This study explores English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' perceptions of the ecological factors influencing students' use of informal digital learning of English (IDLE). 26 EFL teachers ...participated in semi-structured interviews and complete a narrative frame. The results of conventional content analysis yielded four categories: macro-system factors (e.g., technological development, educational systems, and English status), micro-system factors (e.g., school and family), chrono-system factors (e.g., current EFL learners’ digital experiences) and personal factors (e.g., age, personality traits, digital literacy, awareness and attitude, and prior experiences with technology). The implications of the findings are discussed for stakeholders in EFL education.
•The study explored EFL teachers' views on ecological factors affecting students' IDLE.•The data analysis revealed macro-system, micro-system, and personal factors as key influences.•The findings can inform stakeholders on how to implement IDLE in EFL contexts effectively.
Full text
Available for:
GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
As technology has advanced, so have opportunities for language socialization and practice. This reciprocal relationship has resulted in the emergence of a subfield of Computer Assisted Language ...Learning (CALL): Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE). IDLE has manifested in various forms, including the more notable extramural and extracurricular varieties. Given the recent attention given to IDLE by Applied Linguists and language educators, this scoping review provides a roadmap for future research and explores the potential of IDLE to support English language teaching and learning in informal digital contexts. A Web of Science core eight database search for relevant research published between 1980 and 2019 using 35 IDLE-related key terms resulted in 38 studies of which 30 aligned with the inclusion criteria. Results showed the studies were conducted mostly under a mixed-method and qualitative paradigm and were published between 2017 and 2019. Only two studies used longitudinal data collection methods. Topics investigated included the linguistic dimension of CALL, the affective and cultural dimension of CALL, and the agency and digital literacies dimension of CALL. The small, yet salient, body of emergent IDLE literature points towards three trends: a growing relevance of langua-technocultural competence, the importance of digital literacies to communicative competence, and the importance of non-professional translation and interpreting to digital language learning.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Recent research has highlighted the value of providing metacognitive guidance for learning English in a small group setting. This study investigated the effects that the presence or absence of ...metacognitive prompts for group or individual learning could have on reading comprehension and the incidental learning of vocabulary through reading. A total of 171 university students were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions: collaborative learning with metacognitive prompts, collaborative learning without metacognitive prompts, individual learning with metacognitive prompts, and individual learning without metacognitive prompts. Results indicated that after the treatment, learners in the collaborative learning with metacognitive prompts group outperformed the other groups on both reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary learning assessments. In addition, the vocabulary knowledge acquired by students in the collaborative learning with metacognitive prompts group was highest for meaning recognition, followed by form recognition, meaning recall, and finally form recall. These findings highlight the importance of training students' self-regulated learning and suggest that the use of metacognitive prompts in a group setting is an effective means to boost EFL reading comprehension and the incidental vocabulary learning for Chinese university students. Pedagogical implications of these and other nuanced findings are discussed.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Researchers' interest in the learning of vocabulary from word cards has grown alongside the increasing number of studies published on this topic. While meta-analyses or systematic reviews have been ...previously performed, the types of word cards investigated, and the number of word card studies analyzed were limited. To address these issues, a research synthesis was conducted to provide an inclusive and comprehensive picture of how the use of word cards by learners results in vocabulary learning. A search of the Web of Science and Scopus databases resulted in 803 potential studies, of which 32 aligned with the inclusion criteria. Coding of these studies based on an extensive coding scheme found most studies assessed receptive vocabulary knowledge more often than productive vocabulary knowledge, and knowledge of vocabulary form and meaning were assessed more often than knowledge of vocabulary use. Results of effect size plots showed that more of the reviewed studies showed larger effects for the use of paper word cards than digital word cards, and for the use of ready-made word cards than self-constructed word cards. Results also indicated more studies showed larger effects for using word cards in an intentional learning condition compared with an incidental learning condition, and for using word cards in a massed learning condition compared with a spaced learning condition. Although a correlation was found between time spent using word cards and vocabulary learning outcomes, this correlation was not statistically significant. Learners that were more proficient in English learned more words from using word cards than those less proficient. These results suggest that future researchers should report learner proficiency, adopt reliable tests to assess vocabulary learning outcomes, compare the effectiveness of ready-made word cards and self-constructed word cards, and investigate the learning of different aspects of word knowledge. Teachers should provide learners guidance in how to use word cards and target word selection for self-construction of word cards. In addition, teachers should encourage learners to create word cards for incidentally encountered unknown words and use massed learning when initially working with these new words before using spaced learning for later retrieval practice.
While the study of serious games has received due attention, few studies have investigated their potentials of simultaneously offering a route to both content and language acquisition. Understanding ...the interdisciplinary educational affordance of serious game play is significant, as it might provide game designers and teachers with insight into how to best design and implement serious games. In our study, the serious game Saving Lives was used to teach healthcare knowledge and English vocabulary to Iranian nursing students in an experimental group (N = 80), while control group students were taught healthcare knowledge and English vocabulary using traditional methods (N = 80). Using a mixed-methods approach (pre- and post-tests, an open- and closed-ended questionnaire), intentional content learning, incidental vocabulary acquisition, and learners' perceptions of digital game play were investigated. Results showed statistically significant improvement in participants' healthcare knowledge and incidental vocabulary acquisition in the experimental group compared to the control group. Vocabulary and content knowledge gains in the experimental group were the result of students' positive attitudes toward game play, the multimodal contextual clues provided during game play, and repetitive exposure to target words in the game instructions. Using serious games to integrate content and language teaching for specific purposes, such as nursing, was found to be both a viable option for teachers and a preferable medium for fostering students' learning and engagement.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Background
In today's society, a growing body of literature attests to the importance of young children's early digital literacy skills in their home environments and how acquisition of these digital ...literacy skills relates to their future learning and digital literacy.
Objectives
Research on young children's digital literacy practices at home was reviewed to explore the positive and negative influences on early learning. This is important due to the children's rapid uptake of online digital technologies over the past decade.
Methods
Peer‐reviewed research articles on home digital literacy practices of children (aged 0–8 years old) published between 2010 and 2021 from four education databases were carefully selected based upon pre‐determined criteria and examined using content analysis.
Results and Conclusion
A high proportion of studies (29 of the 31; 93.5%) demonstrated significant benefits of young children gaining a range of skills, including digital operational, early literacy and language, socio‐emotional, and STEM, through the use of digital technologies at home. Five of the 31 (16.12%) studies reported negative effects of digital technologies in the home context, including distraction, aggressive behaviour, and false self‐confidence. Tablets and smartphone use gained greater momentum in the home context, especially between 2015 and 2021, and there was a positive shift in parental mediation, family involvement, and the children's home digital literacy practices.
Implications
By leveraging children's acquisition of digital literacy skills in the home and taking into account the sociocultural context, we can enhance young children's preparation for the future and provide opportunities for skill development across various learning domains.
Lay Description
What is already known about this topic
The literature shows use of tablets in the home by children have gained momentum.
Parents have different attitudes towards using digital technologies in the home context.
Parents have used different mediation strategies to control, supervise and support their children's home digital literacy practices.
What this paper adds
Within the past decade, parents have extended their mediation strategies to support their children's home digital literacy practices.
Young children move from early digital literacy to proficient digital literacy within the home.
Home digital literacy practices can foster important skills in young children such as language and literacy, operational, socio‐emotional, and STEM.
Artificial intelligence devices such as smart robots are extending children's home digital literacy practices.
Implications for practice and/or policy
Understanding the sociocultural differences of young children can help parents, teachers, and policymakers to facilitate digital literacy skill acquisition.
Fostering young children's basic language literacy, operational, socio‐emotional, and STEM skills through technology use in the home before formal education is essential.
Extending young children's home digital literacy practices to other contexts such as the classroom is necessary.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
The study examined the types of written corrective feedback given by second language writing teachers on Taiwanese secondary school students’ collocation errors. First, the written corrective ...feedback that teachers provided on learners’ word choice errors was examined to uncover the types of feedback provided. Then, analysis focused on verb–noun collocations to draw attention to how students had been receiving different types of written corrective feedback from teachers on a single collocation error type. Results showed that some sentences tagged as including word choice errors only contained rule-based errors. Furthermore, for verb-noun collocation errors, teachers chose to provide indirect and direct feedback almost equally at the expense of metalinguistic feedback. Based on the results, we suggested options for second language writing teachers when providing feedback on word choice errors.
Feedback researchers have given little attention to how administration of language-focused instruction before writing in a second language combined with subsequent error correction after writing can ...affect the grammatical accuracy of learners' future writing. Moreover, the mode of the instruction (i.e., teacher instruction or game-based instruction) has also been undervalued. To address these gaps in the research literature, Taiwanese university student participants (n = 45) were randomly and equally divided into two experimental and one control group: teacher instruction with error correction; digital game-based instruction with error correction; and error correction only. Participants were asked to write three letters of application to three similar job advertisements as a pretest, immediate posttest, and delayed posttest. Gain score results in the immediate posttest showed that the teacher instruction with error correction group significantly outperformed the error correction only group whereas gains in the delayed posttest showed the teacher instruction with error correction and the digital game-based instruction with error correction groups significantly outperformed the error correction only group. Results indicate that pedagogical practices that provide focused grammatical instruction with direct focused feedback are more beneficial to L2 writers than only providing error correction. Furthermore, the just-in-time grammar feedback provided during game play afforded learners with opportunities to engage in awareness-raising language related episodes. Such game play combined with written corrective feedback resulted in stronger retention of grammatical knowledge compared to learners that received teacher instruction combined with written corrective feedback.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
