Hajar Mohammadzadeh; Sepideh Rahimpour
Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 09 June 2024
Abstract
The present study, following a sequential mixed-methods design, aimed at examining whether internet-based applications, including Big-BlueButton and Skype online instruction differ in terms of communication anxiety and oral communication skills for EFL learners. A pool of 32 Iranian pre-intermediate ...
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The present study, following a sequential mixed-methods design, aimed at examining whether internet-based applications, including Big-BlueButton and Skype online instruction differ in terms of communication anxiety and oral communication skills for EFL learners. A pool of 32 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL students participated in the quantitative phase of the study based on convenience sampling and a pool of nine students participated in the qualitative phase of the study based on purposive sampling. The results of one-way ANCOVA confirmed that there was a significant difference between the Skype group and the BigBlueBottom group in terms of communication anxiety and oral communication skills. Following inter-coder reliability, the most common themes (i.e., novel, challenging, motivating, less stressful, helpful, low internet speed, lack of equipment, and time-consuming) emerged from the students’ responses to the interview questions regarding the role of online learning on oral communication skills. Finally, some practical impli-cations were offered for EFL students and teachers, and some suggestions were made for conducting further studies.
Hoda Hamidi; Sepideh Rahimpour
Abstract
The appropriate use of new technologies and educational applications is undoubtedly very important in facilitating English language learners’ communicative competence. One of these technological devices used in education is the smartbook. Accordingly, the present study has tried to investigate ...
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The appropriate use of new technologies and educational applications is undoubtedly very important in facilitating English language learners’ communicative competence. One of these technological devices used in education is the smartbook. Accordingly, the present study has tried to investigate the effectiveness of the use of smartbooks in the process of teaching English to learners and, consequently, the improvement of their communicative ability. In order to collect data for the study, 40 high school students learning English, including one experimental group and one control group, participated in this study. A pre-post test and teacher-made tests were designed for the learners. The One-way ANCOVA results indicated that the learners participating in the experimental group were more successful than those participating in the control group. This shows that the use of smartbooks has a significant effect on improving the oral communicative ability of English language learners. Implications for L2 researchers and practitioners were finally discussed.
