The Effects of the Instructional E-book on English Learning of the Seventh Graders in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Siou-wun Huang, 黃綉雯
• Other Authors: Yu-fen Hsieh
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/46074638656396160145

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 應用外語系 === 103 === Computer-integrated instruction has become a trend in English teaching in many countries. Electronic books (e-books) are proved to be effective tools and promoted to almost all levels of schools. However, among the enormous studies on e-books, few have dealt with the instructional e-books that are designed specifically for teachers’ use. Studies of this kind in junior high schools are even fewer. This study aimed to investigate seventh graders’ English performance and their attitudes toward the e-book instruction. A mixed method was adopted. The participants were fifty-one students from two classes at a junior high school in Taipei City. The experiment lasted for six weeks. The control group, with twenty-five students, was taught with traditional printed materials with the blackboard and chalks, and the experimental group, with twenty-six students, used the instructional e-book of the same content. All the participants took an achievement test and answered an attitude questionnaire after the experiment. High achievers, low achievers and eight of the intermediate students in the experimental group were later interviewed in order to know more about students’ attitudes toward the e-book instruction. Unlike the previous research, the study showed no significant differences in the English performance of the two groups on the reading test and the listening test, indicating that the e-book instruction had no influence on student learning. These findings might result from the exclusion of the influence of novelty effects on the study results. Furthermore, it seemed that the e-book instruction might have a negative effect on students’ reading but a positive effect on students’ listening. The facility problems and the distraction caused by too many teaching materials provided in the instructional e-book might be the reasons for the score drop in reading while the enough input of the standard-accented human voice might lead to improvement in listening. While the experimental group generally held positive attitudes toward the instruction, most students pointed out in the interviews that the use of the instructional e-book was not especially beneficial for learning and that they had been used to it. Teachers’ ways of teaching was perceived more important than teaching materials. In addition, there was a huge difference between the attitudes of the high achievers and the low achievers toward the e-book instruction. Low achievers were more dependent on the peripheral environment and the teaching materials when learning.