Development and evaluation of a synchronous computer supported learning system for EFL reading

• Main Authors: Ching-yi Hsu, 徐慶宜
• Other Authors: Chih-Kai Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/52003960057745993930

碩士 === 國立臺南大學 === 數位學習科技學系碩士班 === 97 === Nowadays, many non-English countries are looking for effective approach and supporting tools to enhance their people’s English proficiency. One of the best learning methods is to read frequently. This research is to apply Personal Digital Assistant to classroom teaching so that English learning tools that used to exit in the language lab can be partly provided in the traditional classroom. A Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) system is developed in this study including instant translation function, instant annotation function, and instant multi-user annotation function. The purpose of this study is to investigate the best number of learners per group can achieve best reading comprehension by analyzing learners’ learning portfolios and the post-experiment reading comprehension test. The results show that the system can help students’ English reading comprehension significantly. Experimental results indicate that grouped by 2, 3 and 4 students have significantly better comprehension than individual learning ; however, too many learners in a group may interrupt each other so that grouped by 5 are relatively negative effects. In terms of groupmate number, students have better performance in reading time and reading comprehension degree when grouped by 3. Overall, sixty percent of the students agree that the system is useful and ease-of-use, and seventy percent of the students perceive satisfaction. Compare to previous researches, this study developed a system with instant multi-user annotation function so that the perceived-of-usefulness rise from 47.22% to 66.6 % and the perceived of ease-of-use rise from 61.11% to 78.17 %. Finally, most of the students think that the system can help them reach better understanding when reading English articles. However, the satisfaction level of using multi-user annotation funciton is lower than individual use; that is, most of the students prefer reading environment without interruption.