Retrieved from CALL-EJ Online

EFL Teachers' Perceptions and Perspectives on Internet-Assisted Language Teaching

CALL-EJ Online

Vol. 8, No. 2, January 2007

Authors

- Hee-Jae Shin is an EFL teacher at Buyeo Girls' High School in Chungnam Province, Korea. Her main research interest is in Internet-assisted English language teaching and learning.

- Jeong-Bae Son is a teacher educator in applied linguistics with specialisation in computer-assisted language learning. He teaches applied linguistics (TESOL & LOTE) courses and supervises research projects in the Faculty of Education at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He is currently President of the Asia-Pacific Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (http://www.apacall.org).

The aim of the research is to find out the Korean secondary school EFL teachers’ perceptions and perspectives on the use of the internet for teaching purposes. This research includes how the teachers use the internet and what types of resources they usually work on.

To gain the data, researches used a set of questionnaires that consist of 3 parts; demographic section for background, multiple choice section of Likert scale for subjects’ perceptions, and open ended section for general opinion and comment by the subjects. The questionnaires have been distributed through online and offline, and the data has been quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed to ensure the reliability of the findings.

For this research, the researchers have distributed 150 questionnaires for Korean secondary school EFL teachers in Kyungki and Chungnam province. However, only 101 completed questionnaires have been returned within two months time. The subjects consist of 52 males and 49 females, age ranged from 23 to 60 years old with the experience ranged from less than 5 years to more than 25 years experience.

Overall, the findings of the research stated that most of the teachers have given a positive feedback towards the usage of the internet in EFL class. Most of them believe that internet-based could be the best way to teach EFL because the internet can provide so many authentic materials that will suit the nature of the English language. The teachers only have to wisely choose the material to be implemented in the class.

As future teacher who will be dealing with technology-savvy students, this research really can assist me to know how other teachers’ acceptance towards the use of internet in teaching language. In the future, I might be taking internet as the main tool in my classroom since students are really attracted and kind of bounded to this technology. It is in line with the ministry’s goal to produce IT literate students and teachers so that they are updated with the current issues and medium in order to improve teaching and learning process. We know that students nowadays take internet as their food of thought in which they use internet as their main source to learn. Internet is used by all people in the whole wide world regardless their purposes and interest. As teacher, we have to know how to make sure students’ interest towards the lesson can be prolonged and we know that almost 99% of the students, their interest is on the internet. Thus, by using what actually interest them can help both teachers and students to make the lesson more meaningful and successful. However, in order to implement this method, we should know how experienced teachers react to this kind of teaching and learning process. Therefore, this research has proven that teachers nowadays use internet not only because they can attract the students’ interest but also their abilities to integrate the internet into the classroom. In this developing environment, updated method is essential to make sure the effectiveness of the learning and teaching process.

In my opinion, the research has been done well, in terms of the scope of surveying. It includes all aspect of internet application in school. However, the questionnaire that has been distributed is too small since this research can be implemented to the whole Korea. Because of the small amount of sample, the findings might not be valid and reliable. The other thing is the research actually can be widening to the other province in Korea. By doing so, the researchers might be able to know the differences of internet usage between different provinces in Korea.

This research really benefits all novice and future teachers because we could know whether this internet-assisted language teaching can be implemented in Malaysia. This is because we cannot simply make the experiment in the classroom without knowing the correct way to do it. From this research, we can identify the strengths and the weaknesses of internet in language teaching and learning process. When the pros and cons can be identified, we can find the solutions and strategies to improve the system. Some may not agree with this method of teaching and some may yearn for it since most research has proven that internet does help teacher in classroom. Other than the implementation, this research also found what the teachers actually need and problem the teachers face when teaching language. In Malaysian context, this internet-assisted language teaching has been implemented years ago since the sources for the lesson can be easily found on the internet. It is just we do not know the pros and cons of using it as not so many research focus on the pros and cons of internet in teaching language. Even though this research is conducted on Korean teachers but at least we can get the gist of what the internet actually gives to the teachers, how it actually assists the teachers or gives more burdens.

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