Perceptions of Instructors on Using Web 2.0 Tools in Academic English Courses

It is impossible to imagine a university instructor who does not make use of the internet today. The internet provides not only quick access to reliable research data but also certain programs that teachers can tailor to use in their own specific contexts and to interact with their students in practical ways. There might still be resistance to learning new technologies and adapting to them even in the most ‘modern’ work environments even among the relatively younger teachers. The aim of this study was to explore the ELT instructors’ perspectives on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in university level academic English skills courses in an English-medium university, and to test whether a year-long regular training program made a difference in their perceptions and practice of the use of Web 2.0 tools in their teaching. 21 instructors from Middle East Technical University were offered regular training sessions on the practical uses of certain Web 2.0 tools such as, the Google Drive, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Docs, Google Forms, Kahoot, Mysimpleshow, Poll Everywhere, Nearpod, Mentimeter, Edpuzzle, and QR codes. A pretest and posttest to explore the instructors’ knowledge of and attitudes towards Web 2.0 tools were administered before and after the series of training sessions to see if there were any significant changes. Also, follow-up interviews were carried out with the instructors who participated in the sessions to obtain a deeper insight into their perspectives. Both the questionnaire and the interview results revealed that there were significant changes in these instructors’ attitudes towards the use of Web 2.0 tools

EDUCATIONAL ANALYTICS OF AN OPENCOURSEWARE

Analytics as one of the recent fields in technology-based learning offers many benefits to educators, instructors, and administrators to improve the efficiency and quality of alternative educational materials, and learning experience through tracking and storing students’ log data on web platforms over an extended period of time. This mixed-method study investigates students’ log data retrieved from the opencourseware (OCW) specifically launched for a required academic English speaking skills course offered at Middle East Technical University in Turkey with the aim of enhancing the quality and efficiency of the materials available for the course. By understanding the reasons behind students’ behaviors via the interviews conducted with 50 students on this online courseware, this study also aims to provide useful practical hints to the instructors and guide them to act on future decisions. The analyzed data is based on learner behavior with a specific emphasis on average view duration, likes and dislikes, and comments. This study can serve as a starting point to guide and provide the instructors and administrators about the future of the aforementioned course which is also offered in a rotational hybrid learning format where the effectiveness of online materials gain even more importance

An Evaluation of Local Mentor Support in AE E-Teacher Educational Technology Integration Online Teacher Training Course

This study addressed a different approach to online language teacher training programs. The researchers investigated the pros and cons of having local mentor support for an online course titled Using Technology in the English Language Classroom provided by the AE E-Teacher Program. The course was offered to preservice teachers from 24 different universities across Turkey. The study collected data through a pre- and post-online survey and individual semistructured interviews. The results revealed that while local mentoring as a supplement to the main course content contributed to teacher candidates’ emotional and professional attachment to their profession by helping them relate theory to contextualized educational settings, it can still be improved by the integration of more interactive tasks that would help the attendees refer to specific practical implementation of the educational technology tools introduced in the program

Innovations and Challenges in Language Learning Motivation

Innovations and Challenges in Language Learning Motivation, Zoltan Dornyei. Routledge, NY/USA (2020). 186 pp., Paperback: $34.99, ISBN:978-1-138-59916-1 (c) 2020 EJAL & the Authors. Published by Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics (EJAL). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY-NC-ND) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Sociocultural Theory-Driven Google Drive Use

The relationship between researchers and practitioners has not always been a dialogic one in the field of second language acquisition. Hence, theories may end up being perceived as futile if they do not assist the practice of teaching. This research aims to put Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory (SCT) into practice using a practical online tool, namely Google Drive, by adapting it to the language classroom. The aim of this study is to explore the use of Google Drive. Google Drive is not only an online memory tool, but it also enables multiple users to work on the same documents at the same time or at different times. In the present study, it allowed the researcher and the participants of the study, her students, to interact with their peers on an online platform. The literature is laden with research on the contribution of online interaction to students’ regulation of their learning. Yet, the present study is different from previous studies on Web 2.0 tools used in language classrooms since it was conducted on the contribution of Google Drive, specifically as a ‘mediation tool’ in a language class. This small scale exploratory interventionist action research aims to explore the following research question: What are students’ perceptions on the use of Google Drive as a mediation tool to scaffold learning in an Academic Oral Presentation Skills Course