MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TRAN THI PHONG LAN THE EFFECTS OF USING THE INTERNET TO SEARCH ENGLISH TEACHING MATERIALS AT NGHEN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL MA THESIS IN EDUCATION HUE, 2010 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ TRAN THI PHONG LAN THE EFFECTS OF USING THE INTERNET TO SEARCH ENGLISH TEACHING MATERIALS AT NGHEN UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: TRAN VAN PHUOC Assoc. Ph HUE, 2010 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere. Author Tran Thi Phong Lan ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Asso Pro, Ph.D Tran, for his enthusiastic assistance, expert advice, detailed critical comments, and unflagging encouragement, without which the study would not have been completed. I am grateful for my close counter arguer, M.A Do for her reading my draft and giving instructive feedback. I am really indebted to all the teachers at English Department of Hue Foreign Languages College whose lectures provide me with useful knowledge and self- confidence to carry out this study. I would like to express my gratitude to the participants who gave me their time to complete the surveys and share their view in the interviews.
I am grateful for Mrs Thanh, the head of English section at Nghen upper secondary school, for her kind contribution to the completion of this work. Of course, I would like to express my appreciation to my beloved family who stood beside me, tolerated me and provides endless love, encouragement, support, kindness and patience during the study. CONTENTS Sub cover page Statement of Authorship Acknowledgement Contents 1 List of Figures 3 List of Tables 3 Abstract 4 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .2 Aims and objectives .3 Scope of the study.4 Structure of the study. - 8 - CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .1 Previous studies of searching and using the Internet-based materials in the world .2 Previous studies of searching and using ELT materials on the Internet in Vietnam .1 What is the Internet? .2 Technology in English language teaching.3 The role of Internet in enhancing English language teaching .4 Principles of ELT materials .1 The role of materials in English learning and teaching process - 19 - 2.2 Format and types of ELT materials on the Internet .3 Benefits of ELT materials on the Internet .4 How to find ELT materials on the Internet .5 Principles of searching and selecting ELT materials on the Internet .1 Purposes of research .2 In-depth interviews.
- 32 - CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Teachers’ perceptions of the Internet .1 Teachers’ general perception of the Internet notion .2 Teachers’ habits of using the Internet .3 Teachers’ perception of using the Internet as a tool to search ELT materials .2 Effects of searching the Internet-based materials on teaching English at Nghen upper secondary school .1 Effects of using the Internet-based materials on learning environment .2 Effects of searching the Internet-based materials on the teachers’ professional development .3 Effects of using the Internet-based materials on teaching English skills .1 Summary of the main findings.65 3 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 : Teachers’ general perception of the Internet notion Figure 2 : Frequency of teachers’ using the Internet LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 : Teachers’ ownership of home Internet connected computer Table 4.2 : Location to access the Internet Table 4.3 : Teachers’ purposes of using the Internet Table 4.4 : ELT materials types the teachers often search on the Internet Table 4.5 : Frequency of using the Internet’ applications to search materials Table 4.6 : Reasons for using the Internet to search Internet Table 4.7 : The necessary conditions for searching materials effectively Table 4.8 : Factors limit searching ELT materials on the Internet Table 4.9 : Effects of using the Internet-based materials on learning environment Table 4.10 : Effects of searching the Internet-based materials on the teacher’ professional development Table 4.11 : Effects of using the Internet-based materials on teaching English skills Table 4.12 : Suggestions to make searching ELT materials more effective -3- ABSTRACT Although the rapid increase of Internet availability has generated a special attention to Internet- assisted language teaching among English as a foreign language teachers, little research is conducted in Vietnamese teaching situations to understand the process of teachers’ approach to this miraculous tool. The researcher’s effort in this study is to reveal the specific reality of exploiting the Internet to search English teaching materials of a group of teachers of English at Nghen upper secondary school. A total of ten teachers participating in a survey and interviews responded to the questions of what their perceptions of the Internet as a tool for searching materials are, to what extent the Internet-based materials affects their teaching environment, professional development and teaching skills and what their opinions of the suggestions to enhance the efficiency of searching materials on the Internet are. The findings of the study suggest that while all of the teachers have a positive perception of the Internet as a searching tool and they appreciate to its effects on improving their teaching, they relatively limit levels of access to and expertise with the Internet.
Two main factors hindering the teachers’ searching materials on the Internet are teachers’ lack of time and teachers’ lack of Internet knowledge. Therefore, in- service teacher training courses for the Internet are strongly recommended to further develop and implement the Internet- assisted Language Teaching in future. Rationale English teaching, like other professions, has constantly changed to adapt to the movement of the society. For many years, English education in Vietnam as it is in other countries has been using traditional and grammar- oriented approach with limited information resources (e.
the teacher, chalkboard, and textbook). In many situations, neither teachers nor students have had anything at all in terms of educational technology or other teaching aids. Other schools only had a blackboard, even were not in very good condition. As a result, students hardly communicate in the target language.
However, in recent years, the resources that are available in English classrooms are truly amazing. We easily recognize the increasing appearance of teaching tools such as cassette players, projectors, computers, or videos equipped for the schools at all levels. They offer an amazing variety for teaching and discovery. These technological innovations have gone with the growth of English and are changing the way we teach.
One of the most dramatic and far-reaching technological developments in human history which has a great effect on English teaching is the Internet. A great number of applications of the Internet have been utilized by teachers and learners of English such as multimedia, email, electronic journals, databases, World Wide Web, chat, audio and video conferencing etc. The role of the Internet in English language education in the 21st century has been also referred in a lot of articles and publications (Signal, 1997; Dundeney & Hockly, 2007; Warschauer & Sheltzer, 2000; Sharma & Barrett, 2007). Most of the researchers and teachers of English have no doubt about the Internet’s advantages to their teaching process.
They are fully aware of its necessity in their professional development and their students’ improvement of communicative competence. In many parts of the world, the Internet is no longer mentioned as a new development but as an indispensable tool -5- for teachers of English. Javis (2005) asserted that the growth of the Internet has facilitated the growth of the English language and that this has occurred at a time when computers are no longer the exclusive domain of the dedicated few, but rather widely available to many. In Vietnam, the Internet is expected as an aided tool for teaching all subjects including English subject to create a breakthrough in English education.
Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has made a lot of efforts to apply the Information and Technology in teaching and learning English. In 2001, the MOET published The Master Plan aiming to develop a computer based information network system for education and to improve computer ratios at educational institutions. In Master Plan, one of the objectives for IT development in the stage 2001- 2005 is to build ICT infrastructure for education and training including computer networks, computer rooms in schools, computers in all educational institutions linked together providing access to various databases and resources for teaching and learning activities and educational management. Since 2008, The Ministry of Education and Training has cooperated with Telecommunication Corporations to connect the Internet to all schools, colleges and universities throughout the country.
It is estimated this project will be finished by the end of 2010 and this will bring a new breeze to Vietnamese education in general and English teaching in particular. In the school year of 2008-2009, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) launched the “Year of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)”, which showed the Government’ determination in innovating traditional teaching methods by technology application. In order to support this educational innovation by applying the Information and Technology in teaching and learning, the leaders and teachers of Nghen upper secondary school, located in a small town of Ha Tinh Province, has taken positive action. The school’s lab is equipped with 20 computers, ten of which are connected to the Internet.
Many of the teachers have purchased their own computers and connected to the Internet at home to serve their teaching purposes. The school also facilitated the teachers’ attendance at the workshops of training teachers’ computer -6- skills organized by Ha Tinh Department of Education and Training. Therefore, the teachers can use some basic computer programs such as Word Processor or Power Point to design E-lessons plans. To some extent, the teachers of English exploit materials on the Internet to use more or less directly in their teaching at different levels, ranging from planning lessons, supplementing class activities or assigning extra homework.
However, a research on the reality of using the Internet for teaching and learning at this school has not been carried out yet. Because of the great possibility of the Internet in supplying ELT materials and the initially note-worthy efforts of applying the Internet in Vietnamese educational innovation, it is important to know to what extent teachers of English exploit the Internet for their teaching as well as the reasons why they hesitate to use the Internet for searching teaching materials, a skill essential to all teachers. At present, there has been little study into the reality of using the Internet to search ELT materials among teachers of English at Vietnamese upper secondary schools. It is possible that the existence of the Internet at upper secondary schools has changed English teachers’ perceptions and attitude about its usefulness in teaching English but the level and efficiency of using the Internet in teaching and learning English in Vietnam is still an unclear picture.
Teachers of English have started exploiting the Internet for their lesson plan design, preparation and searching teaching materials. However, this increasing number can not reveal the true effects of exploiting the Internet for English teaching in Vietnam. This shortage of studies does not permit to draw any firm conclusion or useful implications for using the Internet in English education at Vietnamese upper secondary schools. Being a teacher of English, the author herself has a great interest in taking advantages of the Internet to teach English, especially its role as a tool for searching ELT materials.
She expects to make a small contribution to improve the quality of teaching English in Vietnam in general and at Nghen upper secondary school in particular.