TASK 2: ARTICLE REVIEW
TASK 2 : ARTICLE REVIEW
TITLE:
“EasyEnglish – An Innovative System For Vocabulary Building Based On Awareness Strategies by Po-Choi Wong and Chun-Ho Wan.
JOURNAL:
The EUROCALL Review
VOLUME:
15, March-September 2009
AUTHORS:
Po-Choi Wong and Chun-Ho Wan are lecturers in the Department of Information Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
LINK:
REVIEW
For ESL and EFL learners, the learning and acquisition of vocabulary is crucial in accomplishing language tasks, be it a Listening, Speaking, Reading, or Writing task. For instance, in order to understand the meaning of a written text, it is generally accepted that a reader should understand an average of nineteen out of twenty words or a 95% coverage. However, this will not be possible without a decent vocabulary bank. Unfortunately, it is relatively hard to accumulate new words and remember each one for a long period of time. While there are an abundance of vocabulary learning strategies, none are designed to ensure that students actually accumulate new words and expand their vocabulary bank. Therefore, “EasyEnglish – An Innovative System For Vocabulary Building Based On Awareness Strategies” attempts to address the problem with the design of EasyEnglish, an innovative CALL system for vocabulary building which are designed based on awareness and retention strategies.
The research-based article aimed to describe and evaluate the effectiveness of EasyEnglish, a software application that are designed to encourage vocabulary building among ESL learners. As the design of EasyEnglish leans on the principle of Awareness Strategies in which it is postulated that awareness of individual progress is an important tool to motivate learning, the research also seek to gauge whether EasyEnglish has indeed motivated the students to learn new words in the span of the research.
The methodology employed in the research is of experimental nature as the researchers designed a CALL system named EasyEnglish, an application that allow learners to learn, revise and remember new English words with its facilities of vocabulary learning activities namely the Online Dictionary, Word Practice, Revision Engine, Word List, Extensive Reading and a performance tracker feature called Progress Ranking. Basically, students utilize the Online Dictionary to learn new words from reading and any newly acquired words will be automatically stored into a personalized library for future revision. The Revision Engine will generate reminders to encourage students to revise the words from time to time to ensure retention while Word Practice and Extensive Reading provide retention-based exercises. In a nutshell, the system acts as a online client in which students are able to log on to the server and access the facilities mentioned beforehand and maintain their personal files such as audio recordings and exercise scores for everyday access.
EasyEnglish was put to test at eight secondary schools in Hong Kong, involving 1,683 students who volunteered to participate in the research. Aside from distributing login accounts and giving instructions on how to use the program, the teachers do not specify the amount of English words that the students need to learn as it would entirely depend on the students’ motivation. The participants utilized the system in the span of six months which started on December 12, 2007 until May 12, 2008.
The findings of the research indicate positive responses and outcomes. There are four significant findings that can be summarized from results. Firstly, EasyEnglish had proven to be useful in vocabulary building over a relatively long period as it was found that the number of words learned by the participants increased steadily for over 180 days, with one student averaging 431 words. Secondly, it was found that awareness of individual progress corresponds to the participants’ motivation to learn new words. The data revealed that the number of attempts by a participant is highly correlated to his or her checking of individual, class or territory progress using the Progress Ranking feature, which indicates that more checking of progress leads to more learning attempts. The teachers’ testimony supported the finding as they confirmed that the availability of Progress Ranking motivate students to compete and learn at a faster pace. Thirdly, it is also found that as a user learns and mastered more words, they are more inclined to use the Online Dictionary, hence confirming the researchers’ belief that learners are more willing to use a dictionary to learn new words if an outlet exists for them to revise and master the new words. Finally, the system’s Revision Engine has proven to be effective as the retention rate for every new word that has been learned remained close on the 90% mark and stayed high even after six months. In concluding the findings, the researchers held high hopes that EasyEnglish would encourage its users to develop a lifelong learning habit in vocabulary building.
As a future English teacher, my interest lies specifically in the Teaching of Reading and Writing, therefore this particular research interests me immensely as it offers a practical solution to two of the most common reading and writing problems that I have encountered in the course of my practicum – the first being the students’ lack of reading interest because they don’t understand some of the words encountered and the second is the students’ difficulty in writing a coherent essay due the lack of vocabulary. Judging from the positive results, EasyEnglish is indeed a heaven-sent in helping students to improve their vocabulary repertoire. Furthermore, EasyEnglish provided the benefits of being learner-centric and intrinsically motivating, thus making it more appealing and student-friendly.
On another note, it is well established that the research is well conducted as the methodology and subjects chosen for the research purpose are appropriate and on the mark. However, a slight improvement could be initiated on classifying the subjects into a group of students who are good in English and the other one for students who are weak in English. As the subjects for the research were selected on voluntary basis, it is possible that that these volunteers are mostly good students, thus indirectly contributing to the positive findings in the research. By classifying the students, such move could lend credibility to the results and assure potential users that EasyEnglish is relevant and appropriate for both levels of proficiency.
In general, the implication of the research indicates a resounding move towards utilizing CALL to instill a sense accountability in students for their own learning. The same effect is gaining momentum in the Malaysia education scenario judging from the increased effort in making use of technology in the classroom. EasyEnglish will certainly make a difference should it be implemented at any levels of education institution in Malaysia, not only it would help our nation’s cause to enhance the quality of English proficiency of our students, it will accelerate the effort of integrating technology in education as we march towards realizing Vision 2020.
REVIEWED BY : JESSICA LYNE ANDREW (2006208124)
posted by Miss Jess_Lyne @ 6:47 AM
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