عکس رهبر جدید
۰
سبد خرید شما خالی است.

Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students' Achievement

  فایلهای مرتبط
Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students' Achievement
هدف این مطالعه بررسی استفاده از ابزار چندرسانه ای در کلاس های زبان و تأثیر آن بر یادگیری فراگیران زبان انگلیسی می باشد. به این منظور پژوهشگران عملکرد دو گروه را تحت نظر گرفتند. آنگاه در گروه اول اصطلاحات جدید را با استفاده از روش های مرسوم تدریس لغت، و در گروه دوم با به کارگیری ابزار چندرسانه ای در یک آزمایشگاه زبان، ارائه دادند. نتایج امتحانات پایان ترم حاکی از تأثیر مثبت تلفیق ابزار چندرسانه ای در فرایند یادگیری اصطلاحات بود. این یافته به نوبه خود اهمیت استفاده از تکنولوژی های نو در عرصه آموزش به طور کلی و آموزش زبان به صورت خاص را بیش از پیش آشکار می سازد.

Guidlines for Publishing in Action Research

Coordinator: Mehdi B. Mehrani

 

We have recently specified a special column in Roshd FLT Journal for publishing small-scale research studies that teachers conduct in their own classes. We intend to publish at least one action research report in each issue of Roshd FLT Journal. Thus, we encourage you to submit the reports of your classroom research to be published in our “Action Research Column”.

We accept papers on the basis of their relevancy to our readers, simplicity, readability, and freshness of viewpoint. Your papers do not have to follow the standards of scholarly, academic research papers. We do not use complicated statistical analyses, technical terms or footnotes. Thus, write in a simple, plain and easy to understand manner. Please cite all of your sources within the text, and provide a list of references at the end of your article. When writing your paper, please include the following information in your report:

 

• Your research questions and your plan for answering the research questions

• The actions that you did over a period of time in order to answer the questions

• Your evaluation of the effects of the actions and any evidence that support your evaluation

• Your conclusion and suggestions for other teachers

 

To be accepted for publication, your articles need to:

• Be maximum 2500 words, including references

• Be on a topic of relevance or interest to Iranian language teachers

• Include an abstract of no more than 200 words, and a list of references

 

 

We are looking forward to your action research reports. Should you have any inquiries about how to prepare a report of your action research, you can send an email to Dr. Mehrani at the following address: meh.mehrani@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students' Achievement

Abstract

The current study aimed to investigate the use of multimedia in language classrooms and its impact on EFL students’ achievement. To this end the researcher observed the performance of two groups, the first of which was taught new idioms according to the traditional method of teaching vocabulary and the latter was taught using multimedia in a language lab. The results of the final exam demonstrated the positive impact of integrating multimedia on idioms learning. This, in turn, substantiates the importance of integrating new technologies in education in general and language teaching in particular.

  

Introduction

Due to idioms' frequent use in everyday language use, they have recently received a great deal of attention from a pedagogical point of view. Because of the arbitrary nature of idioms, they are considered as one of the problematic and challenging areas in learning a language. According to Gibbs (1992), a clear understanding of idioms help learners to understand the meaning of metaphorical and lexical texts better. A proficient second language learner, must know at least several thousand idioms (Boers, Demecheleer & Eyckmans, 2004). Cooper (1999) stated, “Indeed, mastery of an L2 may depend in part on how well learners comprehend initially and produce eventually the idioms encountered in everyday language”
(p. 234). Due to the importance of learning idioms in L2 vocabulary acquisition there is a necessity to conduct research in this domain. In recent years, many researchers have examined the effect of multimedia materials on second language acquisition (Fernando, 1996 as cited in Golaghaei & Kakolian, 2015). In this study, the researchers report on the result of an action research which was conducted in an idiom focused course at university of Zanjan. To this aim two classes were included. In one of them idioms were taught based on the traditional method of vocabulary teaching and in the second class the idioms were taught using multimedia in a lab. In the end, the results of the two classes on the final exam were compared to find out which class performed better.

 Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students

Planning

This study was conducted in two idiom-focused classes at the University of Zanjan. In each class, there were about thirty male and female students with the mean age of 21. The participants of this study were BA English translation students. Eight instructional sessions were conducted in each class. In both classes the English Idioms in Use was taught.

For the first group, (i.e. control) the idioms were taught in the traditional method by the instructor while in the other class the same idioms were presented through pictorials, power points and videos. In each session, the instructor carefully selected pictures and videos from the internet or prepared a power point to teach the new idioms to the learners. At the end of the nine week instruction, the final exam was administered to find out the impact of including multimedia in teaching new language items.

 

Action

In this study, the participants were 62 BA English translation students of University of Zanjan. Among them, there were both males and females. As far as they all had passed the Konkour (University Entrance Exam) and they were at the same level (BA) no pretest was conducted. These students were randomly divided into two classes by university procedures. The instructor of both classes was one of the researchers who run eight instructional sessions in one semester. The textbook of both classes was English Idioms in Use.  In the control group, the classes were conducted in usual classrooms with whiteboard. The idioms in this group were taught by the instructor based on traditional method. In each session, the instructor covered one unit of the textbook and taught the idioms by explaining them or even providing students with the Persian equivalent of the idioms. In the other group, the sessions were conducted in the language laboratory. In the language laboratory of university of Zanjan, each student is provided with a monitor and a headphone. For each session and each idiom of the textbook, some power points and videos were provided. In these power points, the meaning of idioms was illustrated and in most cases there was no need for verbal explanation to be provided by the instructor; through the videos the students could learn how to use them in real contexts. All the eight instructional sessions were conducted in this way. In the end, the final idiom exam was given to both groups. This exam was developed by the researchers based on the idioms which had been taught to both groups.

 

Observation 

In order to find out which method was successful for teaching idioms, the same final exam was administered to both groups. The following table shows the participants' mean scores on the idiom exam after one semester instruction. As the table shows, 32 students were in the traditional group and 30 students were in the multimedia group. The mean score of students in the traditional group on the idiom final exam was 13.87 while the mean score of the students in the multimedia group on the idiom final exam, was 15.97. This shows the average score of the students in the multimedia class was 2.1 score higher than the ones in the traditional group and therefor had better performance on the final exam. Based on the scores of the two groups and their comparison it can be concluded that the multimedia had an effect on teaching idioms. In order to find out the significant effect of multimedia an independent sample t-test was conducted. The ρ value of the independent test was .004. When the ρ value is smaller than .05 it can be concluded that the treatment and in this case use of multimedia in teaching idioms was significantly effective.

Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students

 

Reflection

The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of using multimedia for teaching idioms. As the results of the study showed, the students who were taught idioms through multimedia had better performance in comparison with those who were taught idioms traditionally. It is worth mentioning that in this study and for the treatment group some power points, pictures and videos were used as multimedia to teach idioms to learners. According to Vasiljevic, (2012), the inclusion of pictures in instruction helps learners activate the sensory attributes of that item which in turn facilitates its recall and retention. As Clark and Paivio (1991) put it, through visual illustration, the imagery system is activated and then the input and materials are understood faster and better. In the imagery system inputs are represented non-verbally and then different sensory modalities of input (e.g. shapes, sounds, and emotions) are decoded simultaneously and are also unified in complex images. These compound images help learners to retrieve and remember the input in a more complete manner (Vasiljevic, 2012). The method used in this study was visualizing the idioms for students to help them remember and recall idioms better. As it can be inferred from the results here, this method was successful and scores of learners in the treatment group was higher than the ones in the control group. On the whole it can be said that using pictures/videos and non-verbal input could be very effective in the process of language learning. Further studies can be undertaken to explore the effect of multimedia on other aspects of language by other teachers. Teachers can also investigate the students’ feedback in their classes to see if it leads to similar or different outputs.

Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students  

 

References

Boers, F., Demecheleer, M., & Eyckmans, J. (2004). Etymological elaboration as a strategy for learning idioms. In P.Bogaards and B. Laufer (Eds.), Vocabulary in a second language: Selection, acquisition and testing (pp.53-78). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Clark, J., & Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory and education. Educational Psychology Review, 71, 64-73.

Cooper, T. (1999). Processing of idioms by L2 learners of English. TESOL Quarterly 33, 233-62.

Gibbs, R.W. (1992). What do idioms really mean? Journal of Memory and language, Retrieved, from http://www.gse.uci.edu/ed168/resume.

Golaghaei.N, & Kakolian.S. (2015). The effect of visual and etymological treatments on learning decomposable idioms among EFL learners. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature. 4(5), 72-81

Vasiljevic.V. (2012). Teaching Idioms through Pictorial Elucidation. The Journal of Asia TEFL. 9. 3, pp. 75-105.

۲۱۹۹
کلیدواژه (keyword): کلاس درس,ابزار چند رسانه ای,یادگیری اصطلاحات,فراگیران,classroom,idiom learning,multimedia,learners,Elham Mohammadi,Parvin Babamoradi,Integrating Multimedia in Idioms Class and Its Impact on EFL Students' Achievement,Action Research
نام را وارد کنید
ایمیل را وارد کنید
تعداد کاراکتر باقیمانده: 500
نظر خود را وارد کنید