Wearing Different Listening Hats

Abstract

This chapter reports two case studies done in a teacher training university (SRTTU) in Iran to find the effects of two technology-based learning environments on EFL pre-service teachers’ learning and technology acceptance. In the first case, a learning management system (LMS) was used to support EFL learners’ writing ability in a writing course. In the second case, the effect of an educational blog on increasing students’ phonological awareness was probed into. Both studies adopted a pretest-posttest control and experimental group design. The results revealed that, while controlling for students’ entry-level ability, the experimental group out-performed the control group in their final assessment. Perceptions of students who experienced technology-based environments were assessed by a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. It was found that most students enjoyed using both technologies for learning, accepted them as valuable educational sources, and preferred to extend using them into other university courses.