An Experimental
Design on the Effectiveness of CALL in Reading Comprehension Skills among ESL
Learners
Introduction
The ability for human to adapt easily to different
changes sometimes surprises them. They practically have evolved and sometimes
revolutionized dramatically the way how they live. Knowledge is the key to all
of this, with it; they can improvise what they had and understood and bring it
to another level. Same goes to the current state of era of human world where in
many parts of the world especially in the developed and developing countries
where knowledge is put as one of the top priorities and with it they can
improve themselves and outlast others. To achieve this, many countries have
been looking the best way to improve their education level and at the current
era of the information age and the computers, they have resorted to use such
medium and its peripherals to be integrated in their daily lives.
The usage of such components and devices literally
have changed the way how people look and lead their lives, up to the point
where the computers and its devices have been normalized into their lives, such
as in their communication, their works and even how they learn. The current era
or the living state of human now is also the age of information, where
knowledge is power, and people who have a high level of it would be deeply
respected and look up to. For that, this
paper, would discuss, examine and evaluate how the computing technology and the
growth of information age have revolutionized the way people learn language
specifically its effectiveness in terms of reading skills among English as a
Second Language Learners.
First and foremost, the attention should be
focused on the effectiveness of CALL or Computer Applications for Language
Learning. CALL is basically a discipline where a program or a piece of software
that are being used to teach language. Levy (1997) defined CALL as:
“[…]
as an approach to language teaching and learning in which the computer is used
as an aid to the presentation, reinforcement and assessment of material to be
learned, usually including a substantial interactive element”
He
clearly defined the most fundamental understanding of CALL where it is being
used as a technological tool that helps the teachers to teach and the learners
to learn by using available technology at their hands to the best potential.
Next is to investigate its effectiveness in helping students to achieve good
reading mastery. According to Brown (2006), “reading comprehension is a highly
interactive process that takes place between a reader and a text (p.3). The
knowledge of levels of reading comprehension is those literal, influential and
evaluative. To master these skills is a must to become a skillful reader. This is the effort of this study whereby
it is to explore the effectiveness of CALL in general and also its efficacy on
reading mastery among ESL learners.
Effective reading is vital for achievement in
obtaining a second language. After all, reading is the base of teaching in all
features of language learning: using textbooks for language courses, writing,
revising, developing vocabulary, acquiring grammar, editing, and using
computer-assisted language learning programs. One of the fundamental reasons is
that reading develops the mind. Reading is also a method of discovering new
things and adding value to our knowledge base. Apparently, to become good
readers, learners need to read as much as possible. Numerous researches have
proven that the more students read, the better their language ability. After
all, practice makes perfect in almost everything we humans do and reading is no
different. This is why we choose to specify the effort of this research on
reading skill as we believe it provide enormous advantage to language learners
in the sense that it is the center of language proficiency.
Purpose
of Study
Computers
in general serve as a tool that facilitates the language learning process.
Hence, the purpose of this study in general aims to examine its effectiveness on
reading comprehension among ESL learners. It will investigate the common errors
ESL learners always commit when they start working on the reading comprehension
exercise(s) and altogether investigate on how CALL can actually help to
increase or contribute towards the development of their reading comprehension,
compared when they learn it in the traditional classroom setting, (Teacher-Student
Hands-On interaction). Overall, this
research intends to prove the positive scores from the ESL learners in CALL
environment in regard to their great improvement in reading comprehension/skills
when they learn the tutorials through the use of computers and its applications,
software and when they answer the exercises given.
Significance
of Study
The
usage of such components and devices literally have changed the way how people
look and lead their lives, up to the point where the computers and its devices
have been normalized into their lives, such as in their communication, their
works and even how they learn. The current era or the living state of human now
is also the age of information, where knowledge is power, and people who have a
high level of it would be deeply respected and
look up to. For that, this paper, tends to investigate how the computing
technology and the growth of information age have revolutionized the way people
learn language specifically its effectiveness on helping ESL learners to be proficient
or skilled in the reading comprehension.
The
significance of this research is to know what changes can be made in developing
reading comprehension skills through the application of CALL. This study will
change both the students’ and the teachers view and perspective on knowledge
accessibility and benefits them in such a way that their world may not be
restricted only to what is in front of them. The ESL learners will be able to
increase their vocabulary, and any other sub skills or levels related to
reading skills. This research can prove that multimedia does help in the
education field better as CALL is one of most effective ways to assist learners
in building their second language knowledge.
The
details to why this study is significant can be elucidated from several
aspects. This research might offer insights or benefits to teachers, trainers,
lecturers or any authorities in any educational settings to greatly promote
technology-rich environment or CALL environment as it offers the learners
towards developing good language skills or ability in the area of not only
reading skills but other skills as well like the speaking skills, writing
skills, listening or grammar skills; language competency, vocabulary, verbal
development. Research has proven that CALL receives positive effects from
learners. This research will offer positive results from the ESL learners who
learn in CALL environment where they will surely be intrigued with the presence
of CALL itself and altogether leads to their good English attainment as
compared to the conventional way of learning language. It is with no hesitation
that CALL can and should be used extensively to endorse the development of
language skills among second language learners and to highlight here is that,
it should be an alternative to the conventional or traditional teacher/student
interaction on improving learner performance on numerous topics. It is indeed
to help the learners especially those slow learners to be illiterate is so much
a high priority.
Statement
of Problem
Ever since the arrival of communication and
information technology, computer can be used as a tool or a medium that is so
prominent in the learning and teaching pedagogy. Apparently, CALL offers bright
prospect for learning language in terms of its feature and function. However, the frequency of usage of CALL is not
parallel with the advancement of technology. Meaning to say that, most
educational institution are equipped with latest technology and facility, yet,
they still prefer traditional learning environment in conducting lessons.
The numbers of studies that investigate its effectiveness remain to increase
for the reason that CALL provides new opportunities in learning and also
teaching efficiently, clearly. This is the tricky part here as the usage of
CALL classroom both in learning and teaching is affected by the problem of
attitude. For instance, students that have positive feelings about the use of
CALL are expected to be more enthusiastic to learn the language and take the
responsibility for their own learning thus increasing their capability of acquiring
knowledge. However, this case is vice versa for students that views CALL
negatively where they are likely to have less passion in the sense of learning
language. Apart from that, teachers also play a vital role in the efficient
application of CALL programs in language. There are teachers who feel less
proficient in using CALL due to lack of familiarity and experience of CALL
propagation which portrays bad remarks since teachers represent a model for
their students. This study will attempt to discover the effectiveness of CALL
on reading comprehension among English as a Second Language Learners.
Research
Questions
The
study attempts to answer the following questions:
Research
Question 1: What are the common errors ESL learners often commit in reading
comprehension?
Research
Question 2: How does CALL increase the effectiveness of reading comprehension
compared to the traditional setting among ESL learners?
Literature Review
According
to (Bransford et al., 2000, Yelland, (2012) Computer Applications in Language Learning
(CALL) offers numerous means of improving the process of teaching and learning
in the classroom. The use of technology offers students towards developing good
oral skills; good reading ability and it is easy to discover the basic
language. CALL programs can provide a multisensory input and high-level task
that provide stimuli for language learning. This is due to CALL nature that has
various audio and visual materials. There
are many software available in regard to the usage of computer assisted in
language learning. In general, research syntheses
found a positive association between software use and student achievement
(e.g., Kulik & Kulik, 2012; Fletcher-Flinn & Gravatt, 2011; Ryan, 2012).
Hence, CALL can provide new ways of teaching and learning by providing
authentic tasks and materials. According to research, the nature of CALL that
is full with lots of fun games and interactive activities reduced students
stress level, enriched students classroom environment, as well as help students
being motivated. As a result, CALL provide new alternatives in promoting language
learning, reading especially. This is because CALL has infinite sources and
materials to be used effectively (Bhatti, 2013).
One of the most important skills in
language learning is reading comprehension skills. However, it is one of the
most serious problems in higher education (Charisma Dreyer & Charl Nel,
2003). According to Murphy (2013), the surface features of a text are an
obvious place to look when considering text difficulty. In order to understand
text difficulties, surface feature of the text need to be looked at. Surface
features include elements such as vocabulary, word length, sentence length as
well as grammatical complexity.
Bhatti (2013) stated that computers
help students develop their reading skills in three ways: incidental reading,
reading comprehension as well as in text manipulation. This process is where
the learners read the text with the purpose of completing the activities
successfully, answer traditional comprehension questions and study a text in
terms of content and structure. Healey (1999) also agrees that computers may be
beneficial in developing the reading skills such as skimming, scanning,
recognizing details, main ideas, topic sentences, predicting what will come
next. Moreover, word processing programs facilitate their writing as they
automatically check the spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. Through
various communicative and interactive activities, computer technology can help
language learners strengthen their linguistic skills, affect their learning
attitude, promote motivation, and build their self-instruction strategies and
self-confidence.
Another factor that helps in the
mastery of reading skills is the enriched environment. Diamond and Hopson
(1999), discuss how the cerebral cortex of the brain can grow when stimulated
by an enriched environment. Hence, CALL provides an interactive environment and
preventing the classroom to be boring. A non- stimulating classroom might
affect the level of students reading mastery and the focus level of students in
reading.
However, according to Jarvis and
Szymczyk (2010), the learners consider the traditional reading comprehension
drills has been very time consuming, tiresome and boring. In addition students
also find that the traditional method of language learning as being non-
interactive (Kessler, 2007). Hence, the non-enriching environment presented by
the traditional way of teaching reading will impedes students reading skills as
well as their positive attitude about reading skills.
This contrasted with the comment on
CALL environment classroom where computer language learning projects engaged
students with a number of interesting activities in enhancing reading skills
(Yubune, Kanda & Tabuchi, 2007). Hence, the purpose of this study is
to examine the efficacy of CALL in teaching reading skills.
Methodology
Sample: Participants
The
proposed total participants to engage in this study would be 60 higher
secondary school students. The participants will include two groups of 15-17 years
of age each group comprises 30 participants and vice versa. 30 students will be
divided into experimental group where they will be learning reading through
CALL and the other half of the students who will be included in the control
group will be exposed to neither computers nor its software. All of these students
will be considered to get ready and to participate in the learning environment in
either CALL or non-CALL (traditional instructor-led class) setting. The
subtests for reading are going to be totally similar for both groups and the
lessons include reading comprehension and its sub skills, which are inference,
vocabulary, global, detail.
Framework
for Data Analysis
An experimental
design will be proposed for this study. The frameworks in this study are the effectiveness of CALL on reading comprehension among ESL learners and the errors ESL learners often commit while working on their reading comprehension activity and how
does CALL increase the effectiveness of reading comprehension compared to the
traditional setting among ESL learners effectiveness of learning reading skills
through CALL instructional setting and the students’ attitudes towards the
presence of CALL in ESL classroom. First, the pre and post tests will be used
for making comparisons of students’ achievement in CALL and non-CALL settings.
The scores for pre and post tests will be recorded as the difference of means
and standard deviation using computer software.
Research
Design/ Method of Data Collection
This research paper uses quantitative data. Data
includes the frequency of errors in pre-test and post-test (Scores). The
increment or the decrement in the scores will be collected and analyzed after
both groups have completed their exercises in both experimental and control group.
The pre-test and post-test will be developed at their level. There will be two
passages altogether, one passage for pre-test and another passage for
post-test. Four types of sub skills will be analyzed which are in terms of
vocabulary, inference, details and global knowledge.
Procedure
Participants will first be informed for the purpose
of this study and will be given consent form. Those who are interested have to submit
the consent form. At the initial stage or pre-test, all participants will be given
equally challenging reading comprehension exercise. This is to measure their
existing ability on the reading skills. The frequency of errors made will be recorded
and tabulated. The next stage would be the learning process in which it is
divided into CALL (experimental group) and non-CALL (control group) setting. The
students will randomly be allocated to either experimental or control group by
the head master. The experimental group will be exposed to computers, which
include colorful pictures, sounds, graphs and other animations from various
computer softwares, applications and websites. In contrast, the control group will
go through the conventional way of learning process using textbook and comprehension
drilling using only pen, paper and with no assistance from computer. The last
stage will be the post- test. The second comprehension exercise will be
distributed to both groups. The frequency of errors will be collected and analyzed.
Both results will be compared to measure which is the most effective method or
learning environment that leads to ESL learners reading achievement.
Anticipated Findings
The results in this study will be
expected to portray the differences between CALL and non-CALL learning settings
and how CALL can actually contribute so much towards learners reading
comprehension of texts. It is expected
that the frequency of errors made at the initial stage (pre-test) would be high
in number as compared to the last stage (post-test). This is because, they only rely on to their
existing knowledge while answering the exercise given. Some or perhaps majority
of the learners will commit errors in deducing inference from the texts for
instance, or their weaknesses in comprehending the high vocabulary used in the
texts which altogether may impede their ability to understand what is said from
the texts and to answer the questions given successfully. Hence, this research
will provide the researcher with common errors the students will commit when
they start working on the reading comprehension activity and their disability
to answer the questions asked in relation to the reading sub skills which
require them to make inference, to relate to their background knowledge about
the texts and others.
After their pre-test, when both experimental
and control group receive the tutorials either with the assistance of computers
and vice versa, it is expected again that the experimental group (CALL
classroom environment) will show positive reactions towards the presence of
CALL since to engage in that setting is indeed enjoyable, interesting with the presence of color, graphic, animation, video, sound
which altogether helps them to improve their reading mastery. The students in non-CALL setting perhaps will somehow
show some kind of like negative reactions since the emphasis or the learning
environment is only based on the textbooks and drillings exercises.
Again, after the tutorials
have finished, it is presumed that the students in
CALL learning setting will achieve constructive and positive effects on their reading
comprehension that they have benefited so much from the computers software and
its applications, and thus, simultaneously they can improve better and become skillful.
When the last stage (post-test) is conducted
on the participants in both experimental and control group where the teacher
distributes the second different text to re-test these students, the researcher
should be able to see the significant increment in scores or the improvement among
learners in the experimental group on reading comprehension exercise and perhaps
any decrement or no any increment of scores from the students in non-CALL
setting. This aligns to the notion of CALL which provides the students with
rich, numerous input and contextual environment that help them to be able to
answer the questions based from the reading comprehension text successfully
with fewer difficulties dissimilar from their first experience in answering the
questions at the pre-test session which is based from their existing knowledge.
The
researcher might want to leisurely and carefully observe the overall
participants reactions in CALL and non-CALL setting while they are receiving
the tutorials and to make comparisons of students’ achievement in both groups and
to draw conclusion that the participants in the experimental group indeed greatly attracts to
the tutorials through the use of computers and simultaneously make progress so
much in terms of their reading comprehension skills. Another reason to support
this is that, in CALL setting, it is much easier for students to absorb
information due to their attentiveness and charmed feeling for the lesson. The
learning process will arouse their motivation and enthusiasm to grasp the
learning process without difficulty. This idea is somehow similar to previous
study which stated that ‘in general, research syntheses found a positive
association between software use and student achievement (e.g., Kulik &
Kulik, 2012; Fletcher-Flinn & Gravatt, 2011; Ryan, 2012). As a result, the
frequency of errors made in the post-test from the experimental group will show a small number
(thus, they might improve so much) than those participants who receive tutorials in non-CALL setting. The researcher
wants to see the improvement of their reading mastery from four aspects like
the vocabulary, inference, global and detail. The illustration of how the data
to be recorded, tabulated and analyzed should be as follows:
Types
of sub skills
|
Frequency
of errors made
|
Pre-test
|
Post-test
|
Difference
|
Vocabulary
|
||||
Inference
|
||||
Global
|
||||
Detail
|
Table 1.Results
of Reading Comprehension Efficiency
Based on the expected results of this study it
should be well acclaimed that most of the involvement with CALL will bring
numerous advantages and thus, idiosyncratic. Nevertheless its outcomes depend
on various contextual and even particular factors. The function of traditional
teaching method has never been irrelevant, or out of usage, but it doesn’t mean
one can’t adopt different alternatives to reinforce the current state of
teaching and learning which can improve students’ language skills. Plus, there
is no harm in trying something new and if it actually helps to improve the
reading comprehension or any other language skills and altogether making the
whole teaching process much more easily, it would be a really good supplement
to what are being taught to them. It is also significant to highlight that all
these expected positive outcomes may always be achieved but provided the
teachers themselves have the initiative to think or start off the tutorials
with the assistance of computers instead of remaining to give lecture with the
use of either whiteboard or blackboard and textbooks. Previous researches have
proven a lot on the students’ positive attitudes towards the use of computers
and they surely are going to improve so much if given the exposure to CALL
instructional or non-instructional setting at most times. This is so much required
to ensure their involvement and altogether their achievement for the lessons
learned.
Nevertheless, this paper is abundantly based from
the secondary data as a data collection. All the research information about
CALL is mainly derived from the internet sources. Some articles, journals and
web pages are directly downloaded from internet. So, researcher cannot really
tell the level of accuracy of the information obtained. For more insights on
this framework, it is thus obligatory for the researcher to conduct their own
research to fulfill the data needed. This is the reason to why the researcher
intends to propose this study to see the real scenario on the research
proposed.
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