important part of general education. Technology not only gives learners the opportunity to control their own learning process, but also provides them with ready access to a vast amount of information over which the teacher has no power or control. Also, in the era 4.0 of information and technology explosion, learning English is a must which not only helps the students know how to communicate well, but also know how to access, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize the vast quantities of information from the Internet in order to solve complex problems. Therefore, teaching is now becoming a more difficult job in which the teachers’ role and responsibility is also becoming as crucial as they are expected to lead the 2 change of strategies, approaches, and tools in language learning and teaching.
They have to replace their obsolete methods with the new one, the student- centered approach, where teachers should not teach everything to the students by using their own tools, strategies, approaches in order to guide them the way to study by themselves. One of the methods the teacher can apply to improve the effectiveness of English teaching and learning is to motivate and help students using technology in learning themselves. Technology – the convenient and interesting product of today has shown its benefits in providing students with a strong motivation for learning the language which is considered as “a key goal in the success of language learners” (Gardner & Lambert, 1972, p. Students’ motivation is vital if the teacher is to help them how to learn.
Also, it provides students with good opportunities to have access to authentic materials, tools and information which help them develop their language skills. Thanks to technology, students can manage their own learning based on what they have learned and their own choices. This leads students to greater autonomy and a more student-centered language learning. Technology is a goal to change teaching and learning methods.
Crystal (2001) indicates that technology offers all students opportunities to learn in ways not previously possible. Its innovations have gone hand-in-hand with the growth of English and are changing the way in which we learn. The internet is changing languages partly because it gives rise to new vocabulary and more importantly because the users of this tool drive the language in certain directions. The present aim in Vietnamese education is to promote the use of information technology (IT) in teaching and learning, particularly in foreign languages.
Because foreign languages are so vital in today's era of international integration, English is usually included in the high school curriculum as one of the 3 three primary topics. Furthermore, based on current language teaching approaches, the use of information technology in foreign language instruction is a need, and an unavoidable tendency in the age of the flat world. In industrial revolution 4.0, Vietnamese education really pays great attention to and tries to innovate English teaching methods, helping students to use a language fluently. Some solutions to apply IT in teaching English have been proposed as follows: ü For teachers Teachers are those who directly guide and impart knowledge and skills to students.
Therefore, in the work of reforming English teaching methods, teachers play a pivotal role. To serve the application of IT in teaching English, teachers can flexibly use supporting software to design interesting and quality lectures such as: Window Media Maker software: Support teachers to cut audio; Create videos and clips for phonics teaching; Audacity software: Allows cutting and merging audio; sound recording; Mcmix software: Application in English test making. Building a bank of multiple-choice and essay questions; mix multiple-choice questions; Hotpotato software: Support teachers to compose exercises for slide presentation, including exercises of the form: multiple-choice, short-answer, cloze-test (for multiple-choice exercises, Hotpotato allows teachers to change question and answer order); Google Drive application: Helps to edit documents, compose presentations, allows storage and sharing of data, etc. ü For student The initial goal of educational innovation is to help students access knowledge, arouse interest in learning, develop comprehensively in thinking and 4 skills, and create a solid foundation for the future of students.
To realize this goal, teachers can implement the following IT application solutions: - Duolingo is an effective English self-study app for students of different levels. This application works well on many smartphone platforms today. This is a rich source of materials, actively supporting students in learning English. Duolingo fosters students with many skills such as listening and pronunciation, grammar structure, meaning translation, vocabulary search, etc.
- Hello English: Hello English is designed with a friendly interface, simple operation, easy to use. This application software supports students better in speaking and grammar skills. Moreover, this is also a very effective vocabulary learning tool for students.