Utilizing Flipgrid for speaking activities: A small-scale university-level EFL study

Abstract

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many educational institutions to implement ERT, which resulted in courses going online across Japan. Many teachers were faced with creating asynchronous or on-demand materials to meet the educational goals of their classes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of Flipgrid as a face-to-face speaking activity replacement. The study used four criteria based on asynchronous teaching as well as feedback from student surveys to determine Flipgrid’s efficacy as a face-to-face replacement and the use it may serve for future online or hybrid English courses. The use of Flipgrid had some observable positive and negative impacts. Students stated that motivation to learn English, as well as their listening and speaking ability grew over the first semester of the course. However, some student participants remarked that they were apprehensive to show their faces on camera for teachers and peers to see. The lack of real-time feedback from teachers may also be an obstacle to overcome for Flipgrid to be an effective replacement for face-to-face speaking activities.

Synthesis of blended learning and bichronous learning in improving undergraduates' English-speaking skills through short presentations

“…However, the feedback using the CEFR Speaking rubric in a synchronous classroom made it gripping for the students to interact with one another and helped improve their speaking accordingly. However, the challenges such as 'students' errors in grammar, vocabulary, or syntax, difficulty in providing teacher's feedback in an asynchronous online learning environment, and some students feeling uncomfortable showing themselves in recorded videos' (Hammett, 2021) were resolved in this study through the blending of asynchronous and synchronous learning (Bichronous Learning) that reduced the challenges encountered in the asynchronous online learning alone (Martin et al, 2023).…”

“…However, the research on the use of Flipgrid so far stipulates the fact that the use of Flipgrid has been successful in improving the students' speaking skills with a few constraints, such as 'errors in vocabulary, grammar or syntax made by the students', difficulty in implementing teacher's feedback in an asynchronous learning environment, and some students feeling uncomfortable showing themselves in recorded videos' (Hammett, 2021). Our research used Flipgrid asynchronously for practice sessions and the CEFR Speaking rubric synchronously in the assessment sessions to mitigate the errors and barriers in students' speaking activities.…”

Efficacy of Flipgrid App as an Assistant for Speaking Skill Development in EFL Classroom

“…According to a study, it noted that Flipgrid is utilized mainly for two reasons: first is to improve oral skill, mainly in EFL and ESL and second is to initiate discussion that contribute community building [11]. For the results of using Flipgrid, it revealed both positive and negative impacts to students [12]. The significant positive impacts were stated by many educators.…”

“…The significant positive impacts were stated by many educators. For instance, it promotes the motivation in learning English, works as an effective platform for interaction and communication, develops oral presentation, increase student second language acquisition, improve social presence, speaking performances and the 21 st century life skills [12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Furthermore, the speaking anxiety and students' negative experiences have been overcome by the implementation of Flipgrid [19].…”

“…Due to the nature of many EFL learners, they are somewhat worried and scared to speak English in the class or shy to use English in communication. The integration of Flipgrid in learning process might help students more comfortable in interacting the language and create friendly environment for language learning [1,[12][13][16][17][23][24][25]. Likewise, other benefits were observed through the use of Flipgrid also.…”