Fostering independent learning amongst English for Academic Purposes students through exploration of digital tools

作者：Simon Heslup · 年份：2018 · DOI：10.5339/QFARC.2018.SSAHPD855 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Psychology

This poster presentation describes an ongoing research project investigating the use of digital tools by university students in Qatar. The study also explores the effectiveness of having students inform each other of the usefulness of self-selected digital tools for English language learning. Rationale Mitra and colleagues (Dolan et al., 2013; Mitra, Leat, Dolan, & Crawley, 2010) suggest that self-organized groups of learners sharing a common technological tool (traditionally a computer) offers a self-empowered and socially supported avenue of effective learning outside the classroom. Interest in digital tools facilitating self-directed learning has only increased with the development of the power and complexity of the World Wide Web (Blake, 2013; Saxena, 2013). Important reported benefits include greater learner motivation (Saxena, 2013) and the development of learning communities outside the traditional educational setting (Lord & Lomicka, 2011). For language learners, the Web 2.0 has often been used to provide added opportunities to practice or use language outside of the classroom (Blake, 2013; Borau, Ullrich, Feng, & Shen, 2009). Examples include the numerous grammar explanations and exercises, and the use of microblogs for language learning (Antenos-Conforti, 2009; Castrillo De Larreta-Azelain, 2013; Lord & Lomicka, 2011; Wang & Vasquez, 2012). Digital English language product revenues in the Middle East will exceed $215 million by 2018 (Global Educational Supplies and ...