The effect of learner training on the use of Digital tools to support English Writing Skills
Discussion & Conclusion
Richardson, Nash, and Flora (2014) also pointed out a direct relationship between accessibility and students attitudes towards the use of technology. In the present study, a smartphone and a computer or a laptop at home were common devices accessible by more than 95% of the participating students and they also exhibited a positive attitude towards the use of technology.
Method
Training
Hubbard’s (2004) principles of learner training and Romeo and Hubbard’s (2010) model of training were adopted
The training session was based on three interlinked and sometimes overlapping categories
Strategic Training
Pedagogical
Training
Technical Training
Data collection and analysis
A modified version of the SEET questionnaire
(Gosper, McKenzie, Pizzica, Malfroy, & Ashford-Rowe, 2013) which was originally designed for tertiary students in Australia, was employed to elicit information about students’ attitudes, beliefs and practices of technologies. It consists of 3 parts:
3rd part: involved demographic information such as age, gender, education level and the amount of time students spent using digital tools each week
2nd part: investigated how students employed technology for various educational purposes;
1st part: to explore the digital tools that students had access to and used for various purposes.
Research design
The object of the training programme was for participants to learn how to use some of the writing support tools available in MS Word
Grammar, Synonyms, Thesaurus, Spell check, Translation and Textto-speech
The study was descriptive in nature, involving
the training sessions
a survey about digital practices
freewriting
pre- and post-training interviews
Time
30 hours per week
5 hrs for online class
5 hrs for self study
20 hrs in the classroom
Participants
English for Academic Purposes course students
Context
A language College in New Zealand
Introduction
International telecommunication Union (2017) has reported a continuing wide gap in the use of Internet: Africa - 21.8%; Asia - 43.9%; Europe - 79.6%.
The use of word processors can offer writing support of various types: automatic corrective feedback and stimulate collaborative learning.
Previous studies have found that computers offer multiple benefits for teaching and learning writing skills
The use of digital tools is not homogeneous all over the world
The TESOL organization set out its Technology Standards Framework for teachers and learners in 2008
Connectivity, technical sophistication and access to technology have continued to increase
Key words
Digital practices
Word processor
Grammar check
Spell check
Writing Skills
Learner training
CALL
Authors: Una Cunningham & Shaista Rashid & Thin Le (2019)
Literature review
Several researchers (Healey, 2007; Hubbard, 2004; Shetzer & Warschauer, 2000) pointed out that...
The main goal of CALL training must be to create
autonomous users of technology, which can be achieved by providing both technical and strategic training to the learners
(Reinders & White, 2010) mentions some of the constraints associated with CALL
limited quality control
a lack of systematization
web-advertising
the hidden costs of available resources
a lack of necessary support structures
Distraction from the enormous amount of information available on the Internet
Hubbard (2004) described CALL environments as powerful learning environments + learners must be prepared adequately in order to learn in these environments
offer significant self-learning opportunities, which can yield negative results if learners exhibit lack of technical, strategic and pedagogical skills
Rimrott and Heift (2005) found that ->While working in German as a target language -> MS Word (as used in 2003) missed almost half of the learners’ errors.
-> suggested 1)to understand undetected words are not necessarily correct and that the target word is not necessarily in the list of alternatives provided by the spell checker; 2) using a dictionary as a complement to a spell checker.
Gupta (1998) found that -> students in Singapore using early word processors managed to locate and correct some of their spelling errors; and they also used the spelling checker to generate words that were in their receptive but not in their productive vocabularies.
Xu and Ding (2014) explored-> Chinese Tertiary EFL learners by observing them while writing on computer -> differences in the pause patterns in writing between the skilled writers and less-skilled writers.
The less skilled writers used dictionaries more often to compensate for their linguistic
deficiencies
The skilled writers used web searches in English during their pre-writing, whereas both groups used bilingual dictionaries during the actual process
Screen and input capture software was used to capture students’ computer activity.
Prensy (2001) pointed out, the effectiveness of technology is directly -> the users' knowledge of technological tools, their expertise and level of comfort while using these tools.
Sauro (2009) and Ulusoy (2006) have focused on particular tools within word processors:
more advanced features:
Word prediction and etc.
Audiofeedback
Speech recognition
making the editing of work easy
making spelling mistakes visible
Supplying prompts for the writers
Research findings
Students’ perceptions and beliefs about use of technology for language learning were identified with the help of above questions:
Students’ were also asked questions about their practices in the use of MS Word before they began the training programme
how important the need for training in the use of the technology was
how easy the technology was to use
how useful they found the technology to be
Although students perceived technology as a help to them in every aspect of their lives, they realized the importance of the skills required to better utilize it
Students' digital practices
The participants reported spending an average total of 4.3 hours a day online, with quite a range between the most and least online activity (1-8 hours/day; SD 1.8)
E-book readers and tablets were the least common devices
Survey results: the most common devices among students were a computer at home and personal smartphones
they claimed that their use of digital devices for college work was limited to zero to 12 hours per
week (mean 5.8 hours, SD 3.8)
On the other hand, Wikipedia was mostly
used on a weekly basis. More than 40% of the students mentioned that they never used web
conferencing or video chat for educational purposes
