TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages Sub-cover page Statement of the authorship .ii Table of contents. 1 List of abbreviations. 5 List of figures. 6 List of tables.
7 List of appendices. Research aims and research questions. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. Review of previous studies related to the topic.
IT in language teaching. What is IT in language teaching?. Principles of integrating IT into ELT. IT and classroom interaction.
Definitions and patterns of classroom interaction. The importance of classroom interaction in language learning. IT and Classroom Interaction. Teaching and learning reading in language classes.
Nature of reading in language classes. Interaction in EFL reading classes. Pre-reading stage. While-reading stage.
Post-reading stage. IT and Interaction in EFL reading classes. Data collection methods. Data collection procedures.
Data analysis methods. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Teachers' and students' perceptions of using IT to help increase interaction in EFL reading classes at Dang Tran Con High School. Teachers' and students' perceptions of the necessity of teachers’ acquisition of IT knowledge and skills.
Teachers' and students' perceptions of the necessity of students’ acquisition of IT knowledge and skills. Teachers' and students' perceptions of IT notion in EFL classes. Teachers' and students' perceptions of factors in EFL teaching and learning that can be improved by the application of IT. Teachers' and students' perceptions of language classes in which the use of IT can help increase interaction.
Teachers' and students' perceptions of stages of a reading lesson in which the use of IT can help increase interaction. The reality of using IT to help increase interaction in EFL reading classes at Dang Tran Con High School. The frequency of teachers’ use of IT in EFL reading classes. How have teachers applied IT to EFL reading classes?.
Kinds of technology-assisted pre-reading activities having been employed to enhance interaction. Kinds of technology-assisted while-reading activities having been employed to enhance interaction. Kinds of technology-assisted post-reading activities having been employed to enhance interaction. The impacts of IT application on interaction in EFL reading classes at Dang Tran Con High School.
The significance of using IT in EFL reading classes. The impact of IT application on interaction in EFL reading classes. Difficulties faced by teachers in using IT to help enhance interaction in EFL reading classes. Difficulties with the facilities.
Difficulties with teaching and learning methods. Evaluation on using IT to enhance interaction in EFL reading classes. Recommendations for facilities. Recommendations for teaching and learning methods.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the findings. What are teachers' and students' perceptions of using IT to help increase interaction in EFL reading classes at Dang Tran Con High School?. How has IT been used to help increase interaction in EFL reading classes?.
To what extent does the application of IT help increase interaction in EFL reading classes?. What challenge teachers in using IT to help enhance interaction in EFL reading classes?. For the educational administrators. For the teachers.
Limitations of the research. Recommendations for further research. 92 APPENDICES 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CALL Computer-assisted language learning CMC Computer-mediated communication CLT Communicative Language Teaching EAVSC English audio-video speaking class EFL English as a foreign language ELT English language teaching FL Foreign language ICT / IT Information Communication Technology L1 First language L2 Second language MOET Ministry of Education and Training SLA Second language acquisition 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 A normal interaction pattern in a language class Figure 4.1 Teachers' and students' perceptions of the necessity of teachers’ acquisition of IT knowledge and skills Figure 4.2 Teachers' and students' perceptions of the necessity of students’ acquisition of IT knowledge and skills Figure 4.3 Teachers' perceptions of IT notion in EFL classes Figure 4.4 Students' perceptions of IT notion in EFL classes Figure 4.5 Perceptions of factors in EFL teaching and learning that can be improved by the application of IT Figure 4.6 Perceptions of language classes in which the use of IT can help increase interaction Figure 4.7 Perceptions of stages of a reading lesson in which the use of IT can help increase interaction Figure 4.8 The frequency of teachers’ use of IT in reading classes Figure 4.9 Technology-assisted pre-reading activities employed to enhance interaction Figure 4.10 Technology-assisted while-reading activities employed to enhance interaction Figure 4.11 Technology-assisted post-reading activities employed to enhance interaction Figure 4.12 Evaluation on using IT to enhance interaction in EFL reading classes 6 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 How teachers have applied IT to EFL reading classes (teachers’ responses) Table 4.2 How teachers have applied IT to EFL reading classes (students’ responses) Table 4.3 The significance of using IT in EFL reading classes Table 4.4 The impact of IT application on interaction in EFL reading classes Table 4.5 Difficulties with the facilities Table 4.6 Difficulties with teaching and learning methods Table 4.7 Recommendations for facilities Table 4.8 Recommendations for teaching and learning methods 7 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix A Questionnaire for teachers Appendix B Questionnaire for students Appendix C Classroom observation sheet Appendix D Questions for teacher interview Appendix E Questions for student interview 8 ABSTRACT The ultimate aim of this research is to find out the extent to which IT application has impacted on classroom interaction in EFL reading classes. To achieve this optimal aim, the research first attempts to explore participants’ perceptions of using IT to help increase classroom interaction and the reality of teachers’ integration of IT into EFL reading classes.
It is also aimed at identifying the difficulties that teachers face in the incorporation of IT to enhance interaction. The participants of this research consisted of 10 teachers and 100 students at Dang Tran Con High School. The data were collected through questionnaires, class observations and interviews. The findings show that although participants show positive perceptions towards the necessity of IT in teaching and learning EFL in general and EFL reading in particular, the reality of IT integration into reading classes is rather limited in terms of the frequency, the ways of integrating IT into reading classes and the technology-assisted reading activities.
The limitations of their IT application result, mainly, from the difficulties with facilities and with teaching and learning methods. Yet, the findings assert that IT integration into EFL reading classes have a significantly positive impact on both the quantity and quality of classroom interaction. Based on researchers’ and scholars’ ideas discussed in chapter 2 and the findings of this research including teacher participants’ suggested solutions, some implications for the educational administrators and teachers are also offered in this thesis so that the classroom interaction in EFL reading classes can be maximized by the utilization of IT. 9 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter describes (1) the rationale including the background of and the reasons for the research, (2) the research aims and the research questions, (3) the research scope, and (4) the structure of the research.
Rationale Foreign language teachers in general and English language teachers in particular, especially those in Asia, have been faced with non-interactive classrooms where students have often been observed to be shy, reserved, and unresponsive, rarely participating in the activities in language classrooms actively (Cortazzi and Jin, 1996; Tsui, 1996; Jackson, 2001, 2003; Chen, 2003; Zou, 2004; Nguyen Thi Cam Le, 2005; Meng, 2010). Interaction in the classroom is of great importance as Through interaction, students can increase their language store as they listen to or read authentic linguistic material, or even the output of their fellow students in discussions, skits, joint problem-solving tasks, or dialogue journals. In interaction, students can use all they possess of the language- all they have learned or casually absorbed- in real-life exchanges….Even at an elementary stage, they learn in this way to exploit the elasticity of language. (Wilga Rivers, 1987 in Brown, 2007, p.
213) More importantly, many psychologists argue that high school students who have developed physically, intellectually, emotionally, and socially to the nearly fullest potential are often active, independent, and creative in their learning activities (e.g, To Thi Anh and Nguyen Thi Bich Hong, 1994; Do Van Thong, 2002). However, from my experience as an English as a foreign language (EFL) high school teacher, I have always been faced with quiet and passive students. There is not much interaction in classroom, which makes the class atmosphere rather dull. Most of EFL teachers in Thua Thien Hue have shared the same situation.
Whenever I attend a workshop or a meeting organized by Thua Thien Hue Department of Education and Training, I hear the teachers complain that one of the 10 difficulties confronting them in applying Communicative Approach to teaching EFL is that the students often keep quiet, avoid interacting with friends in group work and do not respond to the teacher's questions voluntarily. Also, Nguyen Thi Cam Le (2005), who previously conducted a research at the Regional Language Center in Singapore with Vietnamese subjects, asserts that students' passivity is a common problem in Vietnam's EFL classrooms (p. Being aware of the importance of encouraging students to interact in EFL classrooms, the researcher has tried her best to seek strategies to improve the situation. From her classroom observations as well as from her teaching experiences, she has learnt that when the teacher applies information technology (IT) to the teaching lessons, mostly in the form of the so-called “electronic lesson plans” or “IT-based lesson plans”, students become more motivated, classroom interaction is enhanced and the classroom atmosphere is more positive.
Moreover, since the appearance of Olympic contest of English on website http://ioe.vn/ issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in cooperation with Multimedia Communication Corporation VTC for students from grade 3 to 12 (Ministry of Education and Training [MOET], 2010), thousands of students have voluntarily signed up as members of the website and eagerly joined in the contest. One can easily see the increasing number of students participating in the contest rounds in menu THỐNG KÊ (STATISTICS) of the website. My communication with several students reveals that they enjoy the contest very much. They really find it exciting and motivated to learn English from the website.
Indeed, there is no doubt that we have entered a digital era in which the appearance and development of Information Communication Technology (ICT), shortly IT, have made revolutionary changes in every field of our life. Education in general and English language teaching (ELT) in particular are not an exception. In fact, IT has been studied, exploited and used to help enhance the quality of language education. Its beneficial impacts on EFL learning and teaching have been discussed in many writings (e.g, Warschauer, Shetzer, and Meloni, 2000; Dudeney and 11 Hockly, 2007; Holliday, 2007; Khalsa, Maloney-Krichmar and Peyton, 2007; Sharma and Barrette, 2007; Ibrahim, 2010).
Not only can IT help teachers retrieve authentic teaching materials easily and quickly, it can help students practice new language items or improve their language skills effectively thanks to the availability of images, audio and video clips. Additionally, the use of networked computers can facilitate communication (Cooper and Selfe, 1990) and enhance discussion (Pratt and Sullivan, 1994). In brief, “technology applications are uniquely suited to support communicative competence” (Butler-Pascoe and Wiburg, 2003, p. 26), which is known as the main purpose of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT).
In Vietnam, persuaded by the significance of IT in education, the Ministry of Education and Training initiated directive number 29/2001/CT-BGDĐT on strengthening teaching, training and integration of IT in education for the period 2001-2005. It required that IT, as the most efficient tool for supporting innovative teaching methods, be applied to education and training at all levels, grades, and disciplines (MOET, 2001). Furthermore, 2008-2009 was defined as the academic year of accelerating the application of IT (MOET, 2008).