language issues in english-medium universities: a global concern1 using mobile phones in...

Language Issues in English-medium Universities: A Global Concern

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Using Mobile Phones in Pronunciation Teaching in English-medium Universities in Turkey

Murat SaranCankaya University, [email protected] Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kursat Cagiltay

METU, [email protected]

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Golge SeferogluMETU, Turkey

[email protected]

Sponsors


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Where are we from?


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Purpose of the Study

to investigate the potentials and effectiveness of using mobile phones in foreign language education


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Research Questions

Does the mean change (mean difference between pre and post tests) in the pronunciation test scores differ among the three groups: mobile, web, and handout?

What are the students’ perceptions and opinions of the use of the mobile phones in the pronunciation learning?


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Sample

A purposeful sample of students (based on the data collected through a pre-study questionnaire)

24 students attending the English Preparatory School of a university in Turkey


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Design of the Study

Group Pre-test Treatment Post-test

Mobile

n=8

(5 female, 3 male)

Regular classroom activities supported with MMS via mobile phones

interview+

Web

n=8

(5 female, 3 male)

Regular classroom activities supported with Web

Handout

n=8

(4 female, 4 male)

Regular classroom activities supported with handouts


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Treatment

120 English words (20 of them selected for pronunciation test)

4 words a day 10 weeks


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An example web page used in the study


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An example handout used in the study


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An example MMS used in the study

Animated Picture • Size: 20 KB• Format: Animated GIF• Resolution:172x136

Pronunciation• Size: 3 KB• Format: amr

Frame 1: Dictionary definition

Frame 2: Sample sentence

Frame 3: Related picture

Frame 4: Word building


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Data Collection & Evaluation

Record the students’ pronunciations by using digital voice recorder before and after the treatment

A native rater and a nonnative instructor from the preparatory school evaluated the records according to the Educational Testing Service Criteria*

0: Frequent phonemic errors and foreign stress and intonation patterns that cause the speaker to be unintelligible.

1: Frequent phonemic errors and foreign stress and intonation patterns that cause the speaker to be occasionally unintelligible.

2: Some phonemic errors and foreign stress and intonation patterns, but speaker is intelligible.

3: Occasional nonnative pronunciation errors, but speaker is intelligible. *Educational Testing Service. 1985: SPEAK examinee handbook and sample


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Results

Means and standard deviations of the groups for the pronunciation test

Maximum score that can be obtained from the test was 60


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Results

31,5

30,88

29,19

38,31

37,69 41

,13

6,81

6,81

11,94

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

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Pre-test Post-test Gain (Post-Pre)

Web (n=8) Handout (n=8) Mobile (n=8)

Comparison of mean scores on pronunciation test


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ANOVA Results

The ANOVA was significant, F (2, 21) = 5.000, p = .017.


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The results of homogeneity of variance test and post-hoc comparisons


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Interview Results

interviewed 6 students in mobile group All of the students (n=6) provided positive

feedback about the mobile learning application used in this study

“Visual presentations of the words in multimedia messages helped us to understand the words’ meanings easily. When I came across the word in reading, the visual representations helped me to remember the word’s meaning”


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Interview Results

“I found the text and audio-visuals in the multimedia messages supporting each other. Audio-visual materials were very valuable in drawing my interest and giving me a clear understanding about the English word that I was learning”

“I had the chance of repeating the content as many times as I wanted and this was an advantage of using mobile phones when compared with the other methods”


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Conclusion

This study extends the use of use mobile phones, which are already used for communication and entertainment all over the world, to education.

Using mobile phones in educational settings will help learners be more motivated and will make it possible to overcome the difficulties teachers or parents experience in order to make learners start studying.

Learners will be able to use any previously wasted time (on the bus, on their way back and to school) on learning languages.


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Conclusion

The findings of this study demonstrated that using MMS in enhancing vocabulary pronunciation is very effective.

The method used in this study can be of great help in improving the quality of teaching-learning processes in Preparatory English language schools of English-medium universities.


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Questions

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