TABLE OF CONTENT SUB COVER PAGE STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. 3 LIST OF TABLES. 4 LIST OF CHARTS. Aims of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Brief outline of the thesis .10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. Review of the previous studies.
Internet and website. ESL/ EFL websites .1 What are ESL/ EFL websites .2 Characteristics of an ESL/ EFL website.3 Instruments & procedures of data collection.2 Procedures of data collection.1 Piloting the questionnaire: .24 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. The results from the questionnaires. Students’ perception on using ESL/ EFL websites to learn English.
Students’ interest areas .4 The effectiveness and advantages of using ESL/ EFL websites .5 Problems and difficulties .1 Sub-cluster 1: Problems and difficulties with facility .2: Sub-cluster 2: Problems and difficulties with using ESL/ EFL websites 41 4.2 Results from the interview .53 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .1 Summary of the findings .2 Implications for the administrators .57 websites to improve their English.3 Implications for EFL teachers .4 Implications for the learners .5 Contribution of the study .6 Limitations of the study .7 Suggestions for future research. 63 2 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT: English Language Teaching ESL: English as Second Language EFL: English as A Foreign Language HUCFL: Hue College of Foreign Languages SLA: Second Language Acquisition SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 3 LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Items categorized in the questionnaire…………………………….2: Reliability Statistics of the piloted questionnaire………………… 23 Table 3.3: Reliability Statistics of the questionnaires………………………… 23 Table 4.1: Some popular ESL/ EFL websites ………………………………….2: Mean of cluster 1…………………………….3: Students’ perceptions on using ESL/ EFL websites……………….4: The effectiveness of using ESL/EFL websites on increasing students’ motivation…………………………….5: Students’ interest areas….6: The mean score of cluster 3…………………………….7: The effectiveness and advantages of using ESL/ EFL websites…… 34 Table 4.9: Problems and difficulties with facility…………………………….10: Problems and difficulties with using ESL/ EFL websites………… 41 4 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Number of times students get on line per week 25 Chart 4.2: Average number of hours spent on line each time 26 Chart 4.3: Using ESL/EFL websites to learn English is interesting 29 Chart 4.4: Using ESL/EFL websites is waste of time 30 Chart 4.5: Students’ interest in grammar field 32 Chart 4.6: ESL/ EFL websites contain an enormous material resource 35 Chart 4.7: Learn English naturally 36 Chart 4.8: Improve pronunciation 36 Chart 4.9: ESL/ EFL websites help students gain updated vocabulary 37 Chart 4.10: ESL/ EFL websites give students the answers for problems in English 38 Chart 4.11: ESL/ EFL websites help improve writing skill 38 Chart 4.12: Difficulty in finding a computer 40 Chart 4.13: Difficulty with the cost of accessing Internet 41 Chart 4.14: Difficulty with the lack of teachers' instructions 42 Chart 4.15: Many things distract from learning 43 Chart 4.16: Using ESL/ EFL websites to learn English online takes too much time 44 Chart 4.17: Percentage of students hardly understand instruction on ESL/EFL websites 45 Chart 4.18: Learning English online is new 46 5 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter introduces the setting of the problem of the study. Then the research questions the study based on are listed. The purposes as well as the scope of the study are also reported.
The last part of this chapter presents the brief outline of the research. Background Nowadays, Internet and technology play an important role in our life. From the businesses, the organizations, the companies to each household, Internet becomes very popular and available. Applying Internet in working, teaching and learning is encouraged.
In fact, Internet has changed the way we communicate, work and study. With the assistance of Internet, our life becomes more and more convenient. Internet really impacts on many fields in our society. One of the areas getting a lot of benefits from the development of Internet and technology is education.
Teaching and learning in general and teaching and learning English in particular are more and more effective with the support of the Internet and technology. As a source of authentic materials, a place for publication of material produced in the classroom and a tool for intercultural communication, Internet is really a powerful tool which allows us to access “a large amount of potentially useful information whenever and wherever the Internet is available” (Baniabdelrahman, Bataineh & Bataineh, 2007). In the teaching and learning process, the update on information and materials is very necessary to both teachers and learners in keeping with the requirement and development of the society. With the unlimited connecting and sharing ability, Internet provides a plentiful resource of materials for the teaching and learning, especially the English teaching and learning.
Additionally, in the development of the teaching and learning process, the role of teachers and learners has changed. Teachers no longer play the authority or the center of the class. They are now as the facilitators, instructors who give the instructions, the ways to help the learners discover and acquire 6 knowledge by themselves. Students also become more and more active; they are the center of the class, the main subject of the learning process.
They not only receive knowledge from the teacher but also find their own ways to enrich their knowledge outside the school. As for learning English, students can improve their English by many ways such as watching video, listening to music in English or reading English stories, communicating with the foreigners, etc. And now, with the Internet, the English learning is easier than ever. Internet combines everything from videos, music, stories to activities, games which are very interesting and useful for English learners.
In fact, Internet not only helps students learn English better but also motivates them in the learning English process (Rico & Vinagre, 2000; Shin & Shon, 2007). However, it is not easy for students to find the suitable English resources in the immense information on the Internet. In addition, many things on the Internet are not good for students or may distract them from their learning. Students need the effective tools to improve their English efficiently and also save their time.
Therefore, ESL/ EFL (English as Second language/ English as foreign language) websites is one of the best choice to solve the problem. Founded by the English teacher or Educational organizations, ESL/ EFL websites is really helpful for students learning English online. With a lot of advantages, ESL/ EFL websites are interested in and welcomed by both English teachers and learners. Many ESL/ EFL websites have been used and become familiar with the English teachers and learners such as Dave’s Café, englishclub.
In Viet Nam, using Internet is more and more popular. According to the report of Vietnam Internet Network Information Center, in 2006 there was 17.67% of the Vietnamese population using Internet. Until 8/ 2011, after nearly 5 years, this number has increased to 34.67% (cited in http://www.This number reflects the rapid speed of the development of Internet in Vietnam. Internet has appeared in most fields and has a positive role in the social life.
Applying Internet and technology in teaching and learning is getting more important. Internet offers the teaching and learning a big chance to approach the updated and realistic resources. Therefore, the 7 teaching and learning becomes more interesting and more effective, especially the teaching and learning English. At the present, besides learning English at school, the English learners in Vietnam have a favorable condition to improve their English through Internet.
As for a country in which English is a foreign language, Internet is really an effective way to help Vietnamese students approach to the authentic and realistic English resources. With the development of learning online, the English learners in Vietnam are now more and more familiar with using ESL/ EFL websites in their learning. To the students of Hue College of Foreign Languages, using Internet in finding and searching information and materials for English learning is not new, especially the English major students. For the purposes of improving English skills in general and finding teaching materials for English major of pedagogy in particular, ESL/EFL websites can be considered as a wonderful tool.
However, whether or not the English major students of HUCFL think ESL/EFL websites are really useful, what difficulties students may encounter and what they need when using the ESL/EFL websites in their English learning process. To solve these problems and find out the effective way to apply ESL/EFL websites in teaching English, I carry out the study on the effect of ESL/EFL websites to the English learning of English major students at HUCFL. Topic “The impact of using some ESL/ EFL websites on English language learning: The case of the third year students at HUCFL” 1. Aims of the study This study is carried out with the aims of exploring the effectiveness of using ESL/ EFL websites in learning English of students at HUCFL and discovering the 8 difficulties they may encounter.
In addition, the study wants to have deep insight into students’ need from ESL/ EFL websites in order to make their learning more effectively. Research questions More specifically, I want to focus on these following research questions: 1. What are students’ perceptions on using ESL/ EFL websites on English language learning? 2. How do the ESL/ EFL websites help students in their English learning? 3.
What difficulties do students encounter when they use the ESL/ EFL websites? 1. Significance of the study The result of this study will help the English teachers know more about the students’ perspectives in using ESL/ EFL websites. And the suggestions and ideas from the participants will be useful for teachers in using ESL/ EFL websites in teaching English. Scope of the study This study will be conducted in the HUCFL and the participants are the third year English major students.
My study is focused on: 1. The effects of ESL/ EFL websites on the third year English major at HUCFL in learning English. The difficulties students encounter and implications for the teachers. Brief outline of the thesis The study consists of 5 chapters.
Chapter 1 provides the setting and background of the study. The research questions which the study are based on are presented. Literature review and some theoretical background are done in chapter 2. Chapter 3 presents the methodology based on which the project was carried out.
Chapter 4 continues with the findings and discussions. And the last chapter deals with the project summary, implications and suggestions for further study. 10 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter reviews the critical points of current knowledge which are related to the field of study. In addition, the differences between Internet and ESL/ EFL websites are mentioned.
Then some characteristics of ESL/ EFL websites are described more clearly. Review of the previous studies Along with the technology, Internet is a powerful tool to make the teaching and learning English more convenient and effective. According to Lee (1997), the Internet has been progressively considered as a pedagogical tool by which one can create innovative language experiences for L2 teachers and learners. In the development of the online study tools, the World Wide Web has become an established tool for language learning and teaching (Susser & Robb, 2004; Warschauer, 2005).
ESL/ EFL websites really become one of the most popular tools which are used by a lot of teachers and learners. Therefore, many researchers evaluated ESL/ EFL websites and gave a lot of interesting results. Mahsoub (2008) evaluated 6 famous websites for the teaching and learning English. The 6 websites include go4english.com, Dave’s Café, Englishclub.com and English-online.
The participants were asked to visit these sites and respond to an evaluation criteria checklist with eight dimensions which are authority, purpose, coverage, currency, objectivity, accuracy, technical aspects and usefulness for ELT teachers and students. The result showed that the 6 websites, as a whole, were “very useful for teaching and learning English”.