With the immense presence of English language video content in the online digital environment and students’ everyday exposure to multimedia content, this project aims to explore how to replace traditional in-class presentation with video presentation within an autonomous learning environment, examine the impact of doing so on the development of English language and digital literacy skills, and develop assessment rubrics at both individual and group levels. The project was conducted as part of an English language course for undergraduate students majoring in English in the context of a higher education institution in Hong Kong. Data were collected through multiple methods: survey questionnaires, open-ended questions, and face-to-face interviews. The results showed that the video production mode of presentation could not only replace traditional in-class presentation but also improve students’ learning autonomy, and language, collaborative, and digital literacy skills. The analysis of videos elucidated how the video production (VPR) group of students use multimodal semiotic resources to design their relationships with viewers while simultaneously adapting their discoursal identities. In addition, the comparison between VPR- and non-VPR-group presentations demonstrates that constructing audio-visual resources in a collaborative environment contributes to a variety of aspects to a higher extent. Implications for foreign language curriculum and instructional design, as well as recommendations for future studies of digitalization of students’ oral assessment tasks, are discussed.
Given the expanding scale of Internet access and ample language learning opportunities associated with the emergence of new digital resources and out-of-class digital environments, SLA researchers started to pay more attention to the language learning experiences of students beyond the classroom level (Lai et al., 2018; Soyoof et al., 2021; Toffoli, 2020). Particular interest is aligned to the perception that while formal education may not satisfy all individual expectations, informal language learning practices might grant students opportunities to engage in cross-cultural communication (Lee & Lee, 2021) and construct their own self-directed authentic learning situations (Lai & Zheng, 2018). Expanding this line of thinking, learning patterns are known to be greatly determined by the members of students’ social milieu who can exhibit a favorable or detrimental impact (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009). Ryan and Deci (2016), for instance, numerously stressed out that the nature of relationships between language teachers and students could have an impact on satisfaction of students’ fundamental psychological needs and as a consequence influence students’ motivation, affecting students’ engagement in learning activities. However, researchers underline that EFL students' exposure to authentic language patterns and direct interaction with other people in their online vicinity should be scrutinized more closely nowadays (Noels et al., 2019). Owing to the complex mechanisms behind these processes and interactions, we aim to apply the sub-theory of Basic Psychological Needs (BPN) to consider the impact of significant others (i.e., language instructors, peers, and target language community members) and the perspective of learning ecology (Barron, 2006) to focus on the apparent differences in contextual factors pertaining to formal and informal language learning environments. Based on these frameworks, the data obtained via the mixed-methods research approach is set to provide valuable conclusions that could shed some light on the determinants of EFL students’ informal language learning activities among prospective EFL teachers of one Central Asian country, Kazakhstan.
An extensive number of studies acknowledge the transformed nature of
literacies by building on the complexity of multimodal semiotic repertoires
and available digital resources (Reinhardt & Thorne, 2019; Toffoli,
2020). The exposure to such resources and tools makes digital literacies
dynamic as environments provide students with opportunities to apply their
skills in praxis through trial and failure. Among the existing conceptual
constructs that might help discuss the complex nature of online digital
informal learning practices and their connection to L2 digital literacies,
the framework of dynamic systems theory (Larsen–Freeman, 2019) is
implemented. Qualitative methodology was employed to explain whether
informal language learning practices are conducive to constructing L2
digital literacies among pre-service language teachers. Relevant pedagogical
implications are discussed.
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