How does foreign language learners' agency emerge at the micro-level of classroom activity during the enactment of digitally-enhanced tasks, and how do these learners exercise their agency digitally within and beyond the classroom? Drawing on research in task-based and computer-assisted language learning, this mixed-methods study uncovers key dimensions of "learner agency" - a newcomer to the field of language teaching methodology and applied linguistics. The analysis centers on three case studies of teenage students' perceptions and handling of digitally-enhanced language learning tasks. These are complemented with a Germany-wide questionnaire survey among participants in the U.S. Embassy School Election Project - an intercultural, blended language learning project that has drawn over 15,000 participants since 2012.
Bilingual education, or CLIL, at primary school varies greatly across European educational contexts. Teaching Young Learners in Bilingual Settings reports on a study that explored one such CLIL context in Dortmund, Germany. Through interviews and classroom observations, the researcher and author sought not only to document some of what takes place in CLIL classrooms but to describe and understand teachers' thoughts and beliefs about their CLIL teaching practices. This research contributes to a better understanding of primary school CLIL programs and teachers and is relevant for researchers working in the fields of foreign language education, bilingual education, and language teacher cognition research. Furthermore, the insights into CLIL teachers' thinking can support CLIL teachers, administrators, and policy makers as they seek to further develop CLIL pedagogy and programs.
Abstract This study focuses on the use of the blended learning approach in the Saudi EFL context, investigating the advantages and disadvantages of its application in Saudi Electronic University, against a more conventional approach used at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. This study also investigates perceptions of students concerning this particular approach. The opinions of instructors are also surveyed in order to identify the challenges and obstacles that they have found in employing it. The study also examines possible differences in performance by comparing five colleges where the approach has been used. For this purpose, 475 students and 12 instructors participated in this study who were studying or working in either SEU or Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University during the first semester of the academic year 1439/1440 from Riyadh female campus. The findings indicated that the students’ results are better using the blended learning approach in their listening performance, also there is a statistically significant difference in the students’ satisfaction in the listening course between the conventional method which is used at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University and the blended learning approach at Saudi Electronic University in favor of blended learning approach at the SEU, and there is a strongly statistically significant difference in students’listening performance between colleges in favour of college of science and theoretical studies. Finally, the study suggests that further research should be conducted on the use BL in teaching other language skills such as, reading, speaking and writing. Key words: Blended learning, listening performance, Saudi Electronic University
Using an evidence-based model developed by Egbert and colleagues, editors Joy Egbert and Priya Panday-Shukla provide a comprehensive overview of task engagement for teachers and researchers. Research has positioned task engagement as central to student learning, and Egbert and Panday-Shukla now collate this research into a resource that teachers can utilize. The chapters address how task engagement theory, evidence, and instruction can be applied to increase learner achievement. The editors and contributors draw from backgrounds across science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) education and other disciplines to present task engagement and connect its importance to the success of today’s students. Chapters include background information, resources, exercises, and ideas for teachers and researchers to extend the research behind individual elements of the task engagement model into practice. Each chapter focuses on one component of the model and includes guiding questions and key points, a “how-to” section, and recommended tasks for K-adult classroom use. Though ideal for teacher education research scholars, students, and faculty, this book is useful for instructors at all levels interested in integrating task engagement principles into their practice.
Covering theory where useful, but maintaining an emphasis on practice, this helpful book provides teachers and lecturers with an accessible introduction to e-learning.
This study aims at improving English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing instruction at secondary level by implementing a blended instructional design that may foster self-regulation through public online learning diaries (Diaries) and formative feedback in a wiki device in combination with face-to-face (F2F) instruction. Also, all elements are interwoven in the assessment program strongly supported by personalised feedback. In Part I, comprehending chapters 1 to 4, we provide the general theoretical framework for this research, which is based on a competence approach to compulsory education that the countries in the EU have adopted. Our aim is helping students to improve in three of the eight key competences (European Parliament, 2006): Learning Foreign Languages, ICT and Learning to Learn. First, we have reviewed and contextualised what the literature says about EFL writing and different approaches to teaching it and discussed the role of grammar, vocabulary and multimodality pathways in learning to write in a foreign language. Then, we have reviewed the literature on self-regulation for learning (SRL) and self-efficacy and the effects that a public design can have on vicarious learning. We have appraised the role of Diaries, feedback and assessment to improve SRL. Subsequently, we have discussed Diaries in EFL writing in a blended design, and how they can help us improve the students' autonomy in learning. This literature review leads us to formulate our basic assumptions for the instructional design that we will put to the test. From this review, we conclude that a Diary which integrates cognitive, metacognitive and free writing tasks is a suitable tool for EFL writing instruction and ongoing authentic assessment activities with interactive formative feedback to observe and improve self-regulation strategies. Additionally, a public design can act as a basic form of dialogic feedback, even if what students do is lurking at what other students are doing. In Part II, comprehending chapters 5 to 7, we state the three goals of our research to evaluate an instructional design grounded on literature findings that we developed to improve English as a foreign language (EFL) writing instruction in context. We describe the three main components of the learning diary (Diary) and the writing assignments. We study an EFL class of 10thgraders, aged 15 to 16, at a working-class state school in Barcelona and their English teacher, who was a long-experienced professional, newly arrived at that school. There were 26 students in this class (15 boys and 11 girls), of which we selected six (two strong, two average and two weak ones) for close observation. The instructional design combined face-to-face (F2F) teaching following a textbook with an online platform (a wiki) where students completed the Diary and a variety of writing assignments, with the online supervision of the teacher who provided personalised on-site feedback. In the Diary, and mostly as homework, students had to show their capacity to manage learning strategies and writing competence. In the first place, students had to file F2F instruction and produce examples of use of grammar and vocabulary in the form of sentences (cognitive tasks). Secondly, they had to monitor and correct their writing productions (metacognitive assignments) after the teacher had provided personalised feedback on them. She also developed a system of engagement rewards to incentive correct procedures and participation. In part III (Chapters 7-10) we present the results to our research questions. In Chapter 7 we depict the results concerning goal 1. We observe the activity in the online PWS and the students' and teacher's perception of it. In the first place, we consider the temporal dimension of the Diary. Then we move on to study how well the students completed it by task, student and term. Next, we study the writing assignments completion by task and term. Fourthly, we consider the positive and negative effects of the online platform. Finally, we deal with the teacher and students' views of the PWS. Chapter 8 is devoted to feedback. We analyse the amount and characteristics of the teacher's feedback depending on the task, as well as its timing for both the Diary and the writing assignments. We also consider the nature of conversations in the PWS. To conclude, we focus on the students' views on feedback Results for goal 3 are exposed in chapter 9, which analyses in which ways the students' actions and perceptions in the PWS evolved. In the first place, we ask ourselves which improvements can be reported in the Diary. Secondly, we look at the connections between the Diary and the writing assignments. Thirdly, we observe improvements in the writing assignments, comparing the teacher's marks to external control measures, such as the state exam and the Write & Improve tool. Finally, we consider the teacher and students' views. A final chapter 10 gathers a panoramic interpretive reading of each of the selected students and the teacher as to draw their learning profiles. For each of the six selected students, we consider their views on the PWS and the writing and feedback impact on them. In part IV we discuss our findings. About the PWS (goal 1), online designs can set students in action, but the technical problems some students face may cause frustration. It also confirms that stronger students are better at SRL, but their agency may not always be directed towards learning. If weaker students are more SRL focused, the chance is that they will advance more. Scarce metacognitive knowledge, low self-efficacy and lack of motivation make progress slow. Students will favour cognitive tasks over metacognitive, which are not adequate in compulsory education when they were based in understanding what the teacher said instead of in what they understood. Teachers need to plan supervising controls to ensure that students do not leave everything for the last minute, and can pay attention to the teacher's corrections at different moments. Students did not like that the Diary was compulsory, and they did not like that it was public either, but their perceptions concerning the latter improved significantly, and they used each other's productions as guidance. The Diary was a threat to average and weak students because it was hard work which, if not done, meant failing the term. The wiki's lack of popularity was strengthened by technical problems. For goal 2, the teacher's strategy to provide unfocused, indirect, personalised feedback was not appropriate because it meant a lot of work and did not make some of the students respond to it. The fact that it was timely could not solve the design flaw that it was delivered at the end of the term. These students were the same that show low interest for the design (Darío(a)) or weak students with low metacognitive strategies and linguistic knowledge. So, the students who needed it more (although Mariana(a) became an exception) were the ones who used it less. The students' perception of feedback was positive enough, but somehow unconscious of the effort it meant to the teacher. For goal 3, when we study the students' performance in the Diary in some depth, we observe that some students used agency for purposes other than learning, and this behaviour is not related to their linguistic knowledge, but bears relation to how much they make sense of a task and the characteristics of the assessment program. Students did not make sense of the cognitive part of the Diary because the sentences they wrote were not connected with the writing assignments. Furthermore, feedback that focuses only in WCF or sentences rather than paragraphs is not appropriate to teach EFL writing, because such input only addresses one aspect of the overall writing ability. Students value the sentences they wrote in the vocabulary task significantly worse at the end than they did at the beginning of the year. However, they value significantly better that the Diary is an efficient tool to learn English. As for its metacognitive part of the Diary, results were poor when the students were not capable of noticing for themselves what they had learnt, but depended on metacognitive explanations from the teacher which they often did not understand. Students expressed that they liked writing more when they could freely choose what to write about, and this perception improved significantly at the end of the school year. But results show that when students are free to write what they please, the use of translators increases. For this reason, designing tasks that makes them use the vocabulary and grammar they have just been taught would give more meaning to instruction and avoid the dangers of technical cheating. Rich environments where students are exposed to a lot of input (such as films in English subtitled in English) promote EFL writing, especially when the students are asked to carry out a diversity of tasks that stretch for some time.
e-Learning is now an essential component of education. Globalization, the proliferation of information available on the Internet and the importance of knowledge-based economies have added a whole new dimension to teaching and learning. As more tutors, students and trainees, and institutions adopt online learning there is a need for resources that will examine and inform this field. Using examples from around the world, the authors of e-Learning: Concepts and Practices provide an in-depth examination of past, present and future e-learning approaches, and explore the implications of applying e-learning in practice. Topics include: educational evolution enriching the learning experience learner empowerment design concepts and considerations creation of e-communities communal constructivism. This book is essential reading for anyone involved in technology enhanced learning systems, whether an expert or coming new to the area. It will be of particular relevance to those involved in teaching or studying for information technology in education degrees, in training through e-learning courses and with developing e-learning resources.
