Authors' Background:
Guofang Wan received her Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. Currently she teaches both graduate and undergraduate majors at Ohio University, USA. She has a long-term passion for exploring effective ways of language instruction, and using technology and storytelling to enhance language instruction in Asian countries. Her book Media-Savvy Student was published in 2004.
Rex Tanimoto teaches EFL at Osaka Gakuin University, Osaka, Japan. His interests are creating and producing narrative-based learning activities through digital visual and audio formats and techniques. His latest book, New Storyteller, was published by Macmillan Language House, 2006).
Dr. Rosalyn Anstine Templeton is Executive Dean and Professor of Education in the College of Education and Human Services at Marshall University, West Virginia, USA. She is an expert in special education including and teaching ESL students in regular classrooms.
B. Summary of the Article:
This research aims to assess the effectiveness of FM Magic, a web-based multimedia English program that teaches EFL in a Japanese University. The purpose of creating FM Magic is to replace the teacher-centered approach in high school and university language classrooms, which was mostly based on the grammar-translation approach, and turn it into a constructivist and authentic learning environment for students. This research is conducted to see whether the learning environment created by the FM Magic program could be conducive to language learning for the EFL Japanese students. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this research. One of the instruments used for the assessment is the Constructivist Multimedia Learning Environment Survey (CMLES) which contains 30 questions. The students were asked to rate the actual demonstration of constructivist characteristics in the classroom at the end of the course on a scale of 1 to 5 (‘Almost Never’, ‘Seldom’, ‘Sometimes’, ‘Often’ and ‘Always’). The Student Open-ended Questionnaire containing 10 questions was also used to support the finding of the CMLES. The samples were 79 EFL juniors and seniors taking an advanced writing course. Among the 79 participating, 59 returned their surveys. The findings from both instruments are combined and the results are divided into categories. In “Learning to Communicate,” the mean is 3.9. The students enjoy “talking” to each other on the forum. By reading their peers’ stories, they are able to build creative ideas of their own. “Learning to Investigate” and “Learning to Think” both shared the mean of 3.5. Since none of the participants had any previous online learning experience before, they were curious to explore the program. The activities encouraged them to use their critical thinking to solve the problems on their own. In addition, the stories written by the teacher served as good models and allowed them to use their imagination to create individual works based on their own perspectives. The above-average score of 3.9 for “Relevance” reflects that the students find the program as realistic and fitting with their personal lives.”Ease of use” and “Challenge” were two of the highest score in the category with 4.1 and 4.2 respectively. The FM Magic website is user-friendly and works well most of the time with the students. The colours, images, and stories are easy to apply. The program provides them with a different challenge from the monotonous learning environment that they were used to before and motivates them to want to improve on their language writing skills. Suggestions were also given in which a majority of them wished they could create their own illustrations. The desire of sharing their stories and receiving feedback from their peers was also suggested to be included in the program.
C. Reaction Towards the Article:
The research was interesting and comprehensive. Combining the traditional method of storytelling and modern technology seems like a clever way of creating a more conducive learning environment. The idea of a simulated, pre-recorded Internet radio program gives students the opportunity to experience a real-life working environment. The research was experimentally well conducted. It has high-face and content validity by using the Likert scale to rate the effectiveness of the program as well as provide open-ended questions for the researchers to make future improvements on the program. While I do agree that the use of computer stimulated activities in the classroom can enhance learning, I think it will take many years before this can be fully implemented. Even though some schools in Malaysia are equipped with computers and Internet connection, some teachers are reluctant to use them due to lack of training and time management. This is based on a personal experience I encountered during my practicum. The EST (English for Science and Technology) teacher, Puan Rozita, held a computer training session in the computer lab for all morning and afternoon session English teachers. We were taught (step-by-step) how to create a blog so that the teachers could use this activity in class. From my observation, most of the teachers had problems doing this. Some got lost and others were confused with which button labels to click on. Some of them gave up and ended up observing the others. Needless to say, our computer training session finished up quite early. In general though, I think there should be a balance between using computer technology and the traditional teaching approach. While computers enable students to be independent learners, they don’t have the capability to handle unexpected classroom situations as the experienced and human instructor can. (731 Words)
8.3/10
ReplyDeletethank you, sir =)
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