A web-based project for self-empowerment in language learning

Yoko Hirata
Hokkai-Gakuen University
Sapporo, Japan

In the last decade, the development of the Internet and the Web has provided students with powerful educational and research opportunities to accomplish various learning tasks in tertiary institutions throughout the world. Numerous studies on web-based learning have indicated the enormous benefits of using the information on the Web in the classroom (Felix 1999; Kung and Chuo 2002; Singhal 1997), including, for example, accessing a vast amount of information and resources, constructing extensive knowledge, increasing global awareness, and engaging in critical thinking and problem-solving exercises (Towndrow 2007).

Recently, in many Japanese tertiary institutions, students’ use of the Web has been increasing dramatically. In English-language education, many instructors are convinced that making use of the Web has become an inevitable component of a student’s academic success. For Japanese students, who have had very limited exposure to authentic English in everyday life, using the Web for language learning is regarded as being of the utmost importance. However, despite the fact that various e-learning language tasks and activities have been developed for their self-study, students’ use of the Web for academic purposes is often confined to accessing teacher-directed websites to complete their assignments or obtaining web-accessible materials given by their instructors for their courses. There is still little research addressing how the Web can be best used for such students to promote self-directed learning to achieve self-initiated goals (Towndrow 2007). In addition, there are few studies on developing practical methods for students to apply the Web directly in real-life situations. As Warschauer (2004) argues, instructors should determine an effective way of making a close connection between what students practice through Web technology and what they will encounter in the real world. (This connection is not confined to studying, but is also relevant for future practices, both personal and professional, which are important factors to consider in a blended language learning environment.)

The purpose of this study is to examine the benefits and problems of a web-based project which was aimed at encouraging students to make the most of various student-selected websites for lifelong learning. The project, which was based on a language management system (LMS), was intended to provide students with ample opportunities to use the Web as a multi-purpose tool to accomplish various meaningful real-life tasks, such as arranging a detailed itinerary for their own business trip to the USA. This student-centred, socially-oriented language project was introduced in a blended learning course for undergraduate Japanese university students. After the course had been completed, a questionnaire with open-ended questions was distributed to the students to gauge their opinions and attitudes towards the project, including their perceptions of information credibility and their preferred information-seeking strategies.

This presentation firstly discusses some of the recent research on the application of the Web and the use of web-based information in a blended language learning classroom, and then reviews the Japanese educational setting in which the present study was implemented. Next, it demonstrates how various factors -- such as students’ prior knowledge and experiences -- affected their learning approaches and performance during the project. The findings suggested that the successful implementation of the Web in the classroom depends on the extent to which students can gain an understanding of the Web as an essential source of information, to be used even beyond their years of tertiary education. The results also demonstrated that students’ prior online experiences are closely related to their ability to utilize and evaluate the information on the Web effectively. In addition, the project outcomes showed that fostering a sense of self-reliance and self-efficiency in students plays an important role in their successful independent learning. In the presentation, recommendations on how best to improve web-based teaching approaches for future language education are also discussed.