TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages Statement of Authorship.ii Table of contents. 1 List of abbreviations and acronyms. 4 List of tables. 5 List of appendices.
12 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. What is CALL. Definition of CALL. History of CALL.
Benefits of CALL. Some applications of CALL in teaching and learning English .3 The computer lab. The interactive white board .2 Three components of CALL. Traditional teacher‟s roles in non- CALL classroom.
Roles of teacher in CALL classroom. CALL in Viet Nam. The development of CALL in Viet Nam. An overview of CALL at Nguyen Tri Phuong lower secondary school.
Data collection procedures. 38 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Teachers‟ perception on roles of teachers in CALL classrooms. The attitudes of teachers towards teaching in CALL classrooms.
Teachers‟ roles in normal class. Teachers‟ roles in CALL classrooms. Importance of a human teacher in CALL classrooms. Students‟ perception on roles of teachers in CALL classrooms .1 The importance of CALL classrooms in teaching and learning English at NTP school.
Roles of teachers in CALL classrooms. Students expectations towards learning and teaching English in CALL classrooms. The reality of teachers‟ roles in CALL classrooms. 67 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.
Summary of the findings. What are teachers‟ perceptions of the teachers' roles in CALL classrooms?. What are students‟ perceptions of teachers‟ roles in CALL classrooms?. What is the reality of teachers‟ roles in CALL classroom at Nguyen Tri Phuong lower secondary school?.
73 APPENDICES 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS AI : Artificial Intelligence CALL : Computer-Assisted Language Learning CMC : Computer-Mediated Communication EFL : English as a Foreign Language ELT : English Language Teaching ICT : Information and Communications Technologies IT : Information Technology TELL : Technology-Enhanced Language Learning VLE : Virtual Learning Environment 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 4. Frequency of teaching in CALL classrooms. Necessity of learning English in the language lab and the interactive white board room. Activities taken in CALL classrooms.
Roles taken by the teachers in CALL classrooms. The importance of roles taken by the teacher in CALL classrooms. The most common roles. Benefits of CALL.
Difficulties students may have when learning in the language lab and in the classroom with the interactive white board. Students‟ expectations towards teachers when learning in CALL Classrooms. Students‟ expectations when learning in CALL classrooms. The importance of a human teacher in CALL classrooms.
Activities done by teachers in CALL classrooms. Roles taken by the teacher in CALL classrooms. 65 5 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1: Interview checklist for teachers. p1 Appendix 2: Transcription of a teacher interview.
p2 Appendix 3: Survey for students (English Version). p4 Appendix 4: Survey for students (Vietnamese Version). p7 Appendix 5: Observation sheet. p12 6 ABSTRACT This thesis aims to investigate the teachers „roles taken by EFL teachers in CALL classrooms at Nguyen Tri Phuong lower secondary school.
The data were collected by means of questionnaires, interviews and observations in order to find out the teachers and students‟ perception of the EFL teacher‟s roles in the language lab and in the interactive board room at Nguyen Tri Phuong lower secondary school. The findings show that most of the students and teachers acknowledge the importance of the teacher‟s role in learning and teaching with assistance from computers. The reality from the observations of classrooms shows that beside the traditional roles, teachers have realised some other roles through teaching activities in CALL classrooms. However, some roles which are specialised for CALL classrooms are not outstanding.
The teacher‟s roles can be improved by providing teachers with more training in ICT skills, with more encouragement from administers as well as with more careful investment on software and the hardware configuration for computers. Background Teaching and learning English has received a lot of attention from the whole society in Vietnam as English has been considered to be a means of international communication. In the project of developing teaching and learning foreign languages in Viet Nam until 2010 of the Vietnamese government (2008), it is emphasized that the most important aim of teaching and learning foreign languages in general and English in particular is to make foreign languages become our national strength in order to serve the country‟s industrialization and modernization. Obviously, while the importance of teaching and learning English has been fully recognized by the government, it also raises the question of how teaching and learning English can meet the demands of the society.
In reality, most of the high school students are not able to use English to communicate and speak English fluently (Vo, 2010) .Therefore, the need of enhancing the quality in all aspects is becoming much greater than ever. Recently, to promote the learning English process, there have been dramatic changes in schools in the ways that languages are taught with the replacement of grammar translation by communicative approaches and the introduction of technological tools (Vu, 2003). In the world, applying modern technology, namely computers in ELT, is not a new issue. According to Sergeant (1999), the assumption that computers are associated with higher efficiency has been carried out in educational area and into language teaching.
Brinton (2001) further emphasizes” Whatever the approach, language teachers seem to agree that media can and do enhance language teaching”(p. There has been a lot of discussion about the necessity for exploiting the computer in EFL classrooms. Some researchers such as Lee (2000) pointed out that the reasons for using Computer-assisted Language Learning 8 include: (a) experiential learning, (b) motivation, (c) enhance student achievement, (d) authentic materials for study, (e) greater interaction, (f) individualization, (g) independence from a single source of information, and (h) global understanding. With the awareness of the impact of information technology on education, the government has shown their determination in the project of developing teaching and learning foreign languages in Viet Nam until 2010.
The project emphasizes that the application of IT in teaching and learning languages should be enhanced to increase the quality of education In this trend, the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and training (MOET) also chose the academic year 2008-2009 as the year of IT application in education according to the Decision number 47/2008/CT-BGDĐT issued on 13/8/2008. In reality, applying IT in education in general and in teaching English has been a popular trend in Viet Nam. However, there are some difficulties emerging in the context of Vietnam as pointed out by Le (2007): First, not all teachers have been fully aware of the possibilities brought about by the Information technology; the quality and effectiveness of ICT in education has not been as high as expected; teachers‟ computer skills sometimes cannot keep up with the change in technology. In order to solve problems involving in IT application, besides solutions such as improving the facilities, the teacher is one of the important factors that are considered to be able to boost the development of ICT in education.
Therefore, according to the project of developing teaching and learning foreign languages in Viet Nam until 2010 put up by the Vietnamese government, training teachers and increasing teachers‟ quality are always necessary steps towards improving education quality, especially in the learning `and teaching English. Rationale: In education, teachers and students are two essential factors of the teaching and learning process. Teacher‟s roles are acted out in concert with the conditions 9 and characteristics of a teaching-learning environment (Entwistle, McCune & Hounsell, 2002). In traditional classrooms, teachers used to be known as the centre of the classroom, the key to students‟ success.
Duch, Groh and Allen (2001, p. 4, cited in Vighnarajah et al., 2008) pointed out that”the teacher is responsible for delivering content and the students are the passive receivers of knowledge”. In Viet Nam, the teacher has been considered to be the only provider of knowledge (Le, 1999). However, nowadays, when the education innovation is taking place with great shift from teacher-centered class to student-centered class, teacher‟s role has been changed a lot in many aspects (Hoang, 2007).
In addition, as the computer is being used more and more widely nowadays, students now have a lot of modern learning tools that can help them achieve success and independence. The advent of information technology in language teaching has brought about a lot of questions and arguments. One of them is the issue of teacher‟s presence in a multimedia and computer learning environment. Can technology replace teachers‟ instruction? Especially when students‟ autonomy can be developed to the fullest with the aid from computer softwares, programmes etc., can computers replace the teacher? In order to explore what teachers‟ roles are in this new context of teaching, I choose this topic with the hope that the study can work out important implications about the importance of a human teacher in the technology era.
Realizing the benefits of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) classrooms in teaching and learning foreign languages and in order to enhance the quality of English teaching and learning in Viet Nam, the Ministry of Education and Training has implemented a project which has equipped some key junior high schools with networked computers (Developing lower secondary schools project, stage II, MOET). With this modern tool, it is strongly believed that computers can bring about success in teaching and learning English. However, there is a fact that computerized classrooms are still limited and underused. There are also barriers which may prevent teachers and students from fully employing this tool in junior high school context, not only do teachers lack necessary skills to work with 10 computer labs but also students do not have enough knowledge and computing skills (Nguyen, 2009).
This reality may cause ineffective use of computers in classrooms. As remarked by Afshari et al. (2009),”full potential of computers are not fully explored and utilized in ways that will be beneficial to students, one influential factor is the role of teachers”. From the experience of a teacher, the author realizes that there must be a thorough study to shed the light on how teachers can use computers in the most effective ways in the context of Vietnam.
Significance: Computer is a really new and modern teaching and learning tool that is thought to be able to boost the teaching and learning innovation towards the communicative approach. That is one of the reasons why MOET has invested a lot of money to equip schools with networked computers. Computers not only cost a lot of money but also require much effort to install and operate. Therefore, it is a pity if they are not fully employed.
This study may help teachers, the key factor of teaching and learning process, realize how important they are in CALL classrooms and what they should do with this new tool as a teacher as well as give teachers motivation to improve their work. Once the teachers‟ roles are understood thoroughly, computer will be used properly and effectively. In addition, it is also necessary to help administrators understand the roles of teachers in order to create favorable conditions for teaching and learning in CALL classrooms. Scope of the study: There are many forms of CALL classrooms which are being used all over the world.
It can be one-computer classrooms or language laboratories with net-worked computers. One of the most typical forms of CALL which owns most features and benefits of information technology is the Computer Assisted Language Learning Laboratory with networked computers because”the multimedia-networked computer provides a range of informational, communicative, and publishing tools 11 that are potentially available to every student”(Lee, 2000). Another form which is quite new is the classroom with the interactive whiteboard. These two kinds of computer used in ELT are found among the most typical usages of CALL in classrooms.