FLED 543

FINAL PROJECT
SAMET KARAMAN

2010105261
 ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on student motivation in classes where interactive white boards are used as

a computer medium regarding the improvements in technology and increasing ratios of

implementing technology in educational settings to promote interaction among different

subjects as student to student, teacher to student or occasionally student to computer. There

are relatively few studies in this topic and this study aims to reveal the students attitude

towards classes where interactive white boards or smart boards are used. There seem to be

some disadvantages looking from the perspective of students and a number of advantages

which might outnumber the disadvantages in educational setting.

 INTRODUCTION

Following the Industrial Revolution and the scientific innovations occurred during the

first quarter of 1900s, it can be said that English has gained importance, as it is lingua franca

(House 1999; Seidlhofer 2005). As English is being used as the common tongue within the

fields of industry and science, it became inevitable for other components of society to use it as

a communication medium. Since there is great importance given to English as the common

tongue, English language teaching methodologies affected by these consequences in different

ways. Starting with the Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO

Project) which aimed to use computer as a mean of artificial instructions, technology has

affected English language teaching in various ways. As John Dewey (1944) stated that if we

teach todays students as we taught yesterdays, we rob them of tomorrow. It is possible to

infer from Deweys statement that if the educational settings and understanding of teaching

do not change besides the improvements of technology, it is not highly possible to alter the

upcoming improvements within the desired way of affecting the human life.

Citing from the Morgan (2014), today, the new generation is called digital natives as

they are exposed to the technology from very beginning of their lives and adjust their ways

according to the advancement of technology. Thus, it is a known fact that teachers and

learners have been integrating technology in their lives beyond the walls of school (Miller,

2009). As this statement by Miller (2009) summarizes a lot, Scinicariello (1997) states that

technology is a tool to be made use of in this (language teching and learning) process and

Warlick mentions about the use of technology in his blog as We need technology in every

classroom and in every student and teachers hand, because it is the pen and paper of our
time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world (cited in Jahara,

2012).

With the recent achievements in technological accessibility with the help of

commercial companies and non-commercial organizations endeavor, it is now possible for a

great number of the world population to access both computers or micro-computers such as

Raspberry Pie or todays smartphones. These tools are, regarding as computers, eases the

ability to create interaction among users, naming students and teachers, and let users to

facilitate support learning in many different ways as Gorjian, Moosavinia, Ebrahimi Kavari,

Asgari and Hydarei (2011) states. Teachers use audio tapes, video tapes, computers, tablet

computers and even smartphones as by means of technology in their classrooms and try to

increase the interaction and advancement rates of students in language learning.

Waschauer (1996), states the advantages of using computers in language learning

environment as below;

Repeated exposure to the same material is beneficial or even essential to learning.

A computer is ideal for carrying out repeated drills, since the machine does not get

bored with presenting the same material and since it can provide immediate

nonjudgmental feedback.

A computer can present such material on an individualized basis, allowing students

to proceed at their own pace and freeing up class time for other activities.

The process of finding the right answer involves a fair amount of student choice,

control, and interaction.

 The computer can create a realistic learning environment, since listening can be

combined with seeing, just as in the real world.

Multimedia and hypermedia technologies allow a variety of media (text, graphics,

sound, animation, and video) to be accessed on a single machine. Hence, skills are

easily integrated, since the variety of media makes it natural to combine reading,

writing, speaking and listening in a single activity.

Internet technology facilitates communications among the teacher and the language

learners. It allows a teacher or student to share a message with a small group, the

whole class, a partner class, or an international discussion list of hundreds or

thousands of people.

Incorporating NLP techniques provide learners with more flexibleindeed, more

intelligentfeedback and guidance in their language learning process.

Regarding the very first point Waschauer (1996) mentions, computers ability to work

offline and online lets its user to reach the material intended to use within the classroom via

their computer equipment which creates the repeated exposure. This also let students to

customize the materials being used for individuals and allow students to proceed on their

own pace and freeing up class time for other activities.

Considering the interactive white boards, it is a fairly new but vastly adapted

technology by the educators and students around the country. According to Wall, Higgins and

Smith (2005) interactive white board (Smart Board) technology can be an effective tool for

learning process. Frankova states that Interactive technology such as Smart Board could

bring interaction between pupil and interactive teaching aid, a different way of gathering the
knowledge by pupils and it could contribute to the development of cognitive thinking of

students.

The aim of this study is to find out the students attitude towards the use of interactive

whiteboards within the language learning environment and the effectiveness of interactive

whiteboards on success level of students.

 METHODOLOGY

Setting and Participants

I plan to find two schools from stanbul, preferably Anatolian High Schools, with

similar backgrounds. Participants of the study would include the teachers and students with

similar backgrounds and socio-economic standards. It is preferable to choose teachers with

experience over 10 years to supply necessary experience in language teaching. Students

would be assigned to two groups randomly via the school management, and two classrooms

would be useful to create one experiment group in which interactive whiteboards will be used

and one control group in which traditional blackboards will be used. Additionally, the

students who will participate in the study from each group will be chosen according to their

previous experience with both kind of boards, interactive whiteboards and traditional black

boards.

Procedure

Participants will be interviewed for the study. They will be asked to answer what they

feel when the interactive whiteboards are used within a course during the year and for the

control groups what they feel when traditional blackboards are used. After the interviews,

each group will be subjected to two pre-tests before the beginning of each semester which

will be a placement test (Oxford Placement Test) and right after the end of each semester

students will be subjected to post tests which will be the very same placement test (Oxford

Placement Test). Also, exams take place during two semesters will be regarded as
achievement test data and will be taken into consideration and analysis during the evaluation

and analysis of data.

Evaluation of the Data and Findings

Evaluation of the data will be done on SPSS (IBM Predictive Analysis Software) and

the results will be displayed as charts and graphs. These will include;

Frequent answer patterns gathered from students via interview

Pre-test results from each groups separately

Post-test results from each group separately

Exam results graphics from each group

Comparative analysis of the graphs

Comparative analysis of exam results and student answers gathered from

interviews
 REFERENCES

Dewey, J. (1944) Democracy and Education, New York: Macmillan Company, p. 167.

Frankova, E. (2011). The Use of Interactive Whiteboards in Primary English language

classrooms. Practice and Theory in Systems of Education, 6, 3, 221-228.

Gorjian, B., Moosavinia, S. R., Ebrahimi Kavari, K., Asgari, P., & Hydarei, A. (2011). The

impact of asynchronous computer-assisted language learning approaches on English as

a foreign language high and low achievers' vocabulary retention and recall. Computer

Assisted Language Learning, 24(5), 383-391.

House, J. (1999). Misunderstanding in intercultural communication: Interactions in English as

a lingua franca and the myth of mutual intelligibility. In: Gnutzmann C. (Eds.) Teaching

and Learning English as a Lingua Franca. Narr, Tbingen, 7393.

Jahara, S.F. (2012). Digital to Induce Language Learning. International Academic and

Industrial Research Solutions, 33-36.

Miller, E. A. (2009). Digital Storytelling (Doctoral dissertation, University of Northern Iowa).

Morgan, H. (2014). Using Digital Story Projects To Help Students Improve In Reading And

Writing. Reading Improvement, 51(1), 20-26.

Seidlhofer, B. (2005). English as a lingua franca. ELT journal, 59(4), 339-41.

Wall, K., Higgins, S., & Smith, H. (2005). The visual helps me understand the complicated

things: pupil views of teaching and learning with interactive whiteboards. British

journal of Educational Technology, 36, 5, 851-867.

Warschauer, M. (1996). Computer-assisted language learning: An introduction. In S. Fotos

(Ed.), Multimedia language teaching (pp. 3 20). Tokyo, Japan: Logos International
 APPENDIX A

Possible Interview Question

Interview questions are subjected to change if needed be.

What do you feel when your teacher uses interactive whiteboards for a class hour?

Do you want to join the activities conducted via the interactive whiteboard?

Do you want to interact with your peers or your teacher when interactive whiteboard is

used?

Do you feel distracted when your teacher uses interactive whiteboard or more

motivated and focused?

If you have a chance to choose, which one would you choose? Interactive whiteboard

or traditional blackboard? Why?