The Effect of Using Facebook as a Teaching Tool on Students Interest and Motivation in Learning English - Research Paper Example

? OF HONG KONG MASTER OF EDUCATION (ELS) MEDD 6014 METHODS OF RESEARCH AND ENQUIRY WONG Kee Chin No. 881189Submitted to: Dr. Y.Y. Li Submission date: PROJECT TITLE: The Effect of Using Facebook as a Teaching Tool on Students’ Interest and Motivation in Learning English Presented in partial fulfillment of the conferment of the Masters Degree in Education (ELS) (2012) Acknowledgement Table of Contents Acknowledgement 2 Table of Contents 2 1.0.Introduction 4 1.1.Statement of the Problem 5 1.2.Research Questions 6 1.3.Objective of the Study 6 1.4.Educational Issues Related to Technology; Achievement and Motivation. 6 1.5.Definition of Terms 7 1.6.Assumptions 8 1.7.Limitations 8 1.8.Significance of the Study 8 2.0. Literature Review 9 2.1. Context of L2 Students in Hong Kong Today and technological Context 9 2.2. Motivation to Read and Write 10 2.3.Necessity for Motivation to Learn English among Hong Kong Students 11 2.4. Educational Technology and Internet Usage 12 2.5. Connection between Achievement, Motivation and Educational Technology 13 2.6.Facebook as a Tool for Motivation in Teaching 14 3.0.Methods and Rationale 15 3.1. Rationale 16 3.2.Study Design 17 3.3.Instrumentation 17 3.4.Data Collection 18 4.0.Findings and Discussion 18 5.0.Summary, Recommendations, and Conclusions 19 5.1. Study Summary 19 5.2.Findings Summary 19 5.3.Recommendations 19 5.4.Conclusion 20 6.0. References 20 1.0. Introduction According to Kroll (1990), the learning of a second language (L2) has been an uphill task for many students. This has been attributed to the difficulties associated with learning of L2. Afzal (2010) clearly states that, students’ motivation is a crucial issue, with respect to the importance of their academic performance, as well as in their professional life. The interest of students and their motivation have always been a concern for many scholars like Fenfanng Li and Fushan Sun. Li’s contribution is well evidenced in the work EFL Learners’ Belief and Learning Strategy Use by English Majors while Sun’s work is on Pedagogical Implications to Teaching English Writing. According to Begawan (2009), the perspective with which many students have taken learning English as a new language can be attributed to the lack of interest or key goal towards its overall achievement. On the same note, it is critical to note that the mode of learning the languages devised is not motivating students to read and research extensively on the language concepts. According to Liao, (2009), a portion of language educators have relied heavily on the transmission model, which emphasizes on the teachers’ responsibility of conveying the knowledge and correcting errors. With respect to this practice, more students get tired of this teacher-centered model of English learning and end up terming English as a very boring and monotonous instead of being update and informative. One crucial attempt to solve this would be the utilization of approaches that stimulate students’ interest in language learning. National Council of Education Research and Training (2006) argue that the growth and development of technology, with the booming digital revolution; English language has been incorporated in multimedia as the means of instruction. This is highly critical to influence English language among the users of digital technology. With increased immersion of students in Web 2.0 technologies like the blogs, twitter, social networks like Facebook, virtual worlds, video sharing and photo sharing, these can effectively be utilized as means of encouraging students to learn English to fully participate in them (Fang, 2010). My interest has been driven to Facebook owing to its ease and interactive features that are highly crucial in motivating the language teaching (Childs, 2009). This is with respect to the language of instructions used for the social network sites. This research study aimed at looking on the effect Facebook has, as a tool on the students’ interest and motivation in learning of English. This study was aimed at bringing out clear understandings of such a strategy that may help my form one students participate effectively and improve on English reading and writing skills. 1.1. Statement of the Problem Teachers all over the world are striving to come up with strategies to facilitate student learning and achievement. With the necessity for ESL students to learn a second language, it has proved critical to motivate and enhance their achievement in the same. Students in my class are all L2 learners of English language having low interest in the learning of the language. This is due to their foundation being weak and finding reading materials difficult and non-stimulating. This results to lack of interest and resulting to giving in to failing in the language prior to sitting for the examinations. More than 90% of teenager have a great interest in the social networking and will find them spending most of their free time interacting with their friends online using this network. With its use of English language for instruction and the majority of users using the English language, this will motivate the students into gaining interest in learning more about the language. With most of my students having a Facebook account, this clearly outlines the impact of this social network with respect to motivating students towards a certain targets goal. This clearly gives out the reason behind the use of Facebook to ascertain its influence its scope of coverage is wide. 1.2. Research Questions (1) How can I increase motivation level of my students to read and write English through the use of Facebook as a teaching tool? (2) How can the use of Facebook help in improving grammar skills of my students? 1.3. Objective of the Study The key objective of this study is to ascertain the viability of using Facebook as a tool in the teaching of English Language. The minor objectives with respect to this study incorporate: Enhancing students to utilize Facebook for educational purposes. Enhance S1 students into getting more interest into using Facebook. Expose students to more English through Facebook and enhance their motivation and participation of learning. Improve English grades through utilization of the social network-Facebook. 1.4. Educational Issues Related to Technology; Achievement and Motivation. Technology and Internet is being used widely by teachers and in their classroom and curriculum. With more usage of technology, teachers get more comfortable as their instructions are relegated effectively and they are timely. With an interest in Facebook, there is a great connection between the influence it has on the teenagers and the effect that would ensue with respect to motivating ESL students to learning English language. Students usage of Internet for coursework, looking up for information on the web and downloading music, software and movies, shopping and playing games have become a norm. The internet has turned out to be their preferred medium for social interaction via social networks like Facebook (Jones, 2009). There is a greater relationship that can be observed between technologies, achievement and motivation. This can clearly be evidenced in the story of Mark Zuckerman; the creator of Facebook. At the onset of Facebook, Mark was a student at Harvard. He was so much involved in the creation of the social networking site that made him fail attending classes. The result was that Mark was not ready to sit for an art history exam. He used his social site to post pictures of the art that was to be in the exam and had his classmates add information to each picture. The posting brought about a study method that resulted into all the students passing the exam. The engagement and motivation of technology use helped the students achieve. They were engaged and motivated by the available technology to them and resulted into their profound achievement. 1.5. Definition of Terms Technology - electronic tools used to realize set goals in a task. Internet - a global network used to connect million of computers globally. Achievements - student progress based on test scores related to the curriculum content. Motivation - the desire to engage in an activity emanating from curiosity, interest, or enjoyment. Social Network – refers to a network of friends, colleagues, and other personal contacts. Strong social networks encourage healthy behaviors. Facebook – a social utility connecting people with friends and others, who work, study and live around them. ESL Students – these are students learning English as their second language (ESL- English as a second language). L2 – this is the second language acquired after the mother tongue. 1.6. Assumptions For purposes of this research study, the following assumptions were made: 1. Facebook can be utilised as a tool in S1 and S3 classrooms in teaching English language. 2. The students will engage in educative interactive sessions on Facebook rather than just mere social networking. 3. The students in every classroom possess the same level of inherent intelligence and motivation. 4. Comparisons can be made of pre and post-test scores of content shared on Facebook among students. 5. All students will have similar interest in interacting and sharing conceptual contents regarding to English language. 1.7. Limitations The research study was limited to a number of aspects as outlined below: 1. The selected sample was limited by the number of classroom used in the study. Only two classrooms were used. 2. The researcher participated in the study as the teacher comparing students’ achievement and motivation. This could result to bias. 3. The study was subject to the weaknesses inherent in research using a self-report questionnaire. 4. The study was limited to the students’ ability to understand the application features of Facebook. 1.8. Significance of the Study Owing to the large number of students using Facebook as an interactive tool, it would be beneficial to enhance it utilization towards the motivation of achieving considerably in the English language learning. Although studies have been conducted on the motivation that multimedia has on the learning processes, no studies have been initiated to compare student achievement and motivation in an ESL class using the social network Facebook. This study will try to ascertain the relevancy and importance of Facebook usage as a tool to enhance motivation and achievement in L2 learning. If Facebook motivates or raises achievement, the findings of this research study would prove relevant to the ESL teachers. If the results are positive, teachers could modify their teaching methods and inculcate Facebook as an extra tool in the teaching process. This would justify the importance the use of Facebook in influencing the students’ motivation and achievement. 2.0. Literature Review The literature review of this study will look at the learning today of L2 students and the problems they are undergoing with respect to learning new languages. Further, the motivation to read and write will be discussed with a special focus to learning English among Hong Kong students. The educational technology and internet usage with special interest to Facebook will be highlighted. To add context to this, the connection that exists between achievement, motivation and education technology will be discussed and finally, the probability of Facebook motivation in ESL classless will be discussed in details. Technology and the internet is used everywhere in the contemporary world to gather and relay information. Its usage has been made effective in all areas and stages of life making it imperative for educators considering its inclusion in the education process. 2.1. Context of L2 Students in Hong Kong Today and technological Context Students in Hong Kong have embraced learning in the Chinese language with a greater impetus. The learning of English language has been neglected with the students lacking interest. Many students have been failing their English examinations since primary level owing to lack of interest regarding their learning of the L2. With respect to technology in education, numerous studies have established the positivity entrenched in the use of technology for reading and writing skills. A clear example is what is described by Smith (1997). Reading is addictive to many people, computers are addictive to many people and the combination of reading and computers prove irresistible, just as many people are already addicted to playing arcade games on book-sized electronic games machines or musing esoterically among the entrails of computers themselves (143-144). According to a study by Roman-Perez (2003) which incorporates web-based technology, the motivation level of students is enhanced with a clear observation of students looking forward to reading a new online story ever day. The students had a passion to reading stories through e-mails. This resulted to a changed perspective towards the reading and made it an enjoyable activity. This study well illustrates the influence that is orchestrated by technology use in the classroom work. Strong et al. (1995) suggest that when students are offered the opportunity to share their new learnt concepts with their classmates, this generates more energy and motivation to extend the tasks. Such an opportunity can be provided effectively by Web 2.0 as described by Davis and Merchant (2009). 2.2. Motivation to Read and Write Motivation and engagement are two aspects that promote reading and writing. Motivation can be termed as a prompt and energizer in virtually all fields of life. Research on motivation and engagement is highly crucial in understanding some of the most fundamental and vexing challenges of school reforms. Motivation is force that accounts for the stimulation, selection, direction, and continuation of certain behavior. The improvement of meaningful learning mainly is dependent on the ability of teachers to engage the imagination of students to involve them in new realms of knowledge, enhancing on what they know and believe in, what they care about now and what they hope to achieve in the future. Motivation has been a central concept in second language learning for decades. It can raise a number of issues since using the word “motivation” may have various connotations for different people. However, there are some basic concepts related to motivation in an L2 environment: integrative and instrumental motivation. The terms provide an insight into how the concept of motivation can be seen when learning a second language. The enhancement of motivation and engagement is implausible to be proficient by just formulating policies in the school learning process, but mainly on critically observing on what influences the student. Literatures on human psychology and on education have extensively discussed human motivation and student motivation in details. On the same note, many educationists have the opinion that motivation affects what and how much people learn (Ormond, 1998). 2.3. Necessity for Motivation to Learn English among Hong Kong Students According to Ormrod (1998) it is implicit that learning takes place optimally when the learner is aggravated. As earlier highlighted, motivation is composed of two branches, integrative and instrumental. Integrative motivation occurs whenever the learner is interested in the target community in an open minded way. The lanner probably becomes a member of that given community. In simpler terms, integrities motivation fryers to a situation whereby the learner genuinely wants to learn the target language for his or her own sake without ulterior motives. With instrumental motivation, it is all about different kinds of ulterior motives. The orientation is said to be instrumental in the form if the purposes of language study reflect the more utilitarian value of linguistic achievement. This can possibly mean some sort of rewards that the learner gets when he or she is successful in the learning of the new language. Nevertheless, the division between the two motivation types is not that clear cut. Looking critically at the learning of English language in Hong Kong, there is a greater need for motivation. ‘Listening to the teacher’ has been the norm for most classrooms in Hong Kong. Many students, confidence n their ability to speak in English has been very low. Majority of them has been failing in English examinations since primary level. According to Fang (2010), the students feel reluctant when speaking in English with the discomfort increasing with some teachers’ error treatment techniques. The problem of low-confidence and low motivation can be motivation can be removed by changes in teachers’ attitude and teaching techniques. For instance, a study conducted showed that in two classes where students expressed the most positive attitude towards process writing; the teacher had an adoption of the process approach in a fuller sense. The study also demonstrates that by changing teaching techniques, students can be motivated to write English (Pennington et al. 1996). On the same note, Littlewood (2001) has also expressed that students want active participation in exploring knowledge and reflect positive attitudes towards working in groups, with a sense of purpose. 2.4. Educational Technology and Internet Usage Much has been said concerning internet and technology as aiding tools in teaching and learning. Luan et al. (2005), clearly ascertains that with rapid growth in technology, education has not been spared either by the onslaught of revolution. The permeation of Internet Technology in classrooms will definitely create opportunities for students to be active learners. One major advantage that underpins itself with respect to technology and internet usage in classes is the level of technology awareness among many students. They have grown up surrounded by technology. The students interact freely at social networks and express their ideas out rightly (Fang, 2010). In regard to this, idea of using Facebook for student enhancement will not only create a room for improvement, but also devise a source channel for language innovation and understanding techniques. There have been several theories on what helps L2 students achieve in ESL class. One of the main ideas for student motivation and involvement is the use of interactive technology. Smith (1997) has established that the use of technology does have positive effects on reading and writing. Further, Mayher (1990) and Littlewood (2001) have also expressed that students must be provided a sense of function and a sense of participation in learning. On the other hand, Childs (2009) has discussed the benefits that Facebook can yield in language learning owing to its ease and interactive features. According to Luan et al. (2005), internet serves not jut as a medium of delivery, but also as a teaching and learning tool. With this context, it is clear that the internet has a role to play in the aiding to enhance students’ motivation with respect to language concepts acquisition. 2.5. Connection between Achievement, Motivation and Educational Technology As expressed earlier, the relationship between technology, achievement and motivation is clearly observed in the story of Mark Zuckerman. The purpose for education is mainly for students to learn. Learning is measured by the achievements realized. The achievement in the classroom is measured by the student progress based on the test scores related to the curriculum content. In order for students to learn, there is a need for some level of motivation. Motivation can be defined as a desire to engage in an activity out of curiosity, interest, or enjoyment. Recent studies have revealed that students are motivated by technology. With respect to technology motivating students and helping them achieve, there is a need for both teachers and students to access it. There are effective ways that can be used in the motivation of students using educational technology. With the inclusion of learning tools in the web of choice, the students will interact and also utilize the resources presented to them on the internet. Students will take the information found from the social network and utilize it for understanding various concepts presented therein. The concepts will be availed through the interactive sharing of students as with the case of Mark Zuckerman with his art history exam. With a positive attitude towards learning through a given channel, students spend most of their time studying the concepts, and this may improve their achievement. Schroff and Vogel (2009) investigated the variance in students’ motivation between use of technology and use of no technology. Through the tackling of various levels of motivation, the study came up with finings that one aspect of motivation, choice, was significantly higher for the use of technology, slightly higher for perceived curiosity and had little difference in the aspect of interest. According to Chou (2007) social interactions and relevance of the content being studied are the factors keeping students engaged and pegged to the technology-learning environment. 2.6. Facebook as a Tool for Motivation in Teaching Social networks sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting much attention of the academic and industry researchers’ intrigued by their capacity to motivate and influence learning. In the current world millions of users many have been attracted by the SNSs who have integrated these sites into daily practices (Boyd and Ellison, 2007). The main reason behind the attraction is their ease affordance, ease and reach. Looking critically at Facebook, it provides discussion boards and students get the opportunity to share with ease. As stated by Bedford and Golbeck (2008) Facebook in a sense expands the casual environment of the classroom online so students can talk and organize. With respect to Childs (2009) experience; having used Facebook as a teaching tool, he vividly describes the benefits therein. Child noted that Facebook provides the opportunity not merely to some artificial language exercises, but develop such a network which lets students communicate with him and among them comfortably. According to an article entitled ‘100 Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom’ (2009), teachers can provide their students a chance to enhance their communication and above all, they will be engaging students in a way that is beyond the reach of a traditional classroom setting. With respect to Bedford and Golbeck (2008), before applying any new technology in their classroom, teachers must be at ease with the technology. Further, they must explore all the probable possibilities that a technology can present them. In doing so, it will help them in managing their tasks in a creative way. From the lesson learnt at the juncture, it was critical to state that Facebook can be used as a teaching tool in S1 and S3 classes to motivate them to participate in reading and writing tasks in English language. This prompted me into conducting a specific study to prove the viability of assumptions. 3.0. Methods and Rationale This study was devised with the aim of ascertaining the effect of using Facebook as tool in teaching English as L2 to ESL students at my School of teaching. S1 and S3 students are well conversant with Facebook usage. This section aims at describing the design of this research project in brief, as well as the instruments used in the study. It will also highlight the procedure used to collect data for analysis. The results will be used to analyze the effects that Facebook had on influencing the students’ motivation into learning English. 3.1. Rationale The rationale behind this research study falls onto my S1 and S3 students who are L2 learners of English. The students have low interest in learning English because their foundation is weak. The students inevitably find the reading materials like passages in their course books difficult and non-stimulating. Their participation in writing tasks has been nominal. Conversely, Littlewood (2001) has clearly illustrated that traditional teaching techniques cannot motivate Hong Kong ESL students to realize higher participation and motivation in reading and writing English. Studies have shown that apart form the usage diverse teaching techniques in Hong Kong including audio-visual to teach English as a second language, the predominant teaching method has remained to be lecture (Melanie and Warhurt, 2009). According to Roman-Perez (2003), the incorporation of interactive technology reflected positive impact over motivation level of the students for reading English. On the same note, in the current Web 2.0 scenario, Facebook has top ranking in social networks site (SNSs) (Kazeniac, 2009). Hence, the proposed solution of using Facebook to expose the students to more English will hopefully arouse their interest and increase their motivation and participation in learning and using English. The reason behind the use of Facebook is that most of my students are active users of this popular social utility. Thereby, owing to the fact that they are often mooching on Facebook makes the acquisition and utilization of knowledge much easier and quicker with the interactive features present. Therefore, my hypothesis is that the use of Facebook as a teaching tool in a creative way can increase motivation and participation level of my English class. 3.2. Study Design The research was conducted in the school-Madam Lau Kam Lung Secondary School of MFBM. It is located on 22 Castle Peak Road, Lam Tei, Tuen Mun; Hong Kong. For the research study, the target groups are S1 and S3 students. S1 had 36 girls who are 12 year old and S3 had17 girls aged 14 years. My study strongly dwelled on the S3 class as the S1 class had little usage of Facebook due to restrictions by parents and increased homework making the students lack the time for Facebook. Prior to introduction into the Facebook reading sessions, the students had no interest in reading English books. They often read Chinese books and only read the English books because they are told despite having told them the joy of reading English books. The research will incorporate a questionnaire to ascertain the level of student interest in English language. Further, document analysis will be incorporated to assess the criteria of incorporating Facebook to motivate students to learning English language. 3.3. Instrumentation The research utilizes the Student Satisfaction Questionnaire to get their motivation and interest in the learning of English language. The SSQ was chosen as it has been used by numerous researches as a tool to measure students’ motivation towards any specific subject (Tuana et al., 2005; Wong, 2010). The questionnaire will be administered twice as illustrate above. The questionnaire is five point Interval Scale including ratings from poor, fair, good, very good, to excellent. With respect to Document Analysis, the main focus was on grammar quality. The students’ written work was analyzed for frequency of grammatical mistakes. This makes document analysis as one of the instruments for this research study. With respect to Creswell and Plano (2007), document analysis in qualitative research provides an analytical understanding to the trends and patterns emerging into the data. 3.4. Data Collection For the situational analysis, the data cycle was collected with respect to the end of semester two work. Detailed document analysis was conducted on the student work to ascertain the impact made. Apart from the document analysis, Students’ Satisfaction Survey was administered. After the intervention period of two weeks, reflection was conducted with respect to document analysis and Student Satisfaction being conducted again. The results were compared with those of situation analysis. The data collected will be given in the section 4.0. 4.0. Findings and Discussion From my posting on Facebook, the observation was that the students only liked the topics and failed to comment. This clearly shows that the students were either reluctant to comment or not confident enough t comment. In the study, my main focus was in S3 class owing to their smaller number and was able to motivate them into using Facebook than the S1 class which was a bit bigger. Another reason for concentrating on the S3 class is on the fact that being older than the S1 class; their parents had no much restriction of them using Facebook. In the course of this study, literature has continuously showed that two major points of learning do exist to motivate my English class to read and write. The first point relates to the need to make my class fully interactive. Secondly is in the sense that effective use of interactive technology will heighten the motivation level of students considerably. Consequently, technology must provide an opportunity to share and display students’ work not only for the teacher, but also for the fellow classmates. 5.0. Summary, Recommendations, and Conclusions 5.1. Study Summary It is very clear from the study, that the use of interactive technology greatly influences learning and motivates students towards a certain topic. Child (2009) clearly illustrates the milestone achievement made with respect to the use of Facebook. On the same note, the story of Mark Zuckerman in section 1.4 well illustrates the influences social networks sites (SNSs) like Facebook can have on influencing the achievement of the students. 5.2. Findings Summary From the study done in my school of teaching, though the results obtained are not that profound to illustrate the level of motivation Facebook has on the teaching of English. It is critical to note that the students’ lack of interest in English contributes to their not having an interest on the topics I posted on the Facebook groups for discussion. This calls for heightened supervision and guidance of students into having more interest in English language even on Facebook. The perception of students on English ought to change for the impact necessary from Facebook in teaching English to be realized. 5.3. Recommendations From the study conducted in my two classes, it is clear to recommend the following: Facebook ought to be utilized as a tool of teaching English and be incorporated in the curriculum but should have guidelines to get the relevant concepts therein. Students to be influenced to use SNSs for educative interactive sessions rather than just social networking. Educative groups to be introduced in the Facebook for specific classes and students made to participate via super vision of their teachers. To motivate students to use the language learning groups on Facebook, interesting topics ought to be posted in English language and stimulate the stude3nts participation. 5.4. Conclusion The learning of L2 by ESL students is very complex undertaking but, with interest and motivation, students can realize considerable change and achievement in the learning of second languages. 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