Sabtu, 01 Oktober 2016

Pedagogical Values of Mobile-Assisted Task-Based Activities to Enhance Speaking Skill



Pedagogical Values of Mobile-Assisted Task-Based Activities
to Enhance Speaking Skill

Mojtaba Mohammadi and Nastaran Safdari

          The mobile is becoming the important thing of anyone's life. The use of mobile technology is a new gate-way to create more interactive environment in the classroom in an interesting and innovative way by making teaching more and more effective. It can benefit from the pedagogical values of mobile phones to enhance speaking skill. There are some new innovative methods l have learned from this article.
         First, to achieve the purpose of the study language learners were divided into three parts; interactive, non-interactive, and conventional groups. The interactive and non-interactive groups conducted online task-based speaking activities via We Chat mobile application. In the interactive group, the students were encouraged to interact among themselves on the topics from their course book. The non-interactive group experienced the same condition except that they were only supposed to have learner-teacher interactions with no interaction among peers. The conventional group followed the same task-based speaking activities within the class period but with the absence of technology.
        Second, for the online task-based speaking activity, students were expected to follow three stages: pre-task activities, task cycle, and post-task activities. Therefore, two classes were selected as experimental groups, while one class was the control group.
         Third, one session was devoted to both experimental groups, in which the teacher taught them how to work with one of the mobile applications (We Chat) prior to the treatment. In the pre-task activities, the participants in the experimental group A received 20-30 minutes treatment for all 20 sessions, including three sessions in a week studying Cambridge English for Students. In every session of experimental group A, the participants connected on We Chat for 20-30 minutes after the class when they were at home.  While in the  task cycle stage, photos played an important role. Students had to answer a few questions about the photos posted by the teacher. The most important thing in this phase was to focus on the preparation of the main task. Then in the post-task activities, participants were expected to present what they discovered during the task. It primarily focused on summarizing the outcome of the task.
         On the other hand, in experimental group B during the task phase, the students were expected to talk about their ideas and experiences, but they were not required to ask questions and comment on others orally. During the task phase, the researcher only tried to listen to what the participants were telling each other.
        During the task phase in the control group, the teacher asked tasks (opinion exchange tasks) and the students were expected to listen and talk about their ideas and experiences within the classroom, but they were not required to ask questions and comment on others orally. The only difference was the absence of technology.
         The results showed interactive students’ speaking ability was significantly improved compared to that among the non interactive students. The findings can be pedagogically advantageous for language teachers, teacher educators, and material developers.
         From those points, l have some plans I will use in the future such as:
  1. Using an interesting approach in teaching that appropriate to my students’ environment. If using the mobile applications (We Chat) still appropriate, l will use it. No one know what will be in the future like. Maybe mobile phone will not become the important thing again in our life
  2. Knowing and accepting what they need and what they want.
  3. Teaching not only using the course book but also studying what surrounding happens.
  4. Up to date
  5. Following technology progress

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