1. How much research is there?
The short answer is ‘lots’. Computers and digital materials first appeared in English language teaching back in the late 1980s, so we have a rich research tradition, stretching back several decades. Of course, hardware and software have developed and changed significantly during this time, but teachers have always wondered whether technology actually helps their students learn – or not.
2.What does the research say? Does technology help learning?
The short answer is ‘it depends’. Unsurprisingly, it is extremely difficult to make comparisons across contexts, where research studies are carried out with very different groups of learners, using a range of different technology tools, with widely differing aims and task types. For example, imagine a blog research project carried out with a group of US primary students in order to improve their literacy and writing skills1; imagine a research project that examines whether a group of Iranian university students learn academic vocabulary better with SMS texts than with dictionaries2; and imagine a research project in China and Scotland based on a computer game that provides adolescent students with oral prompts in order to develop their speaking skills3.
These are all real research projects, taking place in very different learning contexts with very different students. Comparing these studies to each other is problematic. At the same time, trying to generalise results from very small-scale, one-off action research projects that may be underpinned by more or less robust research methods is also questionable.
3.So what do these research studies tell us?
Each of these studies had very different objectives, followed different research procedures and yielded different results The blog project used a case study methodology to look at the writing skills development of one learner in a class of elementary students. The researchers found that the blogging curriculum developed her writing skills, increased her confidence as a writer and improved her written language. So a positive result (for one student) overall.
In the Iranian SMS vocabulary study, a class of 28 EAP students received ten words and example sentences twice a week via SMS, and were exposed to a total of 320 new words. A control group studied the same vocabulary, using a dictionary. Post-test scores showed an improvement in vocabulary learning for all the students, but no significant difference between the two groups. However, a later test showed that the SMS group were able to recall more vocabulary than the dictionary group. Another positive result.
4. Do most research studies show positive results?
The computer game study compared the uptake of the game software by two separate groups of teenage students and their response to it: 48 learners of English in China, and 28 learners of French in Scotland. The two groups showed different levels of motivation. The Chinese students reported increased positive attitudes, whereas the Scottish students reported increased anxiety levels and decreasing positive attitudes. A follow-up study4 highlighted limitations in the speech recognition software: the system frequently had significant difficulties recognising what the students said. So mixed results overall in this study. Sometimes, studies on exactly the same area (such as learning vocabulary via SMS) show differing results – in some cases it appears to be effective, while in others it doesn’t seem to make any difference. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that research studies tend to be self-selective. Researchers often only publish studies that show positive results, and although.they try to avoid it, they are inevitably biased towards positive outcomes. All of this means that it’s difficult to make sweeping generalisations such as ‘technology helps students learn English better’ or even ‘regular SMS texts help university students learn academic vocabulary better’.
5. Where does this leave us?
For me, the important point to take away is that we need to be critical users of digital technologies, and critical readers of research in the field. We need to be particularly wary of technocentric views of technology that claim that the latest hardware/software/game/app/program will somehow magically help our students learn English ‘better’. In short, we need to be critically aware consumers of new technologies – both as users ourselves, and as teachers interested in using digital technologies with our own learners.
References
1 Gebhard, M, Shin, D S and Seger, W ‘Blogging and emergent L2 literacy development in an urban elementary school: a functional perspective’ CALICO Journal 28 (2) 2011
2 Alemi, M, Sarab, M and Lari, Z ‘Successful learning of academic word list via MALL: mobile assisted language learning’ International Education Studies 5 (6) 2012
3 Morton, H and Jack, M ‘Speech interactive computer-assisted language learning: a cross-cultural evaluation’ Computer Assisted Language Learning 23 (4) 2010
4 Morton, H, Gunson, N and Jack, M ‘Interactive language learning through speech-enabled virtual scenarios’ Advances in Human-Computer Interaction (www.hindawi.com/journals/ahci/ 2012/389523/) 2012
